The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Day After

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

A night to sleep on it, Kevin with his "GameTake" recap of yesterday's name/brand unveiling. Doc Walker was there yesterday and jumped on with Kevin to share his thoughts on the new name/etc, and talk some football as well.  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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. So former team employees of the Washington team here in town were in front of members of Congress this morning. I'm going to save much of this conversation for tomorrow with Tommy. But there was, you know, I would call it certainly a mini bombshell, a piece of news.

involving Dan Snyder directly being involved in something that could be construed as sexual harassment. I will get to that next segment. Doc Walker is going to join me on the show today. Doc was there yesterday at FedEx Field as part of the alumni group when the new name was announced. So we'll get Doc's thoughts on that. We'll talk some football with Doc as well. The show today is presented by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.ag or my bookie.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., and they will match your deposit, your initial deposit, dollar for dollar, all the way up to $1,000. Okay, so that's free money that they are giving you to gamble with.

Even if you're already gambling somewhere else, take the free money at MyBooky. This is a legitimate site. They will pay you if you win. You have to pay if you lose. but they are doubling your first deposit. There aren't a lot of shops out there doing that right now. So if you deposit $300,000, you're going to have $600 to gamble with. If you deposit all the way up to the max for the doubling of the deposit $1,000, you'll have $2,000 to gamble with.

I also wanted to mention this. My bookie right now has probably the most advantageous line if you're interested in betting the underdog in this Super Bowl. right now Cincinnati is plus four and a half at my bookie. I see mostly fours everywhere. So betting Cincinnati at plus four and a half right now, if you're looking for that extra half point, maybe you want to buy it to five. Not necessarily the kind of number you would buy it to,

but you're going to get a pretty good number if you're interested in Cincinnati right now at my bookie. I also get the question about prop bets every once in a while. Like She and you talk about prop bets and you don't really explain what they are. And I understand that a lot of the gambling conversation sometimes isn't, you know, in, you know, kind of sales over the head of many of you because you don't do it, which is fine. Or you're just getting started doing it. And as I've always said, be careful if you're doing it. But, you know, a prop bet as an example, like they have a whole section called Super Bowl quarterback prop bets.

And I'll give you an example. Right now, Matt Stafford's over under on passing yards is 284.5. So if you think Matt Stafford's going to have a massive day and he's going to throw for 300 yards or more, then you go over 284.5. And you win. If he doesn't throw for over 284 and a half or 285 plus, then you would lose the bet. Maybe you think that Cincinnati's defense is going to come up big and he's not going to have a 280. year passing day. Well, you'd go under 284 and a half. You know, those are the kinds of prop bets that you get for Super Bowls. You get those during the regular season as well, but you get

more of them for the Super Bowl. You get also, you know, more exotic bets. Like right now for Super Bowl weekend, they're taking, you know, they've got odds out there on various guys making the Hall of Fame this weekend among the finalists. I give you a perfect example. Devin Hester is a finalist to make the Hall of Fame this weekend. The odds on him, if you think he's going to make the Hall of Fame, it's minus 105. So you've got to wager $105 to win $100. Okay, so if you want to win $200, you'd have to wager 210, potentially lose 210. That's if you think he is going to make the Hall of Fame. So the yes bet is minus 105. The no, which is the favorite, is minus 130. So to win 100 on On no, you'd have to wager $130 if you think Devin Hester is not going to make the Hall of Fame.

You get a lot of that this weekend. You get coin flip odds, which are even money for the most part. You get odds on the first score of the game. Like right now, the odds on the first score of the game being a touchdown are minus 250, on a field goal plus 150, and on anything else plus 4,000. So if you think a safety is going to be the first score of Super Bowl 56, you wager $100,000. You wager $10, you'd win $400. So that's how that works.

Lots of those prop bets exist. Let's get to the show today. Again, Doc Walker coming up a little bit later on in the show. So after the show yesterday with Tommy, I had a chance. to go home and watch all of the things that I missed related to the rollout of the new name. The show today is going to be mostly about yesterday. We'll start to move back towards football and other topics tomorrow. But what I wasn't able to do because I was hosting my radio show was watch the Today show,

watch the thing that they did from FedEx Field yesterday, that Doc was at. You know, it was quite a day. I mean, quite a clumsy day. Not that this is a big surprise by any stretch of the imagination. But it is interesting because it was much different rather than kind of reading it as I was on the air and hearing it blow by blow from my producer or then reading the accounts of it versus watching it. It was an embarrassing day. in many ways for the organization. There were a couple of things about the day that I liked,

and I'll get to those in a moment, and there were several things about the day that I did not like. I will mention to all of you, and I would be thrilled if you did this, go to the Team 980.com, and you can hear my interview with Jason Wright, the team president. It was in the third hour at 8 a.m.

You can get that at the Team 980.com, and I'm sure it will be tweeted out. by the team 980 at some point. And I'll even tweet it out at some point from at Kevin Sheen, D.C. But Jason was nice enough to come on and gracious enough to give me like 25 minutes this morning. And we got to a lot of different things that I think you might be interested in, including, you know, how they came about, you know, landing on commanders. And I certainly got after it as it relates to some of the mistakes that were made,

like on the logo slash crest where they got the championship years wrong. But anyway, you can listen to that at the Team 980.com. So after watching everything yesterday, several thoughts. You know, what I want to mention really to begin with is this is such a subjective thing. Like it is such an eye of the beholder kind of thing. Many people like the uniforms, many people don't. Lots of people like the name. Lots of people don't.

I think more people don't like the name and more people don't like the uniforms and more people are kind of shocked in the way that I sort of anticipated that yesterday would be this come-to-Jesus moment where we've been living in the interim over the last two years after losing the name, but yesterday was going to be a hard dose of slap-in-the-face reality that it now is something totally different. There's a name, the commanders, There are different uniforms that don't look like the team that we've rooted for forever. And I know a lot of you, because many of you reached out to me on Twitter, feel like yesterday was a very significant moment. And the moment in which you've decided, at least for the moment, that it's over for you.

And I thought that yesterday would be kind of a jarring day. but a lot of the discussion about it is subjective in terms of the uniforms and the name. And then there is a lot yesterday that is more objective that is not necessarily debatable. So let me take you through a couple of the things that I didn't have a problem with yesterday, that I didn't think was totally embarrassing or clumsy or looked as if, they weren't prepared, which I thought was much of the day. I thought the video that they produced was pretty good. I thought it was the best artistic result of the day for me. You know, plenty of historical references and images. It wasn't too long. It wasn't too short. In many ways,

I feel after watching that video, that they should have just tagged the video with the announcement of the name and made the video the actual presentation of the new name. Because the way it was done was kind of the way that I was hoping it wouldn't be done. But the video was, you know, I'm certainly not going to call it a Spielberg, you know, classic. You know, it's not going to be up for any awards. But considering everything else that was done, you know, it should have been tagged with, you know, we now move in a different direction, a new direction. We embrace the future under our new name,

the Washington commanders. And that should have been it. You know, you could call it a day at that point. Everything else in the press, everything else about, you know, everything that they landed on could have been put out in press release form with an attached Q&A, something like that. But the video I didn't think was that bad. Let me see. stay positive here for a moment. I think Dan Snyder speaking for under a minute was perfect. You know, I think somebody, you know, gave him some good advice, or maybe it was his decision, but said, you know, Dan, to be honest with you, the less of you, the better on this day, really on any day. You know, and he didn't, you know, go out there and wish everybody a happy Halloween or a happy Thanksgiving.

So there wasn't any cringe-worthy moments during his very short speech. It was short, it was sweet, it was to the point. And then he introduced his partner, as he called her, and co-owner, his wife, Tanya. You know, there was nothing cringeworthy about it. You know, the sight of him repulses many in the fan base. And this was a day intended to be a day of new, of fresh, of optimistic. So the less of Dan, the better. This was something I talked about leading up to this day, 22, 22.

And I think they executed on that. And he certainly didn't do anything to embarrass himself up there. In fact, he cracked a bit of a joke to start it off. I also thought that Ron Rivera's appearance on CBS yesterday with Gail King, I think it was, may have been the best performance. Performance is the wrong way to describe it. It was the best appearance and the best presentation of the day for the team. I thought Ron came off as he often does in that spot,

as competent, as smart, quick, and as someone with like an authoritative leadership, innate ability. So I thought that may have been the best part of the day. Now, he was asked questions about, you know, the state of the organization. He was asked about the Brian Flores thing, which I thought he answered very eloquently. I thought that that was good. So there you go. There are a few things from yesterday that I thought didn't turn out poorly.

So I'm sort of doing this in the same form that I would do a recap of a game, kind of a game take thing. Those were the things that I liked from yesterday. The things that I didn't like, I'll just start with, I don't really like the name, but like I've said for, I don't know, a year now, this isn't a super passionate subject for me. But I don't love it. It sounds to me kind of like a USFL name or an AAFL team or whatever, you know, these leagues are. but, you know, one of the benefits for them yesterday, considering how disorganized everything else was and how clumsy and awkward everything else was during the day, the name almost got pushed back into the background. It was almost as if, like, I got done watching all these things and reading about everything,

and it was like the name was secondary yesterday. Now, in part, it was anticlimactic yesterday because we all knew what the name was. was going to be because they had, you know, self-inflicted damage already, you know, with the video that NBC Sports Washington didn't blur out, with Joe Thaisman spilling the beans, with the choppers shooting the video through the windows that weren't draped, et cetera. So it was almost as if the day went by and you got to the end of the day and said, oh, yeah, commanders. That was it. I don't love the name. I don't, but I don't know that I was going to love anything. I think I answered Tom. Tommy's question yesterday, or maybe it was Coolie's question the day before, that I think

Warriors would have been acceptable to me. Like that would have, you know, keeping the uniforms, changing the helmet and the logo a little bit, but, you know, maybe that would have felt fine. But anyway, the uniforms. The uniforms aren't really an extension of what they said was most important, which were the colors, burgundy and gold. One uniform is burgundy and gold. The other two are not.

The black alt uniform, actually for me, again, this is very much in the eye of the beholder, very subjective. I didn't think the black alt uniform looked that bad, actually. The road white uniform looks like South Carolina's road uniforms. A caller called me this morning and told me it was cranberry red. It certainly doesn't look burgundy. Although Jason Wright told me this morning, because I asked him about it. that. He said, no, it's the same color. It has to be the same color that you use on your home uniform. Okay, maybe the backdrop of it being just white everywhere made it look different,

but it didn't look burgundy to me. It didn't look like whatever the color they were using on the home uniform was. South Carolina has a garnet red. I had some dude called me on the radio show that claims to be kind of an expert in uniform design, et cetera, and colors. and he said it was cranberry red. And I pulled up cranberry red, and it actually looks very much like cranberry red. It looks like a different red from the main home uniform, which has some burgundy and gold.

The road uniform just looked like what South Carolina wears on the air or what Temple wears on the air. That's what it looked like to me. So I'm not a big fan of any of the uniforms. And it's not that I would have been a big fan more likely than not anyway because it's not my thing. but if the if one of the priorities

which they spoke to was keeping the colors, burgundy and gold, well it doesn't look like they really did that except for the home uniform. So the team's got a new name and it's also got a completely different look. Like there's nothing about any of those uniforms

that if you just woke up from a coma and started watching football next year and said oh Washington's playing, you'd look and say well no they're not. That's not Washington out there. That's not the Washington team, even without knowing that the name had changed. There's nothing about the uniforms that would speak to the past burgundy and gold. The home uniform, you know, there's burgundy and gold. It's kind of burgundy and yellow, but it doesn't look like

anything resembling the uniform. The logo, the true logo, the W, I'm fine with that. To me, I've always wanted it to be Washington-centric in terms of the new direction that they went in. But if you were looking or hoping to see something that was a continuation of what you've been watching on the field, which during this interim phase it was, with the exception of the helmets, which had the numbers on it instead of the Redskins logo on it. But if you were hoping to see something familiar, that's not what you're going to get with these uniforms, in my opinion. Let me continue down the list of things that were just off yesterday. The Today Show thing was awkward, man. watching it. You know, one of the things I talked about leading up to this was I didn't want, you know,

Hoda or Savannah, or as it was, Craig Melvin, to just say, all right, what's the name to somebody sitting on a chair? But that's the way they did it. And Jason kind of passed the buck to Doug Williams, who was sitting next to him, and John Allen was sitting next to Doug Williams. And Doug Williams put his arm around John Allen and said, the commanders. I didn't want to. want that. It was awkward. And I don't like seeing Doug put in that position personally. But it was not what you would call real smooth. Okay. First of all, again, let me concede this point. We knew what it was going to be by the time we got to yesterday morning. So maybe that's why there wasn't much drama. Maybe that's why it seemed kind of dull. But the other part of it was FedEx. You know, they've got the,

you know, they're on the Today Show, but they're doing the shot from FedEx. field and there was nothing there that made it exciting. It was dreary. It was dull. There was no exciting backdrop. There was no, there were just chairs and the guys looked cold and, and, you know, there was, there was no band. It was stupid to do it that way. I mean, think about this. Top two things that people despise the most about this franchise. Number one is Dan Snyder. and number two is FedEx Field. If you're going to be at FedEx Field, which we questioned from the beginning, and we question the Today Show from the beginning.

But if you're going to be at FedEx Field, well, do something. Snazz it up. I mean, our last memory of FedEx Field is a railing nearly cutting, you know, Jalen Hertz in half with people attached to it. And they did nothing. It's like they got to FedEx Field. yesterday morning and said, anybody got any chairs? And the Today Show said, where do you want us to set up? I just go, you know, set up on the field. We'll get some chairs out there. And Jason and Doug

and John will be out here, you know, what time do you need them out here? There was no planning for this. It was really, it was, it looked awful. Like I kept thinking after watching it, I'm like, why didn't they do it at Union Station? Why they, why didn't they do it at the Wharf? Why didn't they do it where the caps had that stage for the, you know, Stanley Cup. I know there wouldn't have been people there, but you would have had the Capitol in the background. I mean, freaking Landover and FedEx Field. We hate FedEx Field. It said nothing about Washington being there. They didn't plan for something to look nice. They just winged it. They winged the whole day. Then you got to this stage for the Julie Donaldson, Dan Snyder,

Tanya Snyder thing. Oh my God. I guess they streamed it on their website. I don't know, maybe NBC Sports Washington ran it. First of all, maybe this was just me, but the audio was way off. So the technical part of the broadcast was terrible. There was like this crackling noise, and then the sound and the video was like two seconds off. Julie did fine at introducing it, but you're on a stage.

I know where they were. They were on this podium outside of the stadium where I used to do my pregame show from. It was this stage near what they called the Budlight Pavilion outside Gate G at the stadium. It wasn't inside the stadium. This wasn't the Today Show part. This was the, you know, the Dan, Tanya, Julie Donaldson part. Okay. and they had like this backdrop that said two to 22,

except that you can only see like one of the twos and half of the other two. And there were, I guess, media people there and certainly some alumni, former players there. The whole thing was so poorly done. It just, but again, I'm not super surprised. But why not dress it up a little bit? Why didn't they think about this and plan for this? Well, they don't do those things.

I mean, we know that from the Sean Taylor Jersey retirement weekend. This isn't something that they really think about. You know, this was only, you know, the biggest announcement in franchise history, for the most part, changing the name. They've had, you know, roughly two years in building up to this. You know, not exactly two years, certainly 18 months building up to this. And I think most of you could have put something. together in a week that would have been more professional than this. I don't understand in hindsight why they didn't decide to do something that made it look like

D.C. And I guess I wasn't thinking about that leading up to it because I thought, well, they're going to have the band, they're going to have big billboards behind. There's going to be some sort of cool. No, there was none of that. You know, they brought all the alumni up there. Doc was up there. You know, Rod Gardner was up there, if anybody was wondering. It's good to get Rod Gardner back. Not one Hall of Famer was up there. There were Super Bowl champions up there.

B. Mitch was up there. Doc was up there. Thaisman was up there. Mosley was up there. You know, there were some Super Bowl champions up there. Not one Hall of Famer was up there. Not one. I mentioned yesterday this ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Oh, my God. To watch that. was really, you know, you do a ribbon-cutting ceremony when you're opening up something new. Well, this was in front of their team store. It's not new. I just would advise them, and I think I said this yesterday on the podcast, if you're going to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony, for the purposes of it being, you know, videoed or photowed, well, you better get some people there. You better make it look like it's a big deal. And there were not many people. there. And it, you know, a ribbon cutting ceremony for a team store that's already open,

it just typically you do that for, you know, the opening of like, you know, a T-Mobile store or a Safeway. I just, it was so, so half-assed. And then we get to, you know, what I talked about yesterday, the crest, as they call it. You know, it's part of the logo, but it's really called the crest. You know, it's this thing that says 1932 commanders, you know, has the stars on it, and then lists the years in which they were champions, 1937, 1942, and then they had 1983, 1988, 1988, and 1992. And as you, if you listened to me yesterday, that's just, you know, it's wrong. They got it wrong. You do not, as an NFL fan, refer to champion. You know, to years by the date in which the championship was won.

You know, that's why on their Super Bowl rings, it says 1991, 1987, and 1982. That's why on their Super Bowl banners, it says 1991, 1987, and 1982. What are we going to do? Are we going to go back and change the rings and the banners now? This was sloppy. I talked to Jason Wright about this. I said, you got it wrong. Are you going to fix it?

and he didn't say that he wasn't going to fix it because I don't think it was the first time he heard this, but he talked about, you know, the date of the Super Bowl being won, being the actual historical, whatever is put into the NFL record, yada, yada, yada, yada. I just, no, I don't need to hear that. It's wrong.

Okay, nobody refers to the last Super Bowl winner in this town as the 1992 Redskins. They're the 1991 Redskins. Just like nobody refers to the great 1985 bears, and I said, Ron Rivera played on that team, ask him what team he won the Super Bowl on.

Was it the 1986 Bears? No. It was the 1985 Bears. It was the 1972 dolphins that went undefeated. It was the great 2000 Ravens, even though they won the Super Bowl in January of 2001 or February of 2001. I mean, you got to know that. And you got to have somebody in the room that says,

You got the wrong dates on your crest. That's a big deal. You're putting it on a lot of things. It's kind of part of this big rollout. I'm sloppy, you know. A lot of different reasons why that happened. And, you know, he understood that, and he was very respectful in his answer. And, you know, he said there are things that can get tweaked.

And I said, you know, this one's one that needs to be fixed because it's wrong. And, you know, again, I understand. the date that the Super Bowl was won on, January 26th, 1992. But that's not your championship team year. Your championship team season was the 1991 season. And that's typical NFL nomenclature. That's how we all talk about teams. You know, if you want to put the Roman numeral Super Bowl, 17, you know, 22 and 26,

you can use Roman numerals instead of the year, go for it. That's fine. It doesn't bother me. and you can even leave 37 and 42 on there because those were non-super Bowls. They were just NFL championships. And they were won in those years because those games were played in December. But you've got to get the small stuff right. And I think that's the biggest thing is that, you know, I had Zabe on the radio show this morning.

And he said they just never get the little things right. And that's a big problem. And he's so right. It's like we've talked about this for years. They don't get the little things right. So what makes you think they'll ever get the big things right? Well, they never get the big things right either. But that's just like the Sean Taylor stuff, you know, in the Port-a-Pottie pictures and the putting it together and announcing it two days before.

It's like, well, look, I've said this a million times. They don't have anybody in the organization who knows the organization. It was just a sloppy day. It was anticlimactic. And part of that is because the name we already knew it. and maybe if the name hadn't leaked and if we didn't know the name before and part of that was self-inflicted on their part, maybe we would have felt differently because we would have been so focused on, we had no idea what the name was, oh my God, it's commanders.

But the commanders part of the day yesterday got backburnered because of everything else. But that's that. Listen to the Jason Wright interview, though, because I asked. asked him about, you know, the chances that it was ever going to be kind of a Washington-centric name. I asked them about what the three finalists were before they settled on commanders. I asked them about when they actually decided on commanders. He told me that the answer was four months ago. He said they were in a room and they had been tossing it around and then somebody in the room said, you know what? I think we got it. And everybody looked around and said, yep, this is what it's

going to be. And then they had to vet it out a little bit and a little bit more. My sense of it was is that it was Dan Snyder who was in the room that finally said, finally, you know, we've tossed all this around. Commander seems like it's the right one. He explained why no wolves or red wolves or no warriors. So I would urge you to go to the Team 980.com and listen to that interview. Okay. Up next, I'll just give you a high level of what came out of this congressional inquiry today,

roundtable with former employees of the Washington commanders, Washington football team, Washington Redskins. We'll do that next, and then Doc Walker will join us right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. It doesn't cost you a thing. And please, if you haven't, rate us and review us wherever you can, especially on Apple and Spotify. Apple in particular, many of you have done it. It's been very helpful. But many of you have have not and it takes 30 seconds. You can even pause the podcast right now and just rate us five stars and write a quick one to two sentence review saying how much you like the show, how much you like the show when Tom's on or Coolie's on or, you know, the guests we get or whatever. It just helps

us on the back end, the business end, in being able to generate not just advertising dollars, but better advertising rates. The number of people that listen, very important to being able to sell it. And we have good numbers, excellent numbers for a podcast that is primarily local content driven. And we've done really well with the ratings and reviews, but they've got to keep coming, especially the percentage of the audience that has not yet rated and reviewed us. So if you can do that, that's a big help. So this next topic, I just want to mention real quickly, I'm going to do more on tomorrow with Tommy because it's kind of breaking as we speak.

and I haven't had a chance to watch it. This was YouTube streamed earlier today. And what I'm referring to is this House Committee on Oversight and Reform roundtable where six former employees of the Washington commanders, the Washington Redskins, the Washington football team, were on the hill today to tell Capitol Hill lawmakers about their experience working for the team. Now, many of these names are very familiar.

because we've heard these names and read these names in the post reporting on the sexual harassment culture. Many of these people met with Beth Wilkinson for her investigation. And the reason I'm going to talk a little bit about it today is because there was a new allegation today. Let me just preface this by saying these people today were participating in a roundtable that was supposed to be, you know, a help to lawmakers who do want to investigate and get more on the team's workplace culture and the NFL's handling of these allegations vis-a-vis the Beth Wilkinson report. But they're not under oath today. This is no different than reading these allegations in a post story, you know, over the last two years,

which we have many times. But there was a new allegation today, which is why I want to mention it, why I want to mention it, right? now. Tiffany Johnston. She's a former cheerleader and marketing manager. She was among the six former employees today appearing at this roundtable. She accused Dan Snyder of harassing her at a team dinner, putting his hand on her thigh and pressing her towards his limousine. Johnson described years of sexual harassment by multiple team executives before turning to this allegation of what Dan Snyder allegedly did to her. She said she had to fend off the owner's sexual advances during a work dinner. She didn't say where or when the dinner was held, but during

dinner she said she had to remove Snyder's hand from her thigh under the table while trying to sustain business banter to avoid a scene. After dinner, Johnston said that Snyder insisted she join him in his limousine for a ride to her car as he placed a hand on her back and pushed her toward the vehicle's door. She declined but was able to break free of Snyder's grip and she said the only reason she was able to do that is because his attorney intervened and said, quote, Dan, Dan, this is a bad idea, a very bad idea, Dan. Closed quote. Johnston. referred to this invitation to the dinner as an orchestration by her boss and Dan Snyder to put, quote, me in a compromising sexual situation.

Closed quote. She was told later to keep quiet about Snyder's advance, adding that there was no one in HR to complain to. So that's a new allegation. Again, it's an allegation. It was not under oath, but it's an allegation. We don't know when it happened either. There was also another new allegation from this roundtable this morning.

And I'm reading from Liz Clark's story in the post. And again, tomorrow there may have been others, but the Tiffany Johnson thing was definitely new, and I'm pretty sure this is a new allegation as well. It comes from Melanie Coburn. Melanie was a former team cheerleader and marketing director for the squad. Melanie, by the way, is going to be on my radio show tomorrow morning at 830 on the team 980.

She levied a claim, and Liz writes it's a new claim, describing an employee awards trip to Snyder's Aspen home. At a dinner of heavy drinking, she said a colleague was hazed to drink despite being a recovering addict. After returning to Snyder's house, she said she was told to go to her room in the basement and stay there. Quote, I later learned from a colleague who was there that it was because the men had invited prostitutes back, closed quote.

That from Melanie Coburn. So those are two new allegations. The first, obviously, being a direct allegation about Snyder making, you know, an advance towards Tiffany Johnston. Now, Snyder has responded to the claims made today at this, you know, House Reform and Oversight Roundtable. Quote from Snyder, I apologize again today for this conduct and fully support the people who have been victimized and have come forward to tell their stories.

And then he said, while past conduct at the team was unacceptable, the allegations leveled against me personally in today's roundtable, many of which are well over 13 years old, are outright lies. I unequivocally deny having participated in any such conduct at any time and with respect to any person. By the way, a spokesman for the NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment today. Let me just finish up this with just something from Snyder's statement that rings

kind of familiar. when he says that the allegations leveled against me personally in today's roundtable, many of which are well over 13 years old, that rings familiar to me. I think many of the other comments or statements, he has referenced the fact that these are very old allegations. So what? He was the owner of the team. I'm not sure why that's relevant. I also find it interesting how many times he has referred to, you know, know, in recent years not being hands-on enough? Well, most of these allegations are from a period of time when he was much more hands-on, or at least perceived to be hands-on. I think, for whatever reason, he or people close to him have trouble with kind of the calendar math. Like he has said before, I needed to be more hands-on in recent years. Well, the allegations are mostly older allegations

when he was much more hands-on, when he was much more at least, you know, the way he wants to describe it, more directly involved. It's amazing to me that they haven't figured that out. Much more on this tomorrow with Tommy. Doc Walker is going to be my guest next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show with my good friend Doc Walker

as our guest on the podcast today is presented by Window Nation. Window Nation's got their virtual home show extravaganza sale going on right now. What does that mean? Buy two windows, get two free with no limit. So you're only paying half price on the windows, but it goes further. You don't have to make a down payment. You don't have to make any payments, and you don't have to pay any interest for two full years. You'll save thousands of dollars over those two years on energy bills alone.

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Again, by the time you pay dime one on these new windows, it'll be 2024. 86690 Nation, windownation.com. Please mention my name, Kevin Sheehan. They'll take good care of you. Doc Walker is my friend. He's got a podcast on Patreon. Go to Patreon. slash Doc Walker to listen to his podcast, which he does with our other good friends, Steve Solomon.

You can follow Doc on Twitter at Rick Doc Walker. We're going to talk some football because I do want to talk some football with you. But the first thing that I want to know is you were there yesterday. You were at FedEx Field. You were on that stage, by the way, where you and I used to do the pregame show, right? Isn't that where the whole thing took place? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I just want your reaction to the new name and the new branding and the new uniforms.

Give us Doc Walker's reaction to everything that is new here today. I'm numb. As I mentioned, it's a combination of being at a funeral and then at a birth of a newborn. And so my loyalty goes to the Over the Hill gang, the Wild Bunch, the 70s team. that's when I fell in love with him in 1972. Brigg-Ongo is from my hometown, and so they played the Super Bowl in my backyard, and I mean, those guys on that team,

Diren Talbert and all those guys, that to me, Charlie Taylor, you know, I was a big Larry Brown guy and Harroway and all those guys. So they were heroes to me. And so I felt a little bit betrayed if they're taken out of it. As much as I love,

all the references to hog and everybody wanted to, 11-year period of time or so, I think you've got to think about the 90 years of existence. And so when they went to the football team, I was like, you got to be kidding me. Then when they were winning a little bit with it, getting that Eastern championship, I said, okay. And so I'm not going to overreact. It's still painful. The departure is painful.

But, you know me, we share this. together. If they're 14 and 2 or 14, three, man, I don't care what they call them. They're going to call them champions. And you can't buy that. You can't promote your way to that. You have to actually build a team that's successful. So I'm relieved that it's over. And 2-2 or 2-3-22 is where I'm at now, and I'm trying to fix the team. I'm trying to see, can we get a winning team on the field? So that's where my priorities are. So we'll get to that next because, you know, when you say you and I are the same when it comes to that, I don't know if I am the same anymore.

And I don't know that you are either anymore. No, no, no, no, no. No. You can't tell me how I feel. And by the way, we have enough of these conversations where I have a feeling I know how you feel. So I'm just saying that, first of all, the chances that they're going to be 14 and 2 and they're going to be a Super Bowl team at some point, you know, before we, you know, leave this planet, don't seem very high unless they find a quarterback. But we'll talk about that in a moment because I want you to talk about the little guy that was quarterbacking the team last year, the little man.

But if they were to be a competitive team next year and they got a late season game for, you know, a playoff berth against the Cowboys. and all week long, Fox is promoting the fact that it's the Cowboys and the commanders, and a big one Sunday at 425, how are you going to feel about that? Well, if they're in that game of significance, I'm going to feel good

because I don't care what they call them. I care how they perform. Okay, what do you think about the uniforms? I'm numb. Again, when I say I'm numb, is that I'm almost now wishing I never promoted Burgundy and Gold. If they were going to change it, I wish they to change everything then. Because if you're not going to keep that consistent with what we've grown to love,

then that's kind of hurtful, but I refuse to fall for the Okido. I don't want to get into a promotion. I don't care about that. And I'm not going to be lured into that. I'm only lured into the scoreboard. The only way I can deal with this whole situation is to simply stay focused on the scoreboards, not the streaming, none of that. All I care about is the scoreboard.

If the stadium's empty and we win, I'm good with it. If the scoreboard continues not to go in the right direction, will it be harder for you to sort of hang on and hope now that they're the commanders not wearing, you know, the burgundy and gold thing that they talked about. I mean, the white jerseys, the road jerseys, the white-on-white, that's not a burgundy and gold jersey. I know. I know.

So will it make it harder if they don't win and win right away to continue to go back to the well and hope that they win? Yeah, it will. I'm human, but I have no quitting me. because the people that were here, when I got here in 1980, we were 0.15 at one time, and they never quit. They did nothing but embrace us even more. And the result, you know the result. So now what I'm trying to figure out is that can we assemble a team of 53 strong that can actually win?

Because that's it for me. I don't, I can't, I'm, I'm numb to the point where you can't, get me lured into something else seductively. It's not going to happen because I'm focused on training camp. I want to see a scrimmage, another protein. I want to see us have contact. I want to see us physically be imposing. And I don't think you can get through that with shells and walk through.

See, I think, you know, as you're talking, and we didn't talk about this, and I haven't mentioned it this way. But I'm going to mention it this way because you'll know what I'm saying. I don't know that you'll agree with me. But I think, like, for a long time Colts fan, you know, a guy that was into Lydell Mitchell and John Mackey and Johnny Unites and Tom Maddie. And then they lost their team. I think if the Ravens had come in and sucked forever, that those people would have just completely disengaged. And the team wouldn't have been their team.

Like it would have been like, where are my Colts back? I mean, those are the memories I have. This is bullshit. This new team that came in, isn't any good, and I'm not into it. And I kind of view our situation, even though it isn't an expansion team or a team that's moving from another city. In the case of the Ravens, it was a team that moved from Cleveland to fill the hole that the Colts had left 10 years earlier, roughly 10 years earlier. But I kind of view yesterday as the beginning of a new era of it feels like an expansion team. So if they don't win, I mean, and win big and quickly and become a completely different franchise in terms of the way they've operated,

I think a lot of people that were kind of hanging on will be completely out now. I agree. And it'll be all to the millennials. They will have this young fan base will have to fall in love with it. And great analogy with the Ravens because I felt they got screwed by losing their. their tradition having it stolen away in Indianapolis, that's a travesty. But yet they flipped it and proved that they lost the horseshoot.

They lost their coat. They lost everything. But because they're football-centric, and they approach the game like gladiators, they got it back. And they're really thumpers. And I really enjoy the way they do it. So expansion is good.

I have to, it's hard, but you've got to get over it. I mean, the people are pissed. I get it. but if you sound like a quitter, I just say, go ahead and dissolve yourself. Because, you know, I don't, I can't, I don't, I don't pass by weakness. Yeah, but, but, you know, when you just said, because you and I feel the same way about the Ravens, it's not that I'm, I would never adopt them as my favorite team, okay? That's not me.

Never. But man, I would love my organization to operate just like theirs does. Me too. And so the new thing, commanders and the new uniforms and the new color schemes and the whole thing moving forward, I need them to thump right away. You know, like Bashati and Ozzy and all and everything that came, you know, coaching staff one after another and the players. And I just, the problem is, is we don't have Bashati. You know, we got Dan.

And so the chance of all of a sudden this new. brand turning into a thumper like the Ravens, I think is a long shot. It is a long shot. So was Cincinnati. Cincinnati was a long shot. Mike Brown has been in three or four Super Bowl. So it's possible. You can actually overcome your front office if the guys on the field are committed.

And they play team ball. Yeah. But we've, we've discussed this. That's the fact. The Bidwells and the Browns and... All been to Super Bowl. I understand that. But they also had...

And the Ursa's, they got Peyton Manning. They had Kurt Warner and Arizona there for a couple of years. And they got Joe Burrough. So you would agree with me that as long as Dan is here, the only way out of this thing is to land on that elite all-time kind of quarterback. Agreed. And your defense... has got to function as one.

You can't have anybody freelancing because all those teams you mentioned, their defenses were also of a championship level and allowed those teams with those great quarterbacks to maintain lead. Well, Cincinnati does not have a championship level defense right now. No, they don't, but what they proved against Kansas City is that you don't know them yet by name,

but you're going to know their name in a week or so, week and a half, if they pull it off, already pulled it off because they beat those guys and played them competitively twice. That wasn't a fluke. That was guys playing the scheme, guys bawling out. They didn't care what round they were drafted in. All they did was come out and punch people in the face. And they did their damn jobs.

We got too many individuals posing as team guys. And until they get rid of that and fix that, I don't care if you had Joe Namath in here, you won't win. So our work now It's got to be done on the football side The promotions are over for me I'm done Right now it's about football Who we're going to get in it

And I like our roster The crazy thing about this Is that all the teams that we've covered Over these years This is I like the roster I think they got a legitimate shot To fix this If they'll suppress their egos

And start really getting after people This is not a shell operation push and pull. This is a full contact sport. And if you're going to draft a lineback in the first round and then not let him play in the third preseason game, I've got a problem with you because that's not developing people. So they've got to get their act together on the football side of it. And it is possible because at least they have some people to work with. Just real quickly on Cincinnati being in the Super Bowl, do you have any feelings for them

given that that was your first team? No. I'm happy for them. I'm happy for everybody that puts out a good product, and they did it despite their front office. I'm going, my God, that gives me hope. That gives me hope. When the Bidwells, when they win, the Bidwells and the Browns, hell. I mean, that means we do have a chance, and that's all you need is a chance. What was it like to be there yesterday? Again, because I got to see Jordan Reed, you know, and I got to see guys I hadn't seen in a while and Alfred Morris. And it just really made me so emotional. I'm with the prize bull. I actually was team with Dexter.

We went to high school and we went to Metro stops and we did some things, you know, passing out merch. And I got to see these guys, man, and the Bulldog, Kendrick Goldston, all these guys, smoothie. It was just, you start looking around and going, we've always had a great camarader. We've had guys, and it's been fun, but it's not fun, not ending in the big one, because we've been there seeing Doug and all these guys and Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders, and we did a tribute for Doug earlier in the week that Gary Clark Inc. put together. It was fantastic. And so there's so many good things that we have the potential to become, but now it's all football. And we've got to get more players, and we've got to get the guys that we're paying to play up to their salaries.

It's very simple. You and I've done it for years. The guys who make the most must do the most. You can't have any underachievers making millions. We're paying a guard to $18 million a year, and he's telling you giving you the finger, saying, I don't want it. Well, good, because you've got to move on and get guys who want to be here. You don't have to beg anybody to be here. We want people that want to be here. And then we've got to get them and coach them up, get our hacks together, which we're capable of doing.

The Cameron Curles of the world, that's who we are. We're Joe Jacobi. We're Monty Coleman. We're guys that people didn't think could do it who did it. I want Brian Mitchell's spirit to flow through a lot of teams that just will not be beaten. and that's something that we've seen manifest itself here in the right environment, football environment. And I think it's possible.

It's not a disaster in my mind in terms of our personnel. What disaster is part of it doesn't play. They don't get involved in the game. So whether the place is blank and we're playing in front of nobody, we can still reach our goals if the guys on the field take it personal. I know. I want to talk football here, and I promise I want to get to that. But what was it like other than being able to see a lot of your old friends?

And it's nice to see Mosley and, of course, Joe. Oh, Joe. Yeah. And there are a lot of people missing from that stage, too, if you were going to, you know, if you were really going to do it right. But we won't go down that path. But you are very much a stickler for, you know, the little things. and having it buttoned up and doing it in a first-rate way. And the whole day was incredibly clumsy from the Today Show thing and the, you know, the announcement.

Now, part of it was because everybody already knew the name before yesterday, but that was because they were clumsy, you know, heading into it. But, you know, you're on this stage. You know, your FedEx field, there's no ban. There's no, there's nothing about it that said first rate the whole day. that's what I wanted you to speak to. Well, we were collegiate. The thing I loved about this group is that we were our town, we were collegiate.

We put banners up in this town. I mean, we were, and that's what made it special, like the Buffalo Mafia. I mean, the Green Bay Packard. Years ago, yes. Yeah, years ago, I'm just saying, but that's what I'm, that's what I know. And I refuse to let that die. I don't let them take me down that road because you can't. can't us, and it's not fair to the people they brought in, they got some quality people,

but they've been here six seconds. And if you ask them, if you ask them questions about the 72 team, they'd all look as you like, say what? I mean, they put the group together. I didn't do it. They did it. It's not like they weren't here. I'm not putting it on you, but I know you.

I know you very well, and I know you looked around at this thing and said, what did they do? Put this together in three minutes? like the Sean Taylor weekend? Like couldn't it? They had it with the urinals and the whole thing. They had a lot of time to plan for this thing. And you got like a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of a store out front with Tanya doing it with like 15 people in line.

Yeah, I know. And that's why I won't go down that route because I'm not going to get into the promotions because that doesn't win. You don't win anything with that. It's like the Steelers. They don't have cheerleaders. They ain't cost them one game. They only have one logo, one emblem on.

helmet. It ain't costing one game. It doesn't matter. So don't fall for it. I know, but you were there and Doug was there and all these people were there. And I thought you guys were all going to slip and fall off the stage for crying out loud. I mean, you got people wandering around mannequins. The whole thing was just whatever. It doesn't surprise me. Thank God you you guys were there. I'll just say that. Now, let's talk football. What are they going to do at quarterback? What have you been talking about in your podcast is about what the plan for quarterback should be? Well, they have to be, obviously,

got to be aggressive. And I want a combination of an experienced guy who's done it who's won games. I can't have anybody under center that has not won big games and understands that. Then I need a rookie. I need a young guy in there with promise

that we can keep developing. And I want Hineke you to compete. See, last year wasn't a competition. It brought in another old head who hadn't won anything and gave him the job. It wouldn't compete. It wasn't competitive.

And so then he got hurt, and then I give Taylor Hineke a lot of credit because he'll fight. He'll come in there. But I can't think that I'm going to win with his limitations unless he develops this offseason. And I respect the people that are there, but if you're not going to

develop, then I'm not, this not like a charity case. I'm not, I've got to put together a competitive group to win with no personalities involved. I don't want any pre, I don't know what they've agreed to. I don't care. What I know is that November, we won four games, and you can win by the skinny of your teeth. Hey, look, our field goal kicker, Mark Mosey was league MVP one year. And we had a hell of a year. So all I'm saying is that now we got a kicker. I mean, look how many little things that we were lacking. First of all, we have to become dominant on special teams.

You don't get the Mike Nelms and the Mike Basses and the Brian Mitchells and all these people without a commitment to that. That was Joe's number one thing, teams first. And we've got to take advantage of that because we've got to flip the field. We've got to do all the things that are

boring, but you've got to do them well. All the great teams do. And then we've got to have playmakers. And we've got to get another receiver. And if our tightening is healthy, I think we've done very good on that position. I like our offensive line. I think that maybe the best coached unit on a team. I'll take the backs. A lot of things, we can win with it, but we got to get on the same page, and we've got to get a plan that's football, and we've got to go after people

and be very, very aggressive. We can't be sitting down and letting people be comfortable in the pocket. We've got to put more pressure on people. And so all those things, that's their job to do it. And the next thing with the draft and free agency, how they go out and assemble a team is what they're here to do. We got enough people in our football office. Now we've got to get some results. The experienced under-center somebody that's done it before, do you have anybody in mind? No, no, I haven't got to that yet. I just got through the name. And so I haven't, and you're numb on that. But. Yeah, I'm numb. I am numb. It's emotional. It's not, it's not casual. I know, I can't be casual about this because there are a lot of emotions in it.

A lot of people, especially our older fan base, I keep going back to the 72, the wild bunch, over the hill gang. I keep going back to those guys. Our color schemes, I'm not getting over that because we've always been the liver rochy of the NFL. When one of our coaches called us the maroon, well, now we are all the maroon and black. Yeah, maroon and black. But we had to help with fear on it. Yeah, but we had the spear helmet. It was maroon.

Okay, we've always been the liberate of the NFL. I know. We don't have consistency, okay? So gold pants, white pants, burglany pants, we're all over to play. All I'm saying is that, but that doesn't win you games. If we go out in a croaker sack, it doesn't matter if we outscore the opponent. Is there anybody on this team that you wouldn't package with multiple first-round picks to try to get Aaron Rogers or Russell Wilson?

I'd never depart from John Allen, ever. And there are a lot of guys, but no, that's where we've got two GMs, right? And we've got all these multiple people. That's their job. That's their job. They're all being paid handsomely. So what they've got to do is go out and find out what they're looking for. They can't be satisfied with the results.

You don't get better after losing two of your sons. stars and not look at that and go, hey, wait a minute, we had some underachieving going on. We got to fix that. And that's not an effort thing. They give great effort. What we've got to improve upon is our techniques. We've got to become better at our jobs. So who's that fall on?

That falls on the player and the coaches to coordinate it and get it right. We talked about halftime adjustments for you. You and I've done that over a decade. And we know who the great ones were. and we keep falling back on Joe Jack. We weren't always ahead. We were behind a lot, but we didn't stay stuck behind because he was a master of adjustments.

And in order to make adjustments, we don't know maybe they did make the adjustments. And the players effed it up. But whatever it is, they got to fix it. They don't have to go to class. All they do is this. So it's unacceptable. The results are unacceptable.

You've got to have a winning season. You've got to get the 10 or 11 wins. immediately. We've lost that. We don't have any more flex time. It's time to come out blazing and get after this. No more excuses. No more. I don't need press conferences. I don't need anything verbal. I don't want to hear anything from them. I want to see their results. What if they strike out on quarterbacks and they just draft a young quarterback and keep Taylor Heineke and start him next year? If you draft a rook, do you mean high like the first round? Yeah, but let's just say, that for whatever reason he's not ready and you got to

play Taylor Heineke next year. What are your thoughts on that? Well, if he's not ready, then you picked the wrong guy. We did that last year. You can't have another Damon. You can't do that. They got to hit it. And they got to get two. And they got to get two. You got to hit two. You got to hit two. I mean, you cannot land on one guy.

If you got to bring three people and you got to bring three in. To me, there's no reason to not have an open competition. of the best three people you can get your hands on and let them fight it out. Would one of those three be Taylor Heineke? Yeah, yeah, it could be. He'll have some innate abilities from a leadership standpoint, but his passing ability is not going to allow you to come back and be what you've got to be. That's not what we're seeing in the playoffs right now.

You've got to be he's throwing the ball high. That's not his asset. And if they're not going to move him around, the way they're playing him doesn't play it too. his best. If they're going to alter the offense to accentuate his attributes, then you've got a chance. You got no chance if you're playing on beating, using him beating you from the pocket. So that's up to them. But you've got a chance to improve upon that. Why would you start your conversation off saying that he's your starter? That means you did nothing this offseason.

That's unacceptable. This was fun. It's unacceptable. This was fun, as always. It was good to see you up there yesterday. You looked great, by the way. Because I talk to you a lot, but I haven't seen you in a while. You look fantastic. It looks like you lost weight. You're in shape.

Well, no, I'm fasting until we win. Okay. Is that what it is? I may be 100 pounds the next time you see me. Yeah. I may be a hundred pounds. I don't think that would be healthy for somebody of your height. Well, I'm just saying, I'm doing a fast until we win.

Okay. I just like, that's personal. You can't control that. Let me do that. Okay. You just keep doing the great job. you're doing and getting the information out because our fan base, what's left of it right now deserves it. They really deserve it because they care. They're loyal. You know what? If they didn't

care, can you imagine where we'd be if they just throw in a towel and nobody's calling? Nobody's acquiring. I mean, what if I told you 30 years ago, but let's not even say 30 years ago, 10 years ago. You and I were working together and we, you know, they just hired Mike, you know, Shanahan's the coach and and RG3 is. is going to get drafted. And what if I told you that in 10 years, in 10 years, we're still only going to have two playoff wins under this owner, and we're going to be called the commanders and have totally different uniforms?

Yeah, I would have never believed that the Charger game when I drove to the stadium, and I could get in. When you called me and said, you drove without having to stop once until you got into your parking, There were no red lights in front of me. Yeah. I was devastated. I mean, I'm not, I'm telling you, I was emotionally torn apart.

We took it for granted because we always had them. We just took it for granted. And all of a sudden now, I would never have believed it, and I saw it, and I see it. When Dallas came, when everybody comes in, hell, the charges came in. And I'm going, wait a minute, they don't even travel. And they traveled, and they had a presence. But we do have a presence, too, on the road. We've got a lot of people that won't go to FedEx, but they'll travel.

They'll go to New Orleans or go to Vegas. So we still have that economic power that we can do it. But the sweets that are empty, that to me is a travesty. And it's an example of what can happen. There's no guarantees in none of this. And so you grew up with it. I grew up in Los Angeles. I had the Lakers and Dodgers.

I thought everybody had that. No, they don't. My kids, like your kids, they saw nothing. Right. They had to hang in on faith. You know, and they got nothing in return. Zero. No.

Go get Ron Rogers. And I promise you that when we get to the opener next year, commanders, you know, crazy uniforms that look different won't feel. But I will root for the expansion team if they really do what they need to do in this. off season, which is to get a quarterback. You cannot do it without a quarterback. They got a swing big for Rogers or Wilson. I'd take Watson if he's eligible. And, you know, if they roll out, you know, Tyrod Taylor and Taylor Heineke, you know, we got another year next year of looking forward to the next year after that. Don't forget, Ron was a part of the Bonsors of the Bidway. And so I got to believe, I got to believe.

that now that he's healthy, and again, I give him the break of a lifetime because what he was able to endure while fighting cancer. Now, he seems to be a lot of healthy. He's healthy now. I think that was a factor. If you don't think that was a factor, then you're insane. So I think that's going to be good to get him back because I believe the guy that I saw and heard his locker room, rants in Carolina. That's the guy I need here. You know, because right now, as Don't Tompson taught me very well, don't blame the horse.

It's the jockey. Okay, the jockey on the horse has got to be able to get the horse to perform. And so we got the jockey in place. Now it's time to go. And there's no excuses now. Zero. It's get it done or else. Yep.

All right. At Rick Doc Walker on Twitter. Patreon.com slash Doc Walker for Doc's podcast. I will talk to you soon. This was fun, as always. When did we get you back on the podcast? Whenever you ask me, you know that. Okay, good, good, good.

Then get ready for it. Well, see, you have so many shows. But, you know. No, no, no. I'm always available for you, and I've told you that a million times. But usually you don't ask. You've got to go far down. You've got to go down the list.

You got to go down the list, six, seven, eight. Eight names before you get to mine. You got a big list. I got a big list. Let me tell you what, Zabe, it was great to hear Zabe this morning on 980. That was awesome. Whenever I hear one of our guys, I mean, I really, that was really, really good. Keep up the great work.

Okay. Thank you. All right. And I'll talk to you soon. All right. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Doc Walker, everybody. Good to catch up with Doc. All right. That's it for the day. Back tomorrow on Friday with Tommy.