The Kevin Sheehan Show - Twitter Jack (Del Rio)

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Kevin opened the show vowing that this year's "Mock Schedule" will be his last. Thom was in and the guys talked about Jack Del Rio's latest tweet. Thom shared his thoughts on the Dwayne Haskins letter and then the guys talked about Caps' winger Brendan Leipsic's private messages that have prompted apologies and a league investigation. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> 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. That's right. Sports Fix Thursday, Tommy's here by phone. I'm here. Aaron will be producing on the back end. Thank you for all of your comments regarding my mock schedule from the other day. I was reading through them all. And I've decided Tommy and it has nothing to do with the comments. but I've decided that this year was the last year that I'm going to do a mock schedule. Oh, no. Yeah, I know you'd be, I knew you'd be upset about it. No, get out of here. What is it? Are you being sued? Everybody's doing a mock schedule now.

I know. It really is. You've known me long enough to know that if everybody's going in one direction, I'm gambling on the other direction. And I just, I'm getting people that are sending me all of these mock schedules that other people are doing. Look, I didn't ever anticipate that anybody would care about mine. It was stupid every year. I admit that it's just completely dumb, but, you know, we do it for fun.

And a lot of people take it seriously. Oh, nice job with your mock schedule. You didn't get one right. You know, like, who cares? I don't, you know, I'm trying to, I'm just putting. together a schedule so we can talk about it. And I thought it was something that was unique when I first did it. And I'm pretty sure I first did it with you, which would have been, you know, 12, 13 years ago,

whenever it would have been. And I, and I'm not doing it anymore. J.P. Finley did one yesterday. Chris Russell's doing them. And by the way, I appreciate all of them, you know, tipping the cap to me as the, you know, as the pioneer on the mock schedule. You know, Tommy, I don't know if I honestly was the, pioneer of this thing or not. I will tell you this, that in the first several years, as I was being

mocked for doing it, no one was sending me other people that were doing it. I'll never forget the first time somebody said, hey, look at what, and they said, the Rams are doing. They were in St. Louis, and they were holding a contest for somebody who came up with the best and most accurate mock schedule. That was the first time I ever saw anybody. else do it. And then in the last couple of years, I mean, it's out of control. And now you get a pandemic and you get a lot of free time. And now everybody's got one. So if everybody's got one next year, I'm not going to have one. That's it. 2020 was my last year. You're going down way too soft on that. First of all, you should have sent season to sis and letters to Finley and

Russell. Okay? That's the first thing you should have done. I never marked it. I never trademarked it. But that's okay. You can prove a record. Yes, I can. You're right about that. You can prove a record, a track record, where you were the first one to start doing this. I think you need to hand this over to Neil and Rockville to see if you've got a trademark lawsuit. He would be the one that I would turn it over to. I mean, you know, there are some people who are concerned how much Neil and Rockville, a practicing lawyer spends interacting with talk radio.

shows and, you know, on social media about what comes off of talk radio shows, but I have full confidence in them, as you know. That's the man. That's the man that carried his fight. The mock schedule. This is something, hey, this is something that could go all the way to Supreme Court, and you got it in there. I do have an in there. I do have an in there. I do have an in there. I do have an in there. You're right. But, no, I'm just going to, I'm going to give up. And it's not giving up. It's actually just taking the position that it's run its course.

You know. Yeah, but Kevin, Kevin, 30 years from now, when they're doing mock schedules, no one will remember that Kevin Sheehan was the pioneer of this unless you put up a fight. I'm not putting up a fight. It's not important because there's no revenue generation off of this fight. If you told me that there was a way to generate revenue off of this, then I would be putting up a fight. But I pick my battles. I pick my battles.

I just don't, I swear to God tell me, this is the God's honest truth. Last night before I went to bed, there is every year the night before this schedule comes out, or maybe a day or two before, there have been in recent years all of these Twitter accounts that tend to believe that they have leaks from the NFL schedule. and they start to post some of them. And I was looking through some of those Twitter accounts, and by the way, they're wrong half the time. And somehow it just kept linking me to people's mock schedules. I'm like, my God, everybody's doing a mock schedule.

I knew a couple of people had started to do it in the last couple of years, but then JP and Russell and a bunch of other people. And by the way, I am absolutely mocked up one side and down the other each year for doing this ridiculous exercise that virtually nobody cares about, but I understand that. That was part of the point. Like, I didn't care that no one else cared. But now that everybody else is doing it, I'm out. I'm done.

Okay. Let's go next level here, Kevin. Yeah. You come up with a mock schedule before they announced who the teams are playing, who the Redskins are playing. I mean, your mock schedule just dictates who they'll play when. based on you know who their opponents are. But it's easy to figure it out.

Are you talking about late in the season? Yes. Before we know who their opponents are next year, you predict who their opponents are going to be. Well, let me clue you in on something there, sport. Everybody right now knows every single opponent for the Redskins, 14 of the 16 opponents for the next five years. I know, but at least two openings for you.

two openings, but then it's just based on the standings. So I don't think that that would be very interesting. But I will come up with something else. We got a whole year. We'll come up with something else. But I'm done doing the mock schedule. It had a nice run, Tommy. It had a nice run.

This is disappointing. And I think the people are going to be up and honest about this. Somebody actually laid three to five odds. Basically, 100% surety that I, that I would do it next year. And I responded, no, I'm done. You're going to lose money on that bet. You're going to have to wager a lot to get a little return

because the favorite is for me to do it next year, the overwhelming favorite. But I'm telling you, especially now that people are convinced I won't do it, you in particular. I'm not doing it next year. You know, this is actually a smart marketing move by you because now people begging you to do the mock schedule next year will become a thing.

And how much fun will it be not to do it? Yeah, and you'll be able to just turn them away saying no, no. You'll be like James Brown walking off the stage. That's what it'll be like. There was news on the schedule, though, last night. And I actually considered this a little bit, but I made it very clear when I did it the other day. I was just going to basically approach the mock schedule like it was a normal year.

No pandemic, no lockdown, no, no threat of a delayed season or a partially canceled season. And what John Clayton reported last night, and I would think that he has this news on pretty good authority. He is a Hall of Fame NFL reporter, that the NFL has decided that they are going to play AFC versus NFC games for the first four weeks of the season. So every team will open up with one of the four, you know,

one of the four other conference games that they have scheduled, and they'll play all four of those opponents through the first four weeks. And the idea here is that if you do have to delay the schedule or cancel a portion of this schedule, you know, you want that, you want it to be a balanced schedule the rest of the way. So if you have to cancel four weeks, it's all, you know, AFC versus NFC. So now when you get down to, you know, playoff, you know, competition, everybody's played NFC teams and everything's sort of balanced up. So it makes a lot of

sense to me that they would do that. But the only thing they're going to be missing out on potentially if the season were delayed is some heavyweight matchups between AFC and NFC teams. That's the only thing that will suck. I mean, the Chiefs play the Patriots, you know, and if you end up getting these games canceled, Ravens play the NFCE, so you get a Ravens Cowboys game, a Ravens Eagles game, so you'll miss out on that. But anyway, we'll note, you know what, tomorrow on the show, I'll have the whole schedule in hand. So there you go. And it will no longer be theoretical and play in playtime. It'll be real stuff. And we'll get to look ahead, hopefully, to a season that'll happen. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. I got a question

for you. What's your hair situation like? I got a haircut. You went and got a haircut? I did. Are barbershops open? Two weeks ago, if you recall, barbershops were able to open, but only service people who had essential work jobs, had essential jobs. And I do have a letter that says, as a media member, I don't know if you got this letter or not, maybe I should have provided you. this letter. As you're 1099, you're not an employee, but I should have probably provided you with a letter. But I got a letter. I'm an essential employee, and so I was able to present it at a barbershop.

I had to schedule, couldn't just walk in because they were doing only one person at a time at this barbershop, but I was able to secure a spot. And a week and a half ago, I got my haircut. God, it felt great. Really? I had to wear a mask and gloves, and the person cutting hair had gloves and a mask on. But it was just, I'll tell you what, Tommy, seriously, I love getting haircuts, even though I don't have that much hair. It's a very relaxing thing. I fall asleep 50% of the time in a barber chair.

Well, that would explain some of the haircuts you come away with. Maybe. But, you know, for me, it's a straight one and a half, you know, know, clippers. I mean, it's not hard. And I was doing my own prior to a week and a half ago, because I've got clippers at home. I just wasn't doing it nearly as well. And I didn't get the straight edge to, you know, the back of the neck in some of those other spots. Plus, plus they were able to trim up my eyebrows, which I was not daring enough to do on my own. Not that I even, Not that I even noticed that my eyebrows apparently were long and shaggy.

I feel for everybody that's not had a haircut in two months, but I think guys have figured it out. Well, I usually like going to, I like to go to Sportscliffe. Okay. There's one right around the corner where I live here in Frederick. Right. Because really, the MVP treatment they give you, is literally close to sex. It really is.

So I'd like getting my haircut and the shampoo massage and the shoulder massage and the hot towel. I mean, you know, it's an experience. Oh, look. I mean, at your age, you're just looking for, you know, a once in a while kind word, and at sports clips you get a lot more than a kind word. Absolutely. But I have not had my hair cut.

But you are essential. You should be able to get it done. I really should because I look like a Nick Nolte mugshot. That's literally what my hair looks like right now. All right. So we got a couple of things to get to. You're definitely going to react to the Dwayne Haskins letter, which I did yesterday. on the show. We got to get to the Jack Del Rio tweet. But I wanted to start real quickly with something that I read,

because you and I were talking about the great coaches conversation, the greatest coach of all-time conversation the other day. And I don't know how many people saw this. But did you see what Dick Anderson said about how Don Shula felt about Bill Belichick? No. All right. Remember, Shula was the straight at an arrow as you could find. Oh, my God.

Well, you mentioned that the other day. And he was a very religious man, Shula was. Yes. So Dick Anderson, Hall of Fame defensive back for those 70s Dolphins team, said that Shula did not like Belichick at all. And when I read this initially, and I mentioned this on the show once or twice the last two days, Belichick, you can tell, really respected Shula. You can see it on that NFL 100 show.

Like I think Belichick really considers Shula and Paul Brown were the two that I noticed. He really went overboard on when they were... Well, he grew up in Annapolis when Shula coast to coast. Right. So that, I mean, when he was growing up, Shua was an icon. I mean, his winning percentage with the Colts was like 71 and 29. It's ridiculous. In the seven years he was there.

It was remarkable. So Dick Anderson was doing an interview with CBS Sports Radio. And he said that Shula just did not like Belichick, considered him a rule breaker. He called Belichick, Bella Cheat. He was straightforward, Anderson. said. He said, this is how we do it, and these are the rules, and this is how we're going to follow them. He didn't like people who didn't follow the rules. He did. He was a man, and we kind of laugh about it, but he would go to Mass every morning on the way to practice, and then he would yell

at us the entire practice the whole time. But he, in 2007, when they went 18 and O, before losing to the Giants, Shula apparently was very upset about that team, you know, SpyGate team about to potentially break the Dolphins, you know, mark of 17 and 0 by going undefeated, you know, in this case it would have been 19 and 0 had they finished off the Giants. But that Shula did not respect and didn't like Belichick at all and considered much of his success due to him bending the rules and cheating. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Like we've talked about, Shul was a straight arrow, you know, everything by the book.

And Belichick is just the opposite. Anything to get an edge. Yeah, anything. There was a story the other night that someone was telling, and I can't remember who it was now, but it dovetails off of this, that someone, they arrived at a stadium for a road game. the day before. And they had to practice in that facility. And I want to say that it was the Raiders. I believe it was the Raiders. And so they were rummaging through, the locker room that the Raiders gave them wasn't adequate. So on the day that they went there to practice, I may be

getting some of the details out of place here. But the general substance of it, still applies. So somebody found the game plan, the Raiders game plan for the Dolphins the next day in a locker in the Raiders locker room because the Dolphins had gone in to use that locker room because the other locker room just wasn't adequate enough and they wanted to use a better locker room for the day that they were there to practice. They brought it, that person brought it to the defensive coordinator for the Dolphins at the time and said, look what I found. and he said, well, you're going to have to, you know, you're going to have to bring that to coach Shula. And to make a long story short, they lost the game, and the player said to the defensive coordinator,

what the hell? We had their game plan. And he said, Shula looked at it and said, you put that thing back or you throw that thing away. We will not use that. We will beat them fair and square. we're not going to take any, you know, advantage that wasn't earned. And, you know, I don't, actually with a situation like that, I have a sense that a lot of teams may have returned it, maybe.

I don't know. The Patriots wouldn't have. They wouldn't have. And the Raiders wouldn't have. And the Raiders wouldn't have their opponent. I'm pretty sure the Raiders were the opponent. But yeah, Dick Anderson saying that he did not like Belichick, but I'm telling you, Tommy, I could have this wrong,

and it could be sort of fake from his standpoint, but he really talked in a way in which it was apparent to me that Shula's one of his guys. Like Shula's one of the guys, Paul Brown, he felt the same way about Paul Brown, are, you know, a couple of the guys that he thinks are the greatest of all time or certainly up there among the greatest of all time.

But anyway. You know, I thought of another team that would use it. The Redskins would use it, Except they would still lose. Yeah, well, probably. There's your daily to three times daily shot at the Redskins. Without them even being a part of the conversation. How can you ignore that?

All right. Jack Del Rio. Jack Del Rio is the Redskins defensive coordinator. He's been a head coach many times. He's been a defensive coordinator many times. He's coached great players. mentioned yesterday, I think some of the comments that he made about Chase Young recently. And he tweets a lot.

Like Jack Del Rio tweets a hell of a lot. I don't know how many coaches tweet a lot or don't tweet a lot. Jack Del Rio tweets a lot. He tweeted something at the beginning of this pandemic, if you recall, it was a response to basically a parody site where he thought it was serious. Anyway, yesterday he retweeted a Hogshaven tweet and story. Hogshaven's one of those Redskinned blogs, websites. They've done a really good job over the years, Kevin E. Wall originally, some of those guys.

And I think they've always done a really good job. But anyway, they wrote a very lengthy story titled, How Far Back, did Greg Minusky hold the 2019 Reds? Redskins defense and they went through what was a terrible defensive season for the Redskins last year and held Minoski essentially accountable for most of the disaster last year. And Jack Del Rio read the story, retweeted this story, and wrote the following when he retweeted it. Quote, I'd like to suggest we turn the page and look to the future. Greg is a good man and it is never about one man. look forward. We will spend our energy working to improve at all three levels of our defense.

It's not about talent, but who plays the best on game day? Exclamation point, hashtag on to next, hashtag HTTR. Would you think of that tweet? Well, it's interesting because Jack Del Rio should pay attention to the history, to the past, and learn as much as he can about what's happened here before. And what would he learn that applies to this? Well, give you an example. And I think I have the Twitter account right.

I think it was Dee's Natch, was the Twitter account. Del Rio had tweeted out something maybe a week or so ago about the noise, and to ignore the noise and don't pay attention to the noise. and he was talking about people who criticized the Redskins. Okay. And this, I think it was Steve Nat, tweeted back to him. Buddy, the noise for most of the time came out of Redskins part. Right.

Like you have said. Yeah. I mean, you know, the noise that you're complaining about, a lot of it came right out of, you know, the building. So I think that Jack Del Rio should learn that. as well, and I think he should pay close attention to what happened with Greg Minnowski last year. Not that he, not necessarily for his failures as a defensive coach, but what the owner was willing to let the team president and general manager do to Greg Munnowski last year.

Jack Del Rio should pay close attention to that. These guys better read up and start paying attention to. the noise because the noise is real. And it's going to happen to them if they're not careful. That would be good advice for them, you know. And I do have a sense that, you know, they're familiar with the organization's failures, but they may not be completely familiar with all of the reasons why. You know, with respect to this tweet, first of all, in general, I just, I know.

know that it's a way for them to communicate with the fans and with the customers. And by the way, you know what? The Redskins over the last five years have been in very unfamiliar territory, maybe more than five years now. And that is, you know, finding it incredibly necessary to market their product. They have to. It's their only chance to get people interested in potentially buying tickets, although right now, I mean, I don't imagine that the hiring of Ron Reve's. Varad did much for the ticket sales anyway.

And now with the possibility that nobody's going to be able to go to games, I'm sure every NFL team is struggling. But especially those NFL teams that didn't have significant season ticket bases. The Redskins had nothing in terms of a season ticket base anymore. I don't know what their season ticket base is. It's not necessarily reflective of the crowds because a lot of season ticket holders just didn't go to games. and they may still own the rights to their tickets. But I do understand on some level there is some importance in keeping the team out there

and marketing the team and talking up the team. That didn't used to exist with the Redskins. You know, Gibbs never had to market his team. Now, he wasn't built to do that anyway. He was built to do the opposite. He was built to really deflate the opinion of the team in public so he could clear the bar by, you know, 30 feet, which he did all the time. But there is some understanding, what I'm saying from my standpoint, is they've got to keep the name out there. They've got to market the team from a

business standpoint. With that said, I just don't want players and coaches on this team doing anything except winning. Getting onto the field and winning games. Finally, you know, under promising and over delivering for once in the Snyder era. It would just be nice. And I'm not super critical of Del Rio. He's clearly active on Twitter. He likes to be active on Twitter. But here's the best response to Del Rio's retweet.

And it's sort of what I was thinking. And then I saw this from Galdi very early this morning. Galdi sent out a retweet of his own of Jack Del Rio's retweet. And he wrote, this is either a very classy, message from Jack Del Rio or next level Jedi Twitter shade because his comments shunning the piece

slamming Greg Minusky come in a retweet of the piece thus exposing it to many more readers which is true you know it's like Del Rio is essentially retweeting a story that slams his

predecessor and by the way sets it up so that he clears the bar easily hey guys just in case you forgot, the last guy here stunk. You can read about it right here on Hogs Avon, but what I want you to do really is look forward. He's a good man. It's never about one man.

Yeah, that's a stretch. That's a stretch. I don't know. I think a lot of people will retweet articles to be critical of them. I mean, it gives the context to your criticism. Well, he's not being critical. He's using it as a way to move on. He's saying lighten up on Minnowski.

Look, I think that's a stretch. People do that all the time. I don't know what Gauldi's talking about. People do that all the time. Tommy. They retweet stuff that they don't agree with with a comment on top to explain why they don't agree. Okay. Well, that's fine.

You agree then that it's just a very classy message. He gave you two options. I think he... The second option, basically. You don't have to agree with it. The point is, the point is, is that in retweeting this story, he exposed it to a lot more people. I mean, this is a guy, I mean, Hogshaven does a really nice job. I think a lot of Redskins fans know who Hogshaven is.

He's not retweeting an article from the New York Times. I know that, but he doesn't know that. It's all media. Well, to your point, maybe they better start learning it. You know, he was a media member, wasn't he? Yeah, recently. And he's behaving. And he's sort of behaving on social media like he still is.

You know, I got a nickname for him. It's not a great nickname. You tell me what you think. Jack the Axe. Jack the Axe? Yeah. Why Jack the Axe? When he was a coach in Jacksonville,

he brought an axe into the locker room with a tree stump to basically illustrate how they had to chop wood. And one of his players, a punter, basically picked up the axe and sliced off a piece of his leg with it. I'd really prefer that Jack Del Rio as the Redskins defensive coordinator coach up a really, really good defense that helps them win games before he gets a nickname. I don't have a problem with him tweeting this, if that's the bottom line. I mean, I don't have a problem with him being active on Twitter, even though he's made a few mistakes here and there. It's not a big deal to me. He's not that active.

He may not be that active compared to some. I'm just saying compared to coaches. And maybe he's not that active compared to other coaches. He appears to be the most active coach on this staff on Twitter. Yes. And of staffs here in recent vintage. I mean, how many Redskins coaches do you remember us, you know, reading tweets from? No, you're right.

You're right. I just think it was him defending a member of the fraternity. Yeah, I don't know if he's defending a member of the fraternity. I think what he is saying, and this would go to your first point. This is just the most recent thought that came into my head about this. And that is that he, like everybody else out there, remember Gruden felt this way, Bruce Allen felt this way, Mike Shanahan felt this way, that they've gotten this message that the media is really negative, really negative about the team.

And a lot of the negativity about the team comes from the media. And a lot of the losses are really the media's fault. And that's why he's saying, you know, let's look to the future. Let's turn the page. Let's spend our energy on different things. You know, it's a retweet of a negative article about last year's defensive coordinator. And it probably, Tommy, I know this for a fact. That organization, I don't know if it's this group yet.

that organization really, look, you know Larry feels this way, feels that the media here has been way too negative about the team and that somehow that's really hurt the team. There are some fans that believe it. Which is stunning because I got to be honest with you, Kevin. There are, there are, all I look around and most of the time, all I see are cheerleader. I know. I agree with you. I think it's a very, look, it's not the softest sports media market. I mean, DC's not that, but it is so far from the harshest. I mean, it really isn't that difficult to be in this media market. Is this team scrutinized more than any other team? Yes. Is there a lot of criticism of this team? Well, of course. course there is because they've deserved it. Look at the record. Look at what they've done. Look at how they've done it. It's deserved it. But it's not the reason for their performance. And I agree with you. And this is something that I've, you know, had the opportunity over the years occasionally,

very, very infrequently to have conversations about this very topic. And I've said, you guys don't get it. Like, you're in a media market where most of the people, at least in our format, sports, you know, host, you know, long-form sports radio or sports podcasting, almost everybody is a fan of the team and wants the team to do well. And would much prefer the team do well. I mean, think about it. You know, I mean, at our station, X players, and then guys like Zabe and me, who have been lifelong die-hard fans, right? And then the other station, die-hard fans, certainly Grant. Well, I know Grant is.

The junkies aren't. Well, there are a couple of the junkies that are, I believe. I think they are. Is Chad a Redskins fan or not? Oh, absolutely. So there you go. I mean, the significant majority, now I think there are a lot of writers in town that are from other places

that couldn't care less if they won or not. You're not a fan of the team, but you've been here for a while. And by the way, you recognize that if they want it would probably be better for all of us. But that's sort of the irony is that they have always felt that the media is out to get them. And the opposite of that is true. And it's because most of us really want them to do well because we're fans. A, and the others that aren't fans want them to do well because it helps their business. It would be much better if they were winning big than what's been happening.

Now, the controversy associated with all of their losing, you know, the fact that they aren't a lovable loser and haven't been the furthest from a lovable loser, you know, it's created sort of this community of wallowing fans and former fans. But yeah, I think what I see in that message, and I think, and actually the more that I say it, you know, I'll convince myself that I'm right about it, is that he is trying to say, hey, media, give us a break. Let's, you know, we got a new start here. Let's turn the page and look to the future. You know, because he's heard, which Ron Rivera's heard, because everybody out there tells him just how terrible. the DC media market is and how negative it is. Well, my God, what has there been to be positive about?

I think what happens is when people come in from the outside, even though they may know stuff from the outside. Again, it almost is literally the definition of my rule that if things look bad from the outside, they're usually much work inside. And I think that's what happened to some of these people. What they do is when they're outside, they can't believe how bad it's being described in door because they think, well, no place can be that bad. How could it possibly be that bad?

And then they come out on the other end, all bloody and bruised and hospitalized. Yeah, it's certainly happened. I hope it doesn't happen to this group. And, you know, I am cautiously optimistic that they're going to have a chance to do it their way. And by the way, just, you know, if Ron Rivera feels the same way about Jack Del Rio, just ask Joe Gibbs about this town as a media market when you're winning. I mean, it is fan boy and fan girl, you know, Nirvana. and you're right, to a certain degree, even as bad as they've been,

there is, you know, there is some cheerleading for this team in the market. And I'm not going to sit there and point fingers, you know, but I get that sense. You know, we were always accused at the radio station of being, you know, way too optimistic about the team. And I would be like, you clearly don't listen that much. I think we call it as we see it. You know, I remember, and I'll share this with everybody,

You know, you and I both mentioned the fact that for all those years that Dan Snyder owned the radio station, that we never heard really anything about what we could say and what we couldn't say. And that's true. And anybody that listened to the station, and many of you did, knew that it was not a rah-rah, you know, pennant-waving, you know, Redskins home channel team at station. It just wasn't. But I do remember, and this is 2015-2016, all right, you and I were still doing a show together, and our fearless leader, Rick Carmeen, who was the CEO at the time, walked into my office, closed the door, and he asked me the following question, do you think it would be much better for us if we were much more positive about the team.

And I looked at him and I said, do you just have a meeting out at Redskins Park in Ashburn? He said, yeah, we just had a board meeting last, you know, yesterday last night whenever it was. And I said, and is that what they're suggesting? And he said, I'm just curious what you think. And I told them. And I said, if you aren't honest in this medium about how you feel if you're a show host, it's over. You'll have no one listening to you, especially with this team and the way it's performed over the last 15 years at that point or whatever. And there have been moments and go back and look at

those moments and see how excited we were. I mean, at the time, I said, what do you want for me? I'm Kirk Cousin's biggest fan, you know? But I remember saying them, you know, I'd be glad. to go to your next meeting and have this conversation. I've had it with others before in their PR department. But if you aren't honest, you got no shot because you will be sniffed out as a flag-waving, you know, a communist-run media arm for the team. And that's not what this medium is. There are programs that are team-run.

You know, Larry's show is a team program. program. You know, that's what his show is supposed to do. It's supposed to focus solely on the positive with nothing that resembles at times negative or even reality for that, for that part. But that is a team-owned show with a team employee hosting the show. We were not a team, we weren't team employees. The owner owned the radio station with an investment group that was separate from the team. Now, the team was involved. I mean, you know, to a certain degree because we were the flagship home of the Redskins. But I remember his reaction.

He's like, I just think that things would be better if we were a little bit more positive. And I said, that'd be a really hard sell, I think, for everybody that's on here. And I told him, I go, to be honest with you, I think at times we're really positive, you know, beyond what really is reasonable because we're hopeful. and that's the message you should get across is that every single person on this station is either a hardcore lifelong fan or recognizes that if the team's good, it's better for them.

No one's rooting for the team to continue to stink. And I think that was always what they felt. They always felt that we were out to get them and that we were embracing and, you know, bathing in the dysfunction. Look, you and I both would admit that sometimes it makes for great, funny, and fun conversation. But it's the old saying. Are we not supposed to be creative? Yeah, of course.

I mean, we're entertainers for crying out of wow. Well, it's the old saying. I mean, you know, why cry if you can laugh? You know? So, I mean, yeah, they've never gotten that. Never. Remember Shanahan. I've told Mike this.

I'm like, you think deep. was a tough media market? It's because you came from Denver. I'm like with Jay Gruden, Jay Gruden thought this was a tough media market because he came from Cincinnati. Try bringing Bill Parcells into this market or Coughlin and see if they've got a problem with the media.

They would be like... You know what? What? You know what? In the midst of all this, in what you just said, there's that optimistic gene of yours that just shines through that I love. And that is, when you told Rick, you said you told Rick, do you want me to go to a meeting of the board of directors to talk to them? Yeah.

You have this thing that you're convinced that if you just speak intelligent reason to somebody, they'll understand. You do, don't you? No, no, no, no. is just sit down and just explain, you know, but basically even common sense to this person. And how could they not understand? Well, I'll tell you this. I think if you and I went together, we could do it. But no, the confidence stems from...

I think if you and I went together, we never would have left. The confidence has always stemmed from the fact that I've watched the people that have had to go pitch on our behalf to like a board and I've known Tommy for absolute 100% certainty that I could have done better, you could have done better

and almost anybody that we worked with could have done better than most of those people. You know, we did. But it's your general attitude. I'm sure there was a part of you, maybe this ship sailed a long time ago. There's a part of you that

if you just sat down, and talk to Dan Snyder, his mind would get right. No, I don't necessarily believe that. I think that when it comes to what we do, we have always had, it's a weird business. You know, Gary Braun told me many years ago, and he's so right. He's like the business part of radio, bunch of C-minus dudes.

And by the way, I'm not putting myself at a much higher level as an on-air person. Now, we've had a couple of very impressive people. Bruce Gilbert was an impressive guy, and Bruce is still a friend, and Bruce runs Westwood 1 now and Cumulus. But we had some people that we worked for. Let's be honest about this. Not the brightest or swiftest of the bunch. Yeah, you're true.

I remember one of them my nickname for, I'm not going to say which one. You had a couple nicknames. Yeah, I know, but one of them was Simple Jack. Yeah, well, I remember Simpropic Thunder. I remember Simple Jack. I remember Frosty. I remember the ghost. The ghost.

I was going to say Invisible Man. Ghost. I remember the ghost. Yeah, you always had a nickname for all of them. But the bottom line is, back to the Del Rio tweet and wrapping this up. I actually really believe that that's a big part of where this comes from. He has been told, and I'm sure Ron Rivera the same thing, and Del Rio, what big markets he, well, he's been in the Bay Area, but Rivera is a coach coming from Charlotte.

This is going to be a bit jarring compared to Charlotte, you know, but I think they've been told that the media is super negative and that they're to blame for a lot of what's going on here, which is just absolutely false and outrageous to even. even think if you have half a brain in your head. But I do believe they think that. And I think that's what he was doing here. Is he read a negative article about the team, even though it was last year's team? And he's like, look, you know, we're turning the page. Let's look to the future. Let's spend our energy, you know, on looking forward. And look, I don't want to go down this path too much. But if he's a media person, he needs to recognize which media is what.

Okay. Hogghaven is not the Washington Times or the Washington Post. Okay. It's a fan-friendly site. It exists for fans. It's not there. So, I mean, so, I mean, he needs to understand that if he thinks that site has some negative issues, then he's going to have a big drop. You know, that's a good point. And you know, the funny thing about sites like that, And I think, you know, some of our conversations I put in the same category, I actually think that they are deeper and more informative than some of the bigger, you know, outlets for covering the team because they're solely dedicated to the team.

You know, it's not dedicated to sports. But they don't put, Kevin, come on. They don't talk to anyone on the team. They don't interview anyone on the team. How could they be better informed? Some of these sites do. You're wrong about that. Some of these sites have good sources. Some of these sites include interviews with players and different things. And I can't tell you which ones do. But Hogshaven's one that's been around for a while. I mean, Kevin Ewald, who was part of that in starting that, and Kevin's been helpful to the podcast over the last year and a half. Big help. He had one of the few interviews a few years back with Dan Snyder on Hogshaven. I mean, many years ago. do you think that is? Well, it was a fan site.

Okay. What? Okay, there you go. Yeah. That's why. Right. No, no, no. I get what you're saying that, and I totally agree with you, that if Del Rio's got a problem with a fan site, get a load of what's coming from the Post and the Times, sports talk radio, and other places if they shit the bed again for the next few years.

But again, you know, the bottom line is, and I know some people sometimes have a problem when we say this, you just, if you don't know, it's fine, but trust us, this is not a tough medium market. It just isn't. It's tougher than Denver. It's tougher than Jacksonville. It's tougher than Cincinnati. It's probably in the top half of the league in terms of tough media markets, but it's not in the top quarter. Now this market cares about the football team or has cared at various times about the football team.

But for the most part, it wants it to do well. And people that are writing, covering, and talking about it, want it to do well. All right. Let me quickly read this ad about my bookie, and then I want to get to your thoughts on the Dwayne Haskins piece. Whether you're down on your luck or just down because you're stuck, find relief with My Bookie where there's never a quarantine on fun. Life Without Sports is finally nearing an end this week with the UFC putting on its first show in nearly two months and you can bet the house that everybody's going to be watching.

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bookie totally reliable when it comes to fair odds, fair games, and a timely payout when you win. All right. Wait a minute. I just wanted to just go back one thing. When I said that they don't talk to players, I just want to make clear, I didn't mean interviews for everyone who's going to say, what about these interviews? I meant talk to players, conversations that don't wind up seeing the light of day, but that wind up as back. background material. That's what I mean by players, not interviews.

I don't know how many of these sites have those kinds of relationships. I think sometimes what you've done, because you come from that world where being at every practice and being at every game was the way to create and establish relationships, and it's a much better way to do it. I'm not denying that. And that gave you the ability to get a ton of information,

background information, even if you never wrote about it. But I do think that some of these sites and more people than you think in this day and age have more than just interview opportunities, but conversation opportunities. I'll just leave it at that. All right, what did you think of the Joanne Haskins story? And just one last thing on this. Of course, you've got to go to the last one. No, no, no, no. I just want to say that, you know, and the reality is that at this point, given a new administration in particular, any connections that I have conversations like that are at an all-time low.

Yes. Well, for everybody, except for those beat reporters on the beat right now, in fact, that's a really, really good point. Unless you've got an existing relationship with the new group coming in, in those first, I don't know, you could tell me how long it is, but the people on the beat have an advantage right now. They're getting to know these people face to face before anybody else has a chance to do it. Okay, so do you want me to tell you what I thought of the Dwayne Haskins piece first

or do you want to go first? No, you go ahead and tell me what you think of it first. Okay, let me just tell you, because I'm sort of repeating what I said yesterday, and I read much of the piece on the air. going to do that again. I thought the letter was nice, Tommy. I thought it was, first of all, in contrast to the other outlet where we get most of the communication from Dwayne, which is social media, that it was long form and it came off as nice. Let me just say, too, that he isn't really, you know, a guy that does a lot of media, and I think it's the team being protective

of him. You know, he does the required media, which is the Wednesday during, you know, the season that he's got the quarterback has to speak and then the post-game presser. But everything else we hear from him is basically social media. But I thought it was a nice long-form story. I thought it was self-reflective. I thought it was self-aware. And this was the big thing to me. If you had told me that Dwayne Haskins is about to put out a first-person account of his first season in the NFL. I would have thought what was coming is some excuses about the situation he came into, what happened specifically and why it wasn't necessarily just him or his fault about the giant game. And one of the things, and maybe the biggest takeaway for me,

is there was no woe was me, woe was me. It was absent of any mention of the organizational shit show that he came into. There were no real excuses about any of the negative things that happened last year. I liked that. It was also, and I acknowledge this, it was missing anything regarding the selfies at the end of the Lions game. But I actually thought in long form, he came off as self-aware. and responsible. Okay.

I think it was nice, too. First of all, do you think he wrote it? Before that, whose idea do you think it was? I don't know. Do you have an idea? I don't. I would bet that it was, you know, my bet is it was probably the team's idea, which I actually think turned out to be a pretty good idea. I would think it was the team's idea.

Yeah. I think he wrote it. Yeah, I think he wrote it. I think it probably got edited, you know, just like your stuff gets edited. But I, you know, he was the editor of his school newspaper. I know. So I think he wrote it and it probably got edited a little bit. But, you know, whatever.

Most people get edited when they're writing something except for whatever. I mean, whether or not he wrote it or not is kind of a big deal. I think he wrote it. I think it was edited, but I think he wrote it. He says he wrote it, so I'm going to believe that he wrote it. And it was very nice. That's all you got? Well, how can I argue with it? It was a nice. It was very nice. It was very professional. It showed a level of maturity in how it was written.

There's nothing bad you can say about it. I mean, you know, he didn't mention any coaches one way or the other, either positive or negative, I don't think. So, but. Which is high road, because most of it would have been negative. Really? There's not a positive thing there any. You think there's a positive about Jay Gruden? Kevin O'Connell.

But once you mention O'Connell and once you mention Callahan, then you are pretty much excluding, it becomes pretty obvious. You're excluding Jay Gruden. No, you're right. You're right. Look, I thought it was very well done. Yeah. That's all. I mean, there's nothing controversial in it.

I think it helps his image. I think it was a positive step. And I have nothing but good to say about it. Yeah, I'm with you. I thought you would have more than that. It's not that I'm totally surprised by your response, But I thought, you know, when I mentioned mine, one of the reasons I wanted to mention my response first was because I was hoping that it would be the perfect setup to, Kevin, are you serious? And I thought that that was a possibility, which is why I wanted to give you my opinion first.

Well, it's good. I'm not so predictable. Well, you're pretty damn predictable, but you definitely, you definitely. You definitely fooled me there. So good for you. Now, even if he didn't write it, I just wanted to talk about this. Even if he didn't write it, the idea of ghostwriting articles, it's something that goes back a hundred years in journalism,

and particularly sports journalism. It wasn't unusual. I'm reading this book about Babe Ruth, written by Jane Levy. It's an awesome, a remarkable book. And Babe Bruce used to write a column about the World Series games, but he didn't write it. Somebody else, his agent, Christy Walsh, would write it, or he'd hire a ghostwriter to write it,

and they put Babe Ruth's name on it. This was very common in years ago, ghostwriting. It kind of disappeared when radio started to take hold, but athletes having ghost-writing stories was very common. And I just want to remind somebody, North Turner used to write a column for the Washington Times. He did? Yes.

During the season? Yes. Now, this was when Cook was at war with the Post. And so he wanted to do everything he could to help the Times. Now, Norv didn't write it. You know, he got final proof on it. He didn't write it. But, yeah, North Turner used to have a byline column in the Washington Times.

Really? Yeah. Who wrote it for him? I don't recall. I don't recall. It could have been different people. I don't recall. I was much more involved with the baseball coverage at that point.

I mean, when you say somebody wrote it for them, I mean, isn't the general idea or ideas of, you know, a first-person account? Isn't it provided by the first person? Yeah, the person will sit down and be interviewed, and then somebody will take those words and put them in written form. You know, and then, yeah, they are, I mean, in that case, I'm sure they were Norve's thought. Right. You know, I don't know about, you know, anyone could,

I don't think anyone consulted with Babe Ruth about their columns that they wrote. They may have. I don't know. But again, this is not what Dwayne did. did. Dwayne wrote it because he said so. Yeah. I mean, you say it matters, and then you said, you know, you asked me, don't you think it matters whether or not he wrote it or not? But then you talked about how ghostwriting was commonplace.

So as long as it represents. Yeah. It isn't anymore. You know what? The players tribunes, that's a ghostwritten thing. You know what was interesting is when I read it, it sort of came. off like a Players' Tribune piece. Well, they're not right in that, those guys.

Yeah. Okay. Do you want to talk about the leagues and the state of their returns? You had mentioned that to me before the podcast. What do you got on that? Well, I mean, it sounds like everybody is figuring that, not everybody, but a lot of people think the NFL is going to happen. A lot of people are convinced baseball is going to start playing. maybe by July 1st.

And I think it's all pure insanity. I think it's all insane. I think it's nuts. You know, and I'm not talking about what we think will happen. Nobody knows what's going to happen. You know, on both sides of this issue, everybody is speculating. There may be more intelligent speculations on different, you know, from different sources. But reality is nobody knows what July, August, September, October is going to look like.

Nobody has to... Here's what we know. On the day that we are talking about going back to having sports and live events, 2,000 people a day are dying in this country. That's the only thing we... That's a fact, is today more than 2,000 people will die. How can you actually seriously say that, yes, I have no doubt that football is going to have a football season this year, or yes, baseball has to come back this year.

Nobody can predict anything. I know you have to make plans. I know you have to come up with plans and contingencies, but the reality is the football season is in jeopardy for this year. It still is. I mean, I just want, you know, I don't have real strong. opinions about this, Tommy, because I really don't have an effing clue about this. I mean, and by the way, it's not because I'm ignoring the news. I'm actually too consumed in it, my family would tell you. But it's like it's so contradictory. It's so every, you know, you can

read or watch something and then 15 minutes later read something or watch something that's the total opposite of what was just said. And it's in an area where it's really hard, unless you've got a real medical understanding to have a concept. By the way, there's breaking news all over the place. The president's, the White House valet, who has served the president, his meals, just tested positive for COVID-19. I'm laughing.

I'm laughing because it's, I mean, this is somebody super close to the president who got it, that you would think that they would be, these people would be the most careful. I know. I agree with you. That's part of my point. The information is so conflicting that the only fact that we can really hang on to is today. And today, more than 2,000 people are going to die. and that's that even if it's 80% of people over 60 that's still a frightening number and I know there was a football player who said that you know they shouldn't come back to play until they're 100% sure that they'll be safe well you know that's that's the extreme no one no one has 100% of anything you know so that's not going to happen but that that's the other that's the extreme of not coming back, of coming back no matter what the risk. My point is, if a football player feels that way, there will be other football players who will feel that way. More importantly,

there will be other football players and baseball players, families who will feel that way. And there'll be some real heated discussions in home about, you know, if the league decides to go back about whether or not players will. say, or players' wives or players' families, don't say, you know, what about our safety? What are you going to do? Right. I mean, again, I just think that they're going to have a hard time unless there is the treatment breakthrough that significantly reduces the fatality risk.

They're going to have a hard time corrowning all the players into going along with this in any sport. You know, when you said, you know, 2000, the reality is that 2,000 people are going to die each day of this. You know, the average number of daily deaths before all of this in the U.S. is like 8,000, you know, per day. Like, you know, of all sorts of things, right? Every disease, heart disease, car accidents, this sickness, that sickness. And those numbers always go up in the wintertime because of influenza. like the average number of daily deaths in the wintertime are like between 8 and 9,000 per day,

whereas other times of the year it's more between, you know, five and 7,000 per day. I understand the transmissibility of this particular virus. It's like one of the most easily transmitted viruses ever. I also know the one thing that seems to be a fact, because everything else seems to be a fact. that is really, that's presented as fact, but ends up being speculation or projection. The fact right now is that the death rate is super, super low with this particular virus, much higher with older people and with people, you know, people with underlying diseases,

almost non-existent in young people. And even though a significant percentage of people are going to be infected as we go back, to some sense of normalcy, most of those people aren't like 9.99% of those, 99.999% of those people aren't going to die. And 99% of those people aren't going to get seriously ill. And so what we do know here over the last month is that many more people have been infected, many more people are getting infected, and because of that, it's simple math. You divide that by the number of deaths, and you get a much lower death percentage, a much lower, you know, mortality rate. And so I think at some point it will make sense to me.

I don't know what it will mean, and I don't know that this thing isn't going to mutate in something that's more virulent and more of a killer. But it does seem to me, and I look at my own house, that it's time for young people and people who aren't sick and don't have underlying diseases and aren't 75 years of age and older, basically, you know, people like you, I think those people need to get back to work and get back to... I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about sporting events. Well, those are younger people. I mean, sporting events. Except for coaches, except for coaches, which apparently is a big concern in the NBA. Yes. And baseball. and it should be concerned on every bench and sideline.

Yeah. Officials, too, referees. And again, what about diabetics or people with high blood pressure? Well, they have an underlying illness that could contribute to a much higher getting sick rate. So they should be, they should continue in lockdown. But I don't think right now, again, this could change two weeks from now when they say, and I was reading something yesterday or the day before about a new strain of COVID-19. And that means that they got to start working on another vaccine.

I also, you know, was excited this morning to hear about that other medication in addition to Remzvdere, however you pronounce it. But I just, today, like, we've got catastrophic consequences coming because of what we've done to this economy. 20% of our country is out of work. Unemployment's approaching 20%. You know, it's... Kevin, these are two different conversations. I'm not having that conversation.

I know you're not. My conversation is... About sports. How can you plan on having sports on a day when 2,000 people are dying of this one particular disease? I just don't see... I mean, you have to plan. But I hear people on the radio. I hear it all the time say, oh, there's going to be a season.

And I'm thinking based on why. I don't know anything right now. I'm excited for the schedule, though, Tommy, to come out tonight and start dreaming about September and our football season. I don't know what the answer is. I mean, you know, look, we know more about this now than we did in early March. When you were the first of people in my circle of professional. and personal friends who said tournament.

Teams getting, no, no, they're not playing this tournament. You were ahead of the, you were definitely ahead on that one. And what happens if on July 2nd, it's opening day and it's, you know, beautiful days all over parks. And then on July 3rd, some New York met outfielder test positive for COVID-19. and now, you know, the rest of his team needs to be quarantine for two weeks. Like, how can you have a season if that ends up being the result? I don't know. I agree.

That's the difference between the prediction I made earlier and, like, you know, about the tournament is I had a level of trust. And, you know, and that was based on what they were doing at Harvard. When the Ivy League canceled their tournament, I said, these are smart people, you know. Why is it that the Ivy League shutting down before anybody else? What do they know that we don't know? There are a few scientists, you know, running around Harvard Square and MIT. I don't think that even the smart people know what's going to happen. Yeah.

That's all. Crazy, crazy times we are living in, although it's becoming. Again, I hope. I mean, I hope I'm going to see baseball at Nats Park sometime this. I hope I'm going to be in the press box at Ghost Townfield for a Redskins game this year. I hope all that happened. I hope right now my number one hope after I want everybody to stay healthy and stay safe. My number one hope is that there's enough of an indication that we're going back to some level of normalcy

with, you know, social distancing and washing hands and wearing masks and the whole thing, to clear my house. That's what I am hopeful for. And if my son, one son, listens to this podcast, you know I love you, and I love you very much. But we've had too many people in the house for too long. But I love everybody in the house. And you know, the truth of the matter is, thank God I've had a group of younger people in their teens in early 20s. that have actually been really responsible and helpful.

You know, because it could have gone the other way, absolutely could have gone the other way. And the arguing every night is a constant, but that would have been a constant in, you know, in healthier times, in non-pandemic times, because there is always in my household a sports or a political argument to be had around dinner time when everybody is home. By the way, when things get really rough on the politics,

we just steer it to religion, Tommy, because that seems to make it much better. All right, what else we got? I don't have anything else. I'm actually... I got something else. Okay, go. Tomorrow, May 8, 50 years ago,

is what's still considered the greatest act of, you know, arguably, at least in basketball, the way of the example of court coverage in the history of the NBA. I mean, the 1970 Knicks, the 5970 Knicks. This is your team. He beat the Lakers in game seven, and they beat them because Willis Reed, who was injured in the middle of game five, missed game six, and they didn't know if he would be playing in game seven.

Got his legs shot up with quarterstone, walked out of the locker room while teams were on the court warming up, and sank the first two shots that he took of the game. And then didn't make another shot. And they pummeled the Lakers in game seven. Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Will Chamberlain. Walfraiser, I think, had 36 points and 17 assists in that game seven. God, those box scores that we see from back then, they're amazing, the numbers. I mean, Dave DeBuscher had 17 rebounds in that game, and that's against Baylor and

St. Berlin. So, I mean, that, to me, I had to listen to the game on the radio, a car radio, because I was at an event at my high school that I had to be at, so we would sneak out and sit in the car. And I remember listening to Marv Albert, make the call. on the car radio, because back then, Kevin, this may be before your time, but back then, car radios had the best reception of any radio you could get. Oh, really?

I didn't. I don't remember that. I used to sit in my dad's car radio, car at night sometimes, and listen to CKLW at a winter Ontario. I do remember those days at night being in a car where you could pick up stations all the way, that big station in St. Louis you could get. in D.C. Yeah, and car radios were the best.

So I remember listening to it in a car radio. And again, to me, it's one of the most defining moments of my childhood. You know, I mean, the Mets were important to me. Tom Seber was important to me.

Joe Navith was important to me, but nobody's more important to me than Wall Street and what those Knicks teams did, those great Nick teams, particularly the one in that. And that's still the measure. They still show footage of Willis Reeve walking out of that locker room today

when they're talking about somebody else coming back from an injury to play. That's still the gold standard. And one of the descriptions of that moment was how the Lakers stopped their warm-up when Willis walked out of the locker room and just looked at him as he walked across the court and started warming up with the Knicks. And there's some people who think that's when the Lakers lost the game when Willis walked out of the locker room. If he had hurt himself, it would have been Shanahan's fault.

That's for sure. You know, I'm looking at the box score from that game. So you mentioned Frazier, 19 assists, 36 points. 19 assists. Okay. All right. Dave DeBusher, 18.17 rebounds. here's the thing that I thought I've read about, and that is that while Willis Reed came out, and he hit a shot like on the first possession of the game and the place went nuts, you can tell me if that's true or not, that he barely played after that.

And actually, that's not true. Looking at the box score, he played 27 minutes of the game. But he didn't score another point. He scored four points. He hit the first two shots. Four points, exactly. Yeah. he hit the first two shots to give him a 4-0 lead outside shots i might want to point out

outside jumpers yes he he was a good perimeter shooting center yes yes he was the uh the most remarkable statistic from the box score of that game seven in 1970 the nick's beating the lakers 113 to 99 will chamberlain did have 21 points and 24 rebounds in the game but he was one 11 from the free throw line. Oh, he was a terrible free throw. One for 11. Oh, my God. That heard him more than anything.

There wasn't a hack of a wilt strategy back then, right? I guess, you know, Will never fouled out of a game. Yeah, I remember that. You know, the Knicks won the title that year. They beat the Bullets, the Baltimore Bullets, and seven tough games. in the first round. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, that's... I remember there was some bad blood between Jack Marin and, and I think it was Bradley, maybe, or somebody. I remember Jack Marin was a scrappy player who was always getting

in fights in those nick games. That's the first season I remember as an NBA, as a kid. It was the first season that the bullets were in Washington. I don't remember. the bullets being in Baltimore. But the first year that they came to Washington was 73, 74. The Capp Center opened. And they were called the Capitol Bullets that first year. And they were good. You know, they were really good in Baltimore.

And when they moved, when Abe Poland moved him to D.C., and even though they weren't playing in D.C., they were playing in Landover, they had become D.C.'s team, and they were called the Capitol Bullets first year. Then they changed it to Washington. I don't know why they went Capitol and then to Washington. But I recall Tommy in that first year, a seven-game series against the Knicks. And I was so disappointed because I had already become an Elvin Hayes, West Sun-celled fan.

Biggie, I was doing turnaround, you know, turn-around fadeaway jumpers off the glass on, you know, the neighborhood court when I was, you know, when I was that age. But I want to say the next year was the year, yeah, the 73-74 was the Nick series, and then 74-75 was the year. They beat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals and got swept by Rick Berry and the Warriors. There you go. Okay. I did have one more thing. I can't believe we forgot to talk about this, but the Brendan Leipzig story. Did you see this, the Capitol?

Yes, I did. Okay. I don't think you'll be seeing here. him in the Capitol's uniform again? That might be true. For those that don't know the story, Caps winger, Brendan Leipzig, this is his first year with the team.

He's not a significant player, right? It's like a fourth liner, I think. He apologized last night after images of inappropriate and defensive private messages were leaked on social media. Those messages included misogynistic and profane language.

part of a private message group with it looked like friends of his, including maybe his brother. And he apologized for it last night. Some of the things that were said, one of his comments made in response to a photo posted by a player who plays for Vancouver, Tanner Pearson. Pearson was greeting his young son and his wife during a game, and there was a photo of it. and Leipzig insulted the appearance of Pearson's wife, basically, you know, calling her fat. Look at Pearson's wife, L.O.L. So fat. And there were other comments as well that were demeaning, etc. What did you think other than that he's not going to be on the team? I think you've got to have a no-tolerance policy to this. I mean, whether

or not he intended for it to be public or not. It is public. And the only, here's what happens. Here's how you change behaviors. You make the cost of the behaviors so prohibitive that people think twice before doing something. And that's the only way you're going to change the thought process where some young guy thinks it's okay to do something like this. We're at a time now where this kind of thought process. is validated.

Okay. We're going in the wrong direction. The capitals have a chance to basically say, no, this is not tolerated. I mean, even if you were talking to your buddies, we don't want anybody who talks to their friends like this. God. What if it were a really good player? Well, like Jimmy Johnson said, 25 rules for 25 different players. Yeah.

I mean, they may. That would be. That would be a tougher sell. You know what? He's not. He's not a good player. You don't have to tolerate it with this guy. I know.

But if it were a really good player, you know, Ovechkin or Baxter or Baxter or, you know, Oshy or somebody like that, then we would. You have to suspend them. Then we would really focus in on what happened here because this is a fraction. in terms of how disgusting it is or how intolerant of this kind of behavior people should be compared to something that if it was a great player, they would be immediately suspended or cut for. Like actual assault,

you know, actually, you know, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, you know, the things that really have driven the Me Too movement. Because this, Tommy, first of all, You know, and I understand what you're saying. It should make people think twice. And I think what you're saying is it should make people think twice about what they say, whether they're saying it in what they believe to be a very private, small group conversation

with trusted people versus public comments where obviously this would not be acceptable publicly. But I do have sort of, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, degrees of things that you, you know, get alarmed and outraged by. This is a lower degree offense, in part because he thought he was part of a friend group, a private friend group on, by the way, social media versus a group text situation. I think it, because it was on Instagram in a private Instagram setting, it may have been easier for this thing to get leaked and then screenshot it, etc.

It may have been more difficult in a group text setting. But look, they're going to probably cut him because he's not much of a player. If it were a really good player, that player would get a slap on the wrist and said, and there would be public outrage over it and all of the right things would be said, but that player would not be released for this. No, no, they wouldn't be released. Because this is a conversation, let's be honest, that 50% is my guess. It's a random number, but I believe that it's somewhere around 50%, with a plus or minus 10% margin of error, okay, have had much more harsh and more crude conversations with their buddies in a group text about women.

But that's my point. My point is when somebody pays the price for this publicly, you're taking one step closer towards, basically those people thinking, you know, maybe I, you know, here's the thing. This is the lesson that everybody should learn from this. You don't have to express every thought you have. No, you don't. And, you know, as you mature, you realize that. But these guys are in their 20s, and most of them aren't that mature. And so what you think, you know, what you think, what you just said is what you think now,

as someone who's mature and as life experiences and has a completely different perspective. But I'll tell you what, at the University of Miami, when you were burning down your fraternity house, if there had been social media or group texts, you'd have been letting it fly with your buddies. So, I don't know. Actually, I don't think I ever would have done something like that. I don't know. I mean, look, here's the thing. For me, I'm not, I'm not to, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I had a hard enough time without making fun of them.

Right. Of course. I mean, I'm not into disparaging women at any, you know, in an ugly way. It's not who I am, and I, and I don't think it's who you are. But there's no doubt I've been involved in text discussions about the appearance and the, the look of females that we know. And we don't expect that to go anywhere except in the group. Sometimes it's very positive. And sometimes it's not. And he got caught in not very positive.

You mentioned the word degrading of women a couple of times, which isn't a good word, a good verb to use in a sentence about women. He meant it to be private, young immature. He'll learn from it. but I think you're right. I think he'll probably either get suspended or released because he's not much of a player. But had this been a really good player, it would have been, you know, apologies, all sorts of, you know, outreach to various groups for the player to get involved in, to learn from his mistake, and to contribute to something. But he'd be playing in the next big game, whenever that would be.

Probably. One last thing here, actually, because somebody just texted this to me and I find it interesting. It's the first I've seen of this. Draft Kings, which is a huge gambling outlet. You know, they're huge daily fantasy, and now they've got, you know, online casinos and brick-and-mortar casinos throughout New Jersey. draft kings went public 10 and a half days ago and their stock is up 40% so far and darren ravel just tweeted this darren revell in the former business guy at espan i think he works for the action network now and his point is a good one the fact that their IPO now maybe the company was undervalued i doubt it

but the fact that it's up 40% since the open 10 and a half days ago it certainly says a lot about how institutions and even consumers think and believe will happen with sports betting, that it's going to bounce back because the numbers are way down. Now, maybe that was factored into the price, the depressed revenue and profitability numbers at this point, and it can only go up from here. But his point is it gives you an idea of what people are thinking with respect to the return of sports.

The NFL is 10, 11 bills. billion dollars top line. I think we're going to see an NFL season come hell or high water, Tommy, somehow, some way. We'll find out who the Redskins are going to be playing in just a few hours. You're going to have to convince players. Yes. Money can convince players. And players are going to have converges. Okay, does the NFL want to be the business that says, we don't care how scared you are of your help? You have to work. I don't know. There's a lot of of jobs out there that are a lot unhealthier than taking the risk of getting a disease that's going to kill a lot less than 1% especially young people. So I don't know. I mean, to me,

I'm not talking about doing this for the health of the country and the healthy economy, but I think the majority of players would probably roll the dice and play football for the kind of money they're making. And for, you know, at their age and in their condition, most of them, the true risk that it would present. And again, that risk could change, as we said. For all we know, two weeks from now, it's going to be a new strain and it's going to be wiping out the entire globe within six months. I hope not, though.

And that's not a decision. That's not a decision they make on their own if they're married. I understand that. And many of them aren't, though. And many of their wives will say to them, uh-uh, get to work. and we'll be just fine. But some won't. But keep those paychecks coming.

Some won't. And all takes is some. Yeah. Well, they can then, you know, replace them with those that will. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Another good look. Look, they're worried about the fear of public retribution for testing players

while most of the public isn't tested. They're scared to death of that. They're scared to get of the look of testing their own players when the public can't get testing. You think they're going to go ahead and force players out because their family fear health concerns about this? No way. That is not going to happen. They are not going to cut players because they'll be enough of them because they refuse to play because of the virus. That's not going to happen.

I'm tired of talking about this. Because it's going to be an outdated conversation shortly. Most of ours are. By the way, there are a couple of CBSSports.com leaks on the schedule. And this first one that I'm reading would indicate that John Clayton got it wrong. Because according to CBSSports.com, the Saints are going to open up the season against the Bucks. That Brady's first game is against the Saints. That's not an AFC, NFC, NFC.

matchup. It's amazing with this schedule in advance how many things are reported incorrectly, even by a guy like John Clayton. Now, maybe this is wrong too. Who knows? Here's another leak. Bears, Packers playing in week 17. Vikings Lions playing in week 17. I don't see anything about the Redskins on any of these leaks yet, but we'll be getting schedule leaks all day long. One of the things that apparently is true that the teams got the schedules much further in advance than they typically do for some reason. And so the likelihood of more leaks is higher than in previous years because these teams have them. And by the way, even though it's always the media's fault, the teams leak a lot of that stuff to the media. Yeah.

All right. Have a good day. I'll talk to on Tuesday. All right, boss. We're done. Enjoy the day. Back tomorrow. We'll have the actual schedule to go through. We'll do that.