The Kevin Sheehan Show - Washington's Week 1 "Must-Win"

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Kevin on several things to start including why Washington has the NFL's biggest "must-win" game in Week 1. JP Finlay joined the show to talk Commanders...so did Barry Svrluga/Washington Post.   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 Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Two guests on the show today. J.P. Finley will be with us shortly and then Barry's Verluga after that. I can tell you right now it's all commanders talk with one exception with Barry at the very end.

I asked him about where his alma mater, Duke would be three or four years from now in terms of conference affiliation. Yeah, the ACC is in a bit of trouble. But who knows how it will play out. I mean, nobody saw SC and UCLA going to the Big Ten. I kind of think that maybe an ACC team or two, maybe North Carolina, maybe UVA, maybe Duke, who knows, could end up in the Big Ten. But we'll ask Barry about that. But that's after a ton of Washington commanders discussion. I was up late last night, a day after I was explaining to Tommy that I've been forgetting

things here and there like I thought I had lost my credit card, but I hadn't, even though I reported it as lost, and my wife was starting to become concerned about me because I usually don't do those things, very coolly-esque. I blamed it on lack of sleep, and I stayed up until 1.15 a.m., a little bit longer, actually, before I finally fell asleep. I watched the Nick Curios catch-and-off match last night in the men's quarter finals.

I am definitely a curious guy was rooting for him. I think he's good for tennis. I think he brings eyeballs to tennis in terms of viewership. And he lost in a fifth set after forcing a fifth set

with an incredible tiebreaker in the fourth set. There's something about that U.S. Open over the years, those late-night matches, the drama of it, you know, mono-a-mano. And this one was great last night. Curios lost. And this men's field is wide open. And I guess this is a segue into me suggesting to all of you, especially those of you, that are interested in the Francis Tiafo story, that I had somebody on the radio show very early this morning in the first hour. That person's name is Vesa Panka.

He's the president of the JTCC tennis facility out in College Park. He's been there from the jump, and he has been a part of watching Francis Tiafo grow up in that center, become a product of that tennis center, and now a threat to win the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadow. The Tiafo story is an incredible one, and he told all of the details. He was there front and center for all of it, for the family and for the growth of not only Francis, but his twin brother as tennis players. and that interview, which I did very early this morning on the radio show, is available at the team 980.com. Just click on the first hour of the show, and he came on roughly at 6.40 a.m. That followed, by the way, Neil and Rockville, who jumped on to talk about this epic Bruce Allen testimony yesterday in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Tommy and I talked about it on the podcast yesterday.

no details have come out as of the airing of this podcast or the recording of this podcast. But I have to think that Bruce Allen being there for roughly 10 to 11 hours of testimony, that it probably wasn't good for Dan. But then again, as I mentioned to Tommy yesterday, I would imagine that Bruce Allen can say to, you know, three quarters of the conversation or question, I wasn't there for it. Because most of what's been investigated, most of the allegations, as I've said many times over

over the last year and a half to two years, most of that stuff happened pre-2010, predated Bruce's hiring. Even though Dan and Tanya and the organization would love you to believe that somehow Dan was detached from all of this, and this was all Bruce's fault, and I'm not taking Bruce off the hook for a lot of things associated with this organization and maybe the continuation of a horrible culture. But a lot of the allegations from women about the toxic workplace, a lot of even the financial impropriety allegations,

all predated the hiring of Bruce Allen. Again, it's been one of those mysteries for me that while Dan has tried to make people believe, that he was kind of detached during this time frame and he let Bruce run everything. Almost everything that's been alleged happened before Bruce got here. When Dan was at least from, you know, most people's perspective, much more involved. It's crazy that more people out there haven't picked up on that fact. Yeah, some of the allegations have happened post Bruce's heart. hiring, but most of it is all before Bruce got there. I wonder how much of John Gruden came up

in this conversation. But anyway, I'm not going to spend much time on that because really, there's no information at this point. We know that the two of them can't stand each other. We know that, you know, Dan held up payment from Bruce during the pandemic. We know that Dan sued Bruce. We know that Dan suspected Bruce of being a part of the leaks about the Epstein stories that came out before the initial post story in 2020, July of 2020. We know that Dan, as part of the commitment to pay Bruce all of what he owed him, asked Bruce for a seven month ago congratulatory text message on hiring Ron Rivera.

Do you remember that? Do you remember the post story about Bruce Allen being asked by Snyder why he didn't congratulate him over the hiring of Ron Rivera and asking seven months after the fact for a quid pro quo on him paying the rest of the money that Bruce send him some text that says congratulations on hiring Ron Rivera? this is why when anybody, anybody suggests, you know, and I had London Fletcher on the podcast last week, in London Fletcher like Clinton Portis and like Santana Moss, and like others, Chris Cooley at various times, have always been kind of surprised at the outrage over Dan Snyder. Well, it's because they were stars. And Snyder has been very much, you know, a jock, you know whater. and the stars have always been treated well by Dan and Tanya and the upper echelon of the organization. It's the lesser people that have been treated poorly.

But my God, does anything speak to a fragile ego, a Napoleonic complex more than Dan Snyder needing seven months after hiring Ron Rivera, Bruce Allen to text him a congratulations on the hiring. My God. Anyway, I guess, you know, at some point we'll find out what Dan told the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and at some point we'll find out what Bruce told them. And maybe it'll end up being headline worthy. Who knows? But we've got a season to discuss.

It is Wednesday. Tomorrow night the season opens. Sunday, Washington faces Jacksonville. I'm worried about that game in terms of Washington. The line is now down to two and a half in a lot of spots. A lot of sharp money on Jacksonville, a lot of public money on Washington. Yes, I think when we get to Friday show, Jacksonville will be on the smell test. Again, I don't personally believe that this game will tell the tale on the season.

It's going to be a slow roll potentially for this team. I see a very high floor, as I mentioned the other day, seven wins minimum. I just don't think that they're that terrible. And I think that Ron Rivera's teams over the course of time have never imploded. So I see no less than seven wins. But that doesn't mean that they're not going to lose to Jacksonville on Sunday and that I'm not going to have Jacksonville in the smell test because I probably will. And again, I'm not going to overreact, but most people will.

And the reason that most people will is this is the highest pressure game for one team in week one. No team in the NFL, in my opinion, has more pressure on them to win this weekend than Washington does. you could point to Dallas and say that the Cowboys opening up with the Bucks at home and the expectations of the last couple of years and Mike McCarthy and what he needs to do. But they're playing the Bucks. It's not, I mean, there are two and a half point underdog in the game. But I do kind of feel like there's some pressure on Dallas to really be a good team this year.

You know, or there are going to be big changes made by Jerry. And so there's some pressure. on McCarthy and on the team there. To a lesser extent, I do think there's some pressure on Minnesota this weekend. You know, the bottom line is Mike Zimmer has been blamed by as many people as the group of people that have blamed Kirk Cousins for the Vikings missing the playoffs the last two seasons. After winning a playoff game in Kirk's second year in New Orleans, after a good season, The Vikings were terrible on defense last year.

They were awful along their offensive line. The hiring of Kevin O'Connell, there is a vibe if you're following the league that says Minnesota's locker room is a much happier place with Mike Zimmer not in it. And you go back to, say, 2016, Kyle Shanahan was the perfect fit for Matt Ryan, and it kind of all came together for Matt Ryan that year in Atlanta. I'm not suggesting Kirk and the Vikings are going to the Super Bowl or that Kirk's going to be the MVP. But what I am telling you is I think the expectations,

especially for cousins, but really for the team as a whole, have been elevated because like the big bad man, Mike Zimmer is gone. And now, you know, a Shanahan disciple, a McVeigh disciple, somebody who really knows Kirk. There's some pressure on the Vikings to do it, and they're playing the Packers, and they're an underdog,

but there's a little bit of pressure on them to get off to a good start. They lost their first couple of games last year. You know, one game at the gun, or one game in overtime with a fumble, and another one with a missed short field goal at the end. They start with the Packers and the Eagles. this year and getting off to a slow start would be problematic for, you know, the Vikings. So I think there's a little bit of pressure on them. And I think, you know, to a certain degree, and this should be easy, although you know, you never

know it's the NFL, I think there's a little bit of pressure on the Colts, bailing on Carson Wentz, saying all the things they said about Carson Wentz, not just the owner, but the general manager, and even the head coach, but definitely the general manager, Chris Ballard, going out and getting the guy that they have been raving about all summer, as finally they've got leadership, finally they've got a guy that they can trust in Matt Ryan. And I believe they've upgraded at quarterback in Matt Ryan. They open up on the road against Houston, you know, a bad team, one of the perceived real bad teams in the league. And the Colts open up with Houston in Jacksonville. And I think there's some pressure on the Colts to get off to a good start and prove that they were right.

That they were right about Carson Wentz, right about Matt Ryan. And Matt Ryan, they had no idea would be available when they traded Carson Wentz. But I think there's, you know, semi-pressure on the Colts to bounce back. They play two road games, Houston and Jacksonville to start, but two games in which they'll be favored. and they're the biggest favorite in week one. They are a seven and a half point favorite against the Texans. That's the biggest favorite on the board here in week one right now. But I don't think anybody, anybody has the pressure that Washington has.

Lots of reasons for that. Number one is what I've talked about many times. This is very much a startup venture. It feels like an expansion team. We've talked about that. It very much for them business-wise is like a startup venture. Of course, they have some customers. They have some paying customers.

And they've got customers that'll be watching them on TV. And more than any other team in the market. But we know that they've lost roughly, you know, two-thirds of what they had five, six, seven years ago. And maybe more than that. and of the two-thirds roughly of fans that they've lost, a third of those are probably never coming back. You know, unless Snyder is out,

and then even then, the name change was a significant reason, is a significant reason that winning won't solve everything. Snyder leaving won't solve everything. So they've got to target a new, younger, independent, you know, voter. That's really the analogy. They've got to target the independent voter. They've got to target the swing vote. They've got to win the swing vote here.

The younger fan who really hasn't made up his or her mind on their favorite team, but they like football. And maybe they like some of the new branding and the new name. And maybe they had an issue with the old name. But like with anything new, if your first experience isn't a good one, well, you're not coming back more likely than not. The analogy to a restaurant isn't far-fetched. You go into a restaurant and the meal sucks for the first time, a brand-new restaurant or the service sucks.

You're not going back. And this is what Snyder's known all along for many years, that if he lost the name or had to give up the name, that he'd lose a lot of that emotional attachment that people had, even when the team sucked, and now they don't have it as much. So it's very important for the business of the franchise to have a good start to the year and end up having a contending team, a team that is in the hunt and is being discussed as a decent team with a playoff chance, if not a playoff appearance.

Number two is Ron Rivera's told you during this offseason. Now, he's backpedaled a little bit, but he's told you about this third. year in his five-year deal. The third year in Carolina was the first year. They went to the playoffs. They built with Cam Newton in year one, year two. And he did talk about, you know, going to the playoffs in the first year in 2020, backdoor, you know, seven and nine division winning style was maybe a bit of a problem for them. He wasn't going to give it back, but he didn't want them to get ahead of their skis in terms of where they really were. But, you know, he has set the expectations. And by going big after a quarterback,

and Russell Wilson and even landing on Carson Wentz, you know, he believes and he is sort of telegraphed that this should be year one of a run. So there's big time pressure. And then the league gave him Jacksonville and Detroit to open up with. Now Jacksonville and Detroit were the two worst teams last year. They're not supposed to be the two worst teams this year. So, you know, The point spread tells you all you need to know about what the odds makers think. They think this game's a toss-up, and week two will feel very much the same way, I think, against Detroit. Now, week one results could change things significantly. But Washington losing to Jacksonville, even though I wouldn't discount their chances of having a good season after one game,

because I think there's a chance it could start slowly. But the perception is going to be disaster. total disaster. And God forbid for them that a lost to Jacksonville is accompanied by a horrible performance by Carson Wentz. You know, it's one thing if they lose a 3734 overtime game, and it's the defense that was the problem. And Carson Wentz threw four touchdown passes and for 382. And he was the reason and their weapons on offense were really exciting. The context of that kind of loss could be different. But a lot of pressure on Washington, more so than any other team in the league, in my opinion,

for week one. I think there's, you know, extraordinary pressure inside that building. They know what a loss to Jacksonville will feel like. I can already tell you what the calls will be, and they will be lined up on Monday morning if they lose. They win. They'll be lined up as well. But anyway, with that, I wanted to talk about Carson Wentz here for a moment. Because many of you sent me some various things that were written about Carson Wentch yesterday,

including The Ringer, which ranked the quarterbacks, the projected starting quarterbacks in the NFL 1 through 32. And Carson Wentz came in at number 27, ranked higher than just. Justin Fields, Davis Mills, Zach Wilson, who might not even start, Jacoby Brissette and Mitch Trubisky, ranked in front of Carson Wentz, Daniel Jones, Trey Lance, Gino Smith, Marcus Marriota, among the 26 quarterbacks ranked in front of him.

And what I would say to you is that's just off. That's wrong. He's not the 27th best quarterback in the league. I've talked about him being somewhere between 17 and 21 for a while now. And with a ceiling that's, you know, when I say 17 and 21, that's where I think he is kind of right now. But his ceiling is higher than that, which is why they made the trade they made. My personal view is they've upgraded, but I don't see him as the long term answer. I've said that before, but here we are a few days before the regular season starts, and I'm just telling you, my position on Carson Wentz is he's an upgrade, and they might be a better team this year, and they certainly should be a better offense, but I still am not convinced he's the

long-term answer. Like, I don't see us looking back after the next three to five to seven years and saying that was the trade that turned it all around. They had an elite, you know, upper echelon quarterback for, you know, prime years of his career, and they ended up winning a shitload of games and went to a lot of playoff games and made it to a Super Bowl and won one. I don't see that happening with him. But I do see them being better on offense, and because of that, potentially being a better team than they were last year, and there are other factors in that as well. But 27th, come on.

And then there were odds out there, put out there by sports betting.ag. They released odds for the first quarterback to be benched due to performance. Trubisky's 3 to 1, Mayfield 6 to 1. I think Matt Corral is hurt, and isn't Sam Darnel hurt as well? Daniel Jones 6 to 1, Mills in Houston 7 to 1, and then Wentz is 9 to 1. Wentz is the sixth best odds to be the first quarterback benched due to performance. I would never make that bet. I know Tommy would.

Certainly Tommy would make that bet. Tommy thinks by week 8, right, or week 10. whatever it was. I do not think that Carson Wentz will be benched for performance at any point this year. I think the only reason he will be benched or could be benched is if they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. This, by the way, these are odds benched due to performance, not injury. We're taking injury out of this conversation.

What I am saying is that there's no way after they are. When all in, all of the eggs are in the Carson Wentz basket, there is no chance he gets benched due to performance until they are mathematically eliminated from the postseason. So I think that would be a bad bet. That leads me to this. Where is it? So I got this tweet from Chief. Chief is a skins guy, a Terps guy, and he sent out this tweet, and somehow I came across it. I responded to it on Twitter.

He tweeted out, quote, it's funny how the media couldn't say enough good shit about Fitzpatrick, but struggle to say anything positive about Wentz. Crazy part is Fitzpatrick was an interception machine. Another example of how the media controls a narrative, hashtag HTT. So, you know, I just told you that the ringer, you know, the Bill Simmons production, has his the 27th ranked quarterback in the league. And the odds from odds makers are high that he would be the first quarterback bench due to performance.

And there's been plenty of national pundits that have slammed Wentz and the expectation levels are low on Wentz with many people in the national media. and look, my position, again, I'm skeptical, I'm wait and see. I think he should be better than what they've had. I expect him to be better than what they've had, but I don't know that he's the long-term answer, and I'm still not crazy about the trade personally in terms of what they gave up. I wish they had gotten Russell Wilson. We'd have a whole different outlook on this season if Russell Wilson were the quarterback.

But I disagree with this tweet. I don't think, by the way, he didn't differentiate between local media and national media, for starters. So he's saying media as a whole, maybe. I kind of get this sense sometimes, and maybe it's my own sort of sensitivity to this, because the local media often, many of us get criticized for being anti-team from this small group of people that are kind of like, get on board or get out. Well, you know, you guys are in the, you know, significant minority, as you probably can tell when you go to the games, like you did last. year and it's a whole row or a whole section to yourself. But the Carson Wentz thing is interesting

because he's been a little bit of a lightning rod so far. You know, and I don't even know if it's polarizing because I think more people are skeptical, a lot more people are skeptical than are all in. But specific to the tweet, people said great stuff about Fitzpatrick but can't say anything about Wentz. I personally don't think that's a Fitzpatrick Wents issue. Consider where we are now versus where we were a year ago. A year ago, the team was coming off a seven and nine season, but a playoff season and a competitive playoff loss against Tampa, even though it wasn't as close as many people try to make it out to be. That game, by the way, is taken on a life of its own. They gave up 500 yards and Chris Godwin dropped five balls in the game. They were not the most, the biggest

threat to Tampa during their Super Bowl run. A Green Bay was. I mean, Green Bay had them on the ropes in the NFC championship game. But anyway, they had gone to the playoffs in Ron Rivera's first year and with Taylor Heineke, okay, and all these different quarterbacks playing, they played, they got themselves to the playoffs and played a good game. They used to. They used to did. They played a competitive game against Tampa. And more than that, you had the defensive rookie of the year and you had a returning defense that most people projected in the top five to top 10 in the league. And a lot of the fans here locally and even the media here locally felt like it was a top five defense. And all they had to do was get a better quarterback to improve

the offense and have the offense be more consistent. Nobody was thinking Taylor Heineke at that point, even though he had started and played well in the playoff game. He had only played in the Carolina game before that. And so nobody was thinking necessarily, well, Sabah was and a few others were. But everybody was thinking about, you know, who are they going to get to be the quarterback now that Alex Smith is gone and, you know, Dwayne Haskins is gone. And they went after Matt Stafford in that offseason. And they ended up signing Ryan Fitzpatrick to a one-year deal. Fitzpatrick came in off of two of the best years of his career, lots of personality.

And the idea was with this great defense and with the success from the end of the year previously, that Fitzpatrick was going to potentially be the guy to lead them to another playoff birth, that they could be better. Now, we talked about the schedule and the quarterbacks that they were facing and the offenses that they were facing a lot before last year. But the context is different. Last year, there was optimism because coming off, you know, a competitive playoff loss, having a defense projected to be top flight, top tier, and just needing to upgrade the quarterback and add another skill position player or two,

which they did in Curtis Samuel. So there was a feeling of, man, you know, if Fitzpatrick can be the Fitzpatrick of the last two years, this could be a pretty good team. This year, they're coming off a seven and ten season, excuse me. The biggest question marks other than Carson Wentz is a defense, which we feel totally different about after a major regression season in which they finished next to last third down D. They were awful DVO defense defensively. It was a terrible season. It was a terrible season marked by poor performance and then, you know, injuries. And so a year later, nobody's thinking top five to top ten defense anymore.

They might be thinking that, but nobody else is. So I think the context is different. I think if they had traded for Carson Wentz a year ago and signed Fitzpatrick this year after Fitzpatrick, let's just say had another good year in some other NFL city, it would have been different. I just think it's more about, you know, the overall. And by the way, like, not everybody feels that way. Carson Wentz has an upside here.

I don't know that he'll achieve it. I'm not predicting that he'll achieve it. Fitzpatrick didn't. Fitzpatrick was a one to maybe a two-year solution. They traded for Carson Wentz because they think Carson Wentz can be a part of this five-year run that starts this year. I just think it's interesting because Chief isn't the first person to kind of suggest

that the media is trashing Carson Wentz. And again, I think it's much more of the national media. And others have said people are more positive about Ryan Fitzpatrick. Again, I think it was the situation that Ryan Fitzpatrick was in versus the situation that Carson Wentz is in. And the defense is a big part of that. Anyway, there are a few other odds and ends here. I just want to bounce around on,

and then we'll get to J.P. Finley. Number one, there was a story that came out. It was a Bleacher Report story that Chase Young reportedly had re-aggravated a knee injury at a Von Miller Pass Rush Summit. That story is, false, according to Nikki Javala from the

Washington Post. She retweeted that story and wrote, this is false. Young was not invited Devon Miller's Pass Rush Summit because they knew he was rehabbing from his knee injury. The only player that attended was Duran Payne. I was told Young is still

on track with his recovery. That was one thing. Number two is, Washington named their team captains. Today, they announced their team captains. Carson Wentz, Terry McCleorn, Logan Thomas, Charles Leno Jr., John Allen, Cole Holcomb, Kendall Fuller, and Tress Way are the team captains this year. The alternates are J.D. McKissick, Chase Young, and Jeremy Reeves. So I guess they have alternates for captains.

So I don't know that there are any surprises. Remember, Chase Young was given the sea put, had the sea put on his chest last year. you know, and then didn't show up for any of the OTA days in 2021. But, you know, Tressway and Fuller and Holcomb and John Allen and Leno, Logan Thomas, McLaren, and, you know, the quarterback, you know, is probably going to be a team captain in almost any situation, not any situation, but in this situation, given where they are, that is not really a surprise. I also wanted to mention a few things that Mark Mass.

actually wrote about. I think I mentioned that there's going to be an emphasis this year on illegal contact penalties being called. All right, not defensive holding, not defensive pass interference, but illegal contact penalties. You know, those can be really, really ticky tack. And Maski has today on Twitter, there were 22 illegal contact penalties called league-wide during the preseason that was up from seven a year ago.

So more than three times the number of illegal contact penalties from a year ago called in this particular preseason. So look out for that. You know, advantage offense, again, disadvantaged defense could lead to, you know, more possessions being extended, more scores, more plays. especially on incomplete passes where the clock stopped and then you get another down. You know, it's second and seven and now it's a legal contact penalty. Now it's first and ten. Or, you know, the worst are the ones that come on third and 17 when a quarterback gets rushed and then dumps it out and you've got a legal contact called on the other side of the field

when there was no chance of that quarterback throwing to that receiver and no chance if he did that he was going to pick up a first down. This has the potential to frustrate us, I think, in the early portion of the season. Because what we've seen in the past when the NFL wants to emphasize something, you get a lot of those calls. You get a lot of that emphasis early in the year. So we shall see something to keep an eye on starting tomorrow night. Also, one thing that Maskey reported in his story today, You know, the NFL considered Labor Day weekend as a start date beginning next year or the year after.

Apparently, they're not going to do that. Maski said there are no immediate thoughts of changing to opening weekend being on Labor Day with a longer break between the preseason and the regular season right now under the 17-game format. So one of the reasons with the Labor Day weekend start would be that we wouldn't have these two. plus weeks between the final preseason game and the first game of the year. Labor Day weekend, the NFL used to open up on Labor Day weekend, but it's been more than two decades since they did it because the ratings, the television ratings, weren't good for Labor Day weekend because people are traveling.

They're still, you know, having, you know, the last vestiges of summer. And so there. I had one other quick thing. This was also a Nikki Javala tweet from yesterday per the Redskins PR group, the commander's PR group, sorry. That Washington's opener against Jacksonville will be their first AFC South opening day opponent since 1979. Not that I desire to work for the Washington Commander's PR department, but as I've suggested in the past, there are a dozen of us out there and probably plenty of you listening

that all they had to do was just check with us, and we would have told them that the Houston Oilers, when Washington opened up with the Houston Oilers in 1979, were not an AFC South team. The AFC South didn't exist in 1979. The four division per conference changes came nearly 20 years after that. 1979, the Houston Oilers led by Earl Campbell were in the AFC Central Division with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Cleveland Browns.

And the 70s were a good decade. You know, the latter portion of the 70s were a great decade for Houston. And on that particular day, Earl Campbell rushed for 166 yards, two touchdowns, and the Oilers won 2927. In a season which would turn into one of the exciting seasons of that particular era with the most devastating defeat, in my opinion, in franchise history. The 79 season ending in Dallas with a 35 to 34 loss, just minutes away with a 13-point lead. away from being the number one seed and the favorite to make the Super Bowl to being completely out of the playoffs. Man, and Harvey Martin threw a wreath into the locker at the end of that game, burying his arch rivals. God, the rivalry was incredible back then. That game still, I've mentioned it many times in the past,

still one of the greatest regular season NFL games in NFL history. The stakes being what they were, the rivalry being one. what it is and the back and forth nature of that 35-34 game. But anyway, I didn't mean to wax, you know, nostalgic on that particular game. But Houston was not an AFC South team in 1979. And Washington, opening with Jacksonville at home, is actually going to be the 13th time since the merger in 1970 that Washington will open with an AFC team.

They've done it 12 times before their record in those games against AFC teams in the opener, four and eight. They've opened against the Chargers three times and the Dolphins three times. Those are the teams in the AFC that they've opened up with the most. This will be their first ever opener against the Jags, even though in 2015 they did play the Jags in their home opener in week two, following their last opener against an AFC South team, the Houston Texans, in 2014, excuse me, in 2014. 2014, they opened up with Houston on the road.

RG3 got hurt in week two against Jacksonville at home. Cousins came in, they won 4110. And then it was a back and forth thing the rest of the year between Cousins and Griffin and Colt McCoy. So there you go. All right. That's it. for this opening segment, which was brought to you by My Booky.

The Bills and the Rams kicking off the season tomorrow night. Prepare for your winning season at My Bookie, whether you're a veteran better or a first-timer. My Bucky gets you the most for your money with a double deposit bonus. It's quick, it's easy. A $250 deposit puts $500 into your account. Very few shops are doing this right now, guys. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. That's Kevin D.C.

and they'll double your first deposit. All right. Again, there are promos out there. Very few are doubling the amount of money in your account. You've got to use my promo code Kevin D.C. If there's something written in the promo code area, erase it, write Kevin D.C. You can bet on everything at MyBooky. All of the preseason props are out there, the season win totals.

And of course, night one tomorrow night and week one of the NFL season, and including all of the college stuff for week two. Your winning season begins today exclusively at MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.com, mybooky.ag, and use my promo code, Kevin D.C. J.P. Finley, up next, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. J.P. Finley is with us on this Wednesday podcast. The first, you know, typical, let's get ready for Jacksonville and our next game day in terms of the practice work week.

By the time you listen to this podcast, The first injury report will be out. JPs headed out to the park. Of course, he does a show with Brian Mitchell on 1067 The Fan from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. They are now our sister station to 980, and J.P.'s got the podcast, the Football Talk podcast, with Pete Haley and Mitch Tishler as well, where you can get wherever you get a podcast. So before we get to some big picture, stuff associated with this team and this season. A couple of things real quickly. Like the first depth chart came out yesterday, and Trey Turner was still listed as the starting right guard, and we haven't seen him. Do you think he's going to be the starting

right guard, or is West Schweitzer going to be the guy that plays? That's going to be a really interesting situation, Kevin, because they know kind of who and what Turner is, and I think they think he's fully ready to go, I think they'd go with him just because of the history he has with the coaching staff. I don't know. I mean, a lot of

those depth charts, especially early on, like the first, second one we get in the preseason are truly meaningless. Now they kind of start to matter a bit. But considering just how can that dude be in football shape? Like, how? And what's the temperature going to be

Sunday at FedEx? Probably be in the... I think it's in... I actually look this up. Chance of showers and like in the low 80s, I think it was. All right, so it's not too hot, but what are his legs going to be

like in the third quarter? And I don't know. I... That's a really interesting scenario. I kind of think it has to be Schweitzer, but I don't know. And if it is Turner, it's because

they know who he is and trust him. All right, let's stay on offense. What are the chances that Logan Thomas plays, and then if he does, how much do you think he'll participate? Man, I've been saying I first kind of heard, it was like probably July, like Fourth of July before camp, but that Logan was ahead of schedule and they were really hoping he'd be ready for week one. And then obviously, you know, you put him on the active, so you put yourself in a situation. especially they ended up keeping all those tight ends. They moved Hodges to the IR, but if they were worried,

they obviously think he's ready to go or will be ready to go. Otherwise, you can try to maneuver that roster a little bit different, knowing you wanted to keep at least they knew they wanted to keep Rogers. So I think he's going to go, man. I think he's going to go, and I don't know, I don't know if there's a pitch count. but I think they trust a lot of these other guys to varying degrees, so maybe you don't have to lean on him entirely, but Carson Wentz love throwing the tight end.

If they get some red zone work, I imagine they love having Logan out there. We'll know a lot more, like you said, by the time this podcast comes out later, practice will have happened and we'll know a lot more. And it'll be the first injury report of the year. And Ron is such a hard ass about injuries that this is the first time he has to disclose.

some stuff. But my expectation on Logan is that he played. My takeaway last week off of some of the Brian Robinson Jr. conversation and Antonio Gibson conversation, where Ron Rivera inserted Jonathan Williams' name into a couple of those answers. I just kind of took from that, because I've known all along going back to last year that they really do like Jonathan Williams as a between the tackles thumper. I just kind of thought, you know what, if they they, you know, let's just say they return the opening kickoff or they feel the punt, you know, after Jacksonville first drive, that number 41 Williams is going to be the first back to walk out onto the field on Sunday. What do you think? You know, that first backs of is so kind of hard to predict because who knows that they want to come out and have a big play.

Right, but I'm talking about when they mean to, when they when they have a back and at least one tight end, they're in 11 or 12 personnel. and they intend on being balanced and trying to have the threat of a running game. I think Williams has a chance to get the bulk of those carries versus Gibson on Sunday. What do you think? To that point, I got into it. I think I was arguing with Mitch on our podcast, actually, that whether, let's say there's 25 carries to be had in the ballgame, right? I think before Robinson went down, that would have looked something like, six and four, something like that, right?

Because I think they're going to get the kissing a couple carries. Right. In Robinson's favor. Now, I still think Williams is going to play a big role. If you go back to that Tampa game and that, what was that, like a nine-minute drive they had? Yeah. It ran the ball hard as hell on that drive. Right.

And I think, I don't know, this team and this coaching staff seems to kind of care about, like, making sure players, like, feelings are okay and, like, kind of massaging players' egos. So I wouldn't be stunned if maybe Gibson gets some of the first work just to try to make him feel, because they need him. Like, he's still an important part of his offense. And if that requires some massaging, so be it. But, dude, if there's 20 carries and it ends up breaking that Williams has 12 of them, wouldn't be stunned at all. I agree with you that he's going to play a role. And, and, And frankly, I think some of the offensive coaches grew quite frustrated last year with Gibson, and everybody focuses on the fumble.

Then obviously that's a major problem. But there's just yards left on the field. And I don't think the way they want to use play action, Carson, they don't want any yards left on the field by the running backs anymore. Yeah, I think – I don't know. I've talked about this a lot, and maybe you have as well. I know what the PFF numbers say. I know what my eyes told me, which was I just thought Antonio Gibson got better and better from the first year to the early portion of last year and then towards that four-game winning streak with his vision and his patience, especially with those zone runs. And Scott Turner basically told me that on the show, he came on the show three weeks ago.

And he said, Antonio got much better as a runner and really improved. Remember, he didn't have enough experience, you know, as a runner in college. So I kind of still think he has massive upside. But, you know, there's no doubt that they felt that way. You're 100% right. And even though during that four-game winning streak, he basically averaged 24 carries a game, you know, during that stretch. Yeah. And was a big influencer on those four wins.

It still wouldn't surprise me if we see Williams. On defense, what do you think we're going to learn today? about Cam Curl? You know, I don't know. I talked to Bobby McCain last week, and he was very dismissive of the notion that Curl was going to miss time. He made it seem like, yeah, he's going to be out a couple days, and it's not a big deal. Now, you can't trust players talking about their own injuries, so you sure as hell can't trust players talking about somebody else's injuries. But McCain's a veteran that's been a better in that's been a big deal. And he can't trust players talking about it's been in the league a while, and the casualness with which we talked about it kind of sat well

with me. They need curl. Luckily, safety is a position I actually like the group they've assembled. I like the young guys they have there. But still, I think you could argue Cam Curls are most important defensive piece just because of his versatility. And he's a really good shirt tackler. Alan's probably their best player.

but, you know, he's kind of a relative one-trick pony in that he rushing the faster and tries to establish a lot of scrimmage. Curls all over the field. I don't know, Kev, and it's a weird one to try to speculate on. If it's a thumb injury and it's about pain management, you kind of think he'll be able to go. But if it's a thumb injury and they're worried about it getting worse or getting re-injured or something like that, then I think you've got to be cautious and remind yourself at the 17-game season. Is Derek Forrest DeShazer Everett in their mind? No. I think right now that's probably Percy Butler.

I think Forrest is going to play a lot of defensive snaps kind of right away. And if you remember, Everett, for whatever reason, never rarely got on the field with the defense barring, you know, he would kind of be like forced on the defensive. death chart most of the time. He played a ton of specials, and I think Forrest will play in a time. But I think Forrest is your, is your Buffalo Nickel, and that was with Curl healthy. Right. So now if Curl's missing time, I think Forrest is out there. And then I think, and then maybe they move Butler to the back and move Forrest up when they want to go to the Buffalo

package. I would, I think Forrest is your third safety. I think for the bulk of the Shazer's time here, he was kind of a fourth. Yeah, no, that's true. I was more talking about stylistically and the physical nature of his play. Yeah, I'm with you there. I mean, he's a thumper on the back end for sure. Just like the Shazer was fairly almost reckless, I would say. I mean, he played the game at a violent pace. I think Forrest might, he's looking for big hits, but it might be a little more under control,

We'll have to see because, I mean, he was hurt most last year, barely played. So we're going to have to see, you know, I mean, he obviously brought the wood in OTAs and then had some good hits in the preseason. And I don't think they want to take any of that out of him. One last thing just about Sunday, because the depth chart had Dax Milne as the kickoff returner and the punt returner. Are they going to use him on kickoff returns? I thought that, you know, I thought they would use Gibson on kickoff.

returns. Not that it's a big play in today's NFL, especially early in the season, but is that what they're going to do? Dax Milne's going to be the kickoff returner and the punt returner? It's unclear. We'll have to get Ron on that, but he talked kind of at length about Gibson as a kick returner and kind of the options that gave them and the versatility. I would still expect to see that, but maybe after the Robinson injury, or I don't know call that an injury or what, but the Robinson shooting, you know, maybe they feel they need to be a little more cautious with Gibson until he's back. I don't know. I don't believe Dax Milne has ever returned kicks.

I know he returned one or the other in college, and I want to say it was fun, but I could be wrong on that. Dax Mildon is the guy that I believe is sure-handed and won't make stupid mistakes, which are vitally important in the point. punt game. The kick return game's a little different, and I mean, I would put Gibson back there personally. I would also just tell him to stay in the end zone and start at the 25. I mean, what we saw in the preseason was terrible. Is Diami Brown perhaps an inactive player early in the season? To me, I don't see a way around it. Especially if Milne, even if Mill's only your punt returner. Yeah, he's got to be on the... Certainly, right, you need a out there and then the top

four to me are super obvious in McCorm, Dodson, Samuel and Cam Sims. Tim's the only one that does something different for you, right? Like he gives you some size. Brown, I think people, I feel like public sentiment is probably swayed a little

too far on Diami Brown in the negative way because he can still get separation and that still has a lot of value in the NFL. But the route running is not precise. And I think you've got a question, I don't know if it's toughness, but like in that Ravens game, he had two balls hit his hands in the end zone, and he came down with neither of them. And, you know, some of that becomes, to borrow a phrase from our mutual friend, Ryan Keel,

it becomes will over still. And you've got to come down with one of those two. Give me a player that none of us and none of the people listening are really thinking about that we're going to be talking about sometime, you know, in the first half of the season, as a guy who's contributing in a big time meaningful way, but we didn't see it coming. I don't know if Cole Turner counts anymore, but if Logan misses time or comes back and maybe isn't, you know, he's got to get back in football shape too. I think Turner has really good hands. And early on in camp, he and Carson had, I thought, a hell of a dynamic brewing.

I also, man, I don't know what they're going to do with linebacker, but I do find it interesting that, you know, the kid Eifler caught on late last year and then was able to stay with them this season. His Atlantic profile is pretty damn impressive. and I don't know that they, unless Jamie Davis is really able to take a step forward that many are hoping and expecting and maybe some aren't really holding their breath on,

you know, athletically, Holcomb has really good sideline to sideline speed, but Eiffler can be pretty impressive. I like Percy Butler a lot on the back end. I think by the time we get to like Halloween, Thanksgiving, I think he could have a pretty good role for them. those are something like down the roster guys i would say dude and one guy i think you know i don't want to like generate false excitement right because he could also be inactive but i think um

i think i think shakotony i was just going to say that i was just going to say that i was going to be my that was going to be my guy and i was going to start with you know he might be inactive but with chase young out he might be their most explosive edge pass rusher. They obviously like him. I'm glad they kept him. And I was going to ask you if you didn't mention him, do you think that he could have a pass rushing specialist role on third and long? I want to say yes.

And I think it matters that he beat out William Bradley King. Me too. Yeah. Like that matters. The coaches had to make a decision and they picked that guy. He's not traditional kind of size for the position, but he's explosive. Like you said, I, my, is not, I'm going to say discipline. I don't mean something like getting detention and cutting school.

Like, I don't mean it that way. But they talk about pass rush discipline so frequently and how disappointed they were in the Chief game that, you know, the guys got out of their spots. For Tony to make an impact, he's got to be able to prove he can do that stuff. Yeah, because that's how he's going to get on the field, right? But Two Hill, I think, is more athletic than people getting credit for. I think he's actually decent coverage. Who'd you say, I'm sorry.

You broke up there. Two Hill. Oh, too. KC. Too Hill. Got it. The path for shotgun to get snaps, right? Yeah. Sweat is obviously locked in on one side.

So then you're talking about Two Hill. Smith Williams. James Smith Williams. Because Effie Obata, they're going to play this five-man front a bunch, and they didn't really show that much in the preseason. I think that was on purpose. I think they're going to play this five-man front a bunch. And when they do that, I think they're going to kick Obata inside a fair amount,

which would be interesting. Obato's a player that I'm pretty interested to watch on the field, because he size speed stuff is pretty impressive. But the path to snaps for tough. are proving he's more explosive than Two Hill and James Fitzwill. Two guys that I think he could maybe prove that. But I'm trying to remember what game it was. He had a dumb penalty.

It might have been the first preseason game. The home one. It was. It was, yes. But he also had pressures. He can't do any of the dumb stuff that pisses Rod and Jack off. Yeah. And because the athleticism and the explosion at the snap are real.

By the way, you mentioned something, just so everybody, you know, who is hung up on the linebacker situation, one of the reasons they're not maybe as hung up on the linebacker position as we are is because they're not going to play more than two at a time anyway. You know, they're going to have a five-man defensive front or they're going to play St. Juice in their nickel package. And that's going to make a... up 75% of their defensive snaps.

And 25% of the time, or much less than that, will be sort of a base for three defense. Anyway, all right, big picture stuff. Well, I guess I just asked you a big picture stuff on a player that could end up being a player that surprises. I don't know if you talked about this on your show yesterday or not, or maybe the day before, or the day before is Labor Day. I don't know if you worked on Labor Day. But the Wents ranking in the Ringer,

which I talked about in the open of this podcast, being 27th with guys like Gino Smith and Marcus Marriota ahead of them, Daniel Jones as well. The odds of him being the first quarterback to be benched for performance, he's got the fifth best odds on that. There's this narrative that Wentz didn't going to be the guy.

I think personally it's more of a national narrative than it is a local narrative. That's my opinion. But what do you make of him being nationally, at least, in some of these odds and some of these conversations and some of these rankings, really being dismissed as, you know, a guy that's a lower-tier NFL quarterback? Yeah, he's become a punching bag. And it doesn't really add up. But he, I think a lot of fans don't want to hear it. And everybody wants to blame it on Jim Ursay.

Like his reputation from Indy took a pretty big hit. And I think it's easy to dismiss. I don't know that easy. But you can dismiss what happened in Philly. Because everything went sideways from a million different angles, right? But then Indy was really set up for him to succeed and it didn't. And you can talk to people. I've talked to people from indie,

not on the record, not hot take nonsense that are really issuing words of caution, I would say, right? But that was... I saw that. We talked about on the show. You have him behind Gino Smith and Daniel Jones. Like, that's a joke to me.

I get this question with his decision-making. My thing with Carson is look at his career and I dismissed 2017 when he played at an MVP level. I think the injuries would probably just sap too much of him from that level. And then because that's the high one, right? And then I also, I removed the outlier of 2020 when he got awful as everything was melting down in Philly. And if you remove the high and the low and just look at the averages,

the averages would be better than we've gotten in D.C. since Kirk. So what the national media thinks of him is relatively irrelevant to what matters in Ashburn for a team that won seven games last year and ideally can get to nine and a wildguard this year. So I think you put him behind Gino Smith and Daniel Jones. Like you're either trolling or I don't know what the goal there was, but I don't agree with that whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, I think it's very healthy. I mean, we've both probably beaten this to death, but it's very healthy to be skeptical. I mean, you know, regardless of what the reasons were, the bottom line in this league, if you've got a really good quarterback, you don't ship them out at great expense to your franchise. You just don't do it. And so it's happened for two straight years. So you're, anybody that believes that it's somehow just a Jim Mersey thing, you're just really naive. This league just, doesn't have enough of them. And if they thought they had one, they would, he'd still be there. And I think the other part is, look, you mentioned it. You know, he's had a lot of injuries.

He's also always been criticized for decision making. And the accuracy has always been an issue. I don't think he is an obvious top half of the league of a quarterback. But I think he's closer to 16 than he is 27. That's for sure. And I think a lot of that criticism, you know, is coming nationally and with people who perhaps have more insight to even what's what went on in Philly and what went on in Indianapolis. And by the way, J.P., just the idea of anybody thinking outside of this city and even inside this city that it will all work out in Washington. You know, nobody ever believes that because it doesn't, you know?

Yeah, totally. If he ended up in New England, I don't think that he would have had, there would have been the same, you know, kind of off-season narrative about him? Well, I mean, not to compare the two, but you remember when I guess Shannie finally cut Haynesworth and then Haynesworth signed with the Patriots and everyone's like, oh, he's going to go be great New England. Well, they traded him. He got a fifth rounder for Belichick for him, yeah.

Right, and it didn't work because Albert was Albert, but like there is the perception of Washington is so bad. and then the perception of Wentz is so down that you combine those two things, and that's how you get, dude, NFL. NFL.com had them 30th in their power right. I didn't see that, yeah. It's just, they won seven games each of the past two seasons. Like the Lions, I believe, have won four games combined in the last two seasons. Like, you really think these guys are worse than them?

Dan Campbell's awesome on hard knocks, but let's be a little realistic here. I think I'm with you. To me, like, and maybe these odds exist. But, like, I would write down 3,700 yards, 26 touchdowns, 11 picks, and he completes about 62% of his passes. Like, I feel incredibly comfortable in that ballpark. And if he delivers that, I think this team wins nine games. And I do fear that they be that seven,

that comes in and gets slacked by the two seed, but whatever, that'd be a good problem to have. Talk about how they can pull off a playoff upset. All right. Did you just give me your prediction because that was going to be one of my final two questions? Is nine and eight and the seven seed your prediction? Yeah, yeah. And I'll be honest, dude. I think I was at 10 when camp opened, and I have concerns about the seat.

And especially if some injuries pop up. All right. Last question, and it deals with this week's game. And I was talking about this on the radio show this morning. Somebody, maybe Sam Fortier said something about it. And I agree with it. I don't think any team in week one has more pressure to win its opener more than Washington does. For a lot of reasons, which I got into in the open of this show.

But what do you think? Yeah. I'm trying to think. league-wide, I, it's interesting because they're playing a bad team that Carson lost to last year, like, well-documented. Carson kind of needs it. Ron kind of needs it. Hell, the organ, I mean, I'm very curious what attendance looks like on Sunday.

Top of my head, you can make a pretty easy case for it. I'm trying to think, I mean, honestly, I would say, like, McCarthy's under a lot of pressure That was my number two. Now they're playing Tampa. They're not playing Jacksonville. So I think part of why Washington is, you know, under the gun here is for all of the business reasons, because this is very much like a startup business this year and, you know, making a good first impression, you know. And we know what the reaction will be if they lose to Jacksonville on Sunday.

I mean, even though I personally, I don't, I think it's a toss-up game. I mean, I think Jacksonville plus the three, if you can get it at three now, it's at two and a half in spots, you know, might be the play. But I think it's going to take time. You know, Ron's teams are typically slow starters. You've got a new quarterback. You've got some guys that you're not sure about injury-wise. It'll be playing maybe for the first time.

It may take a few games, but they're not going to get a pass on that if they lose to Jacksonville. that's kind of why I think it's fair to say you know Washington's on the spot here in week one more than anybody else yeah I mean I pulled up the slate and like you could make a case that maybe the Panthers because they traded for Baker and they're playing Cleveland but I don't think that's more pressure I mean the rest of these teams like you know

if Philly goes on the road and loses to Detroit I'm sure Philly fans will go nuts, but that's not a home game. Yeah, dude, I think you're probably right. Maybe Denver, Russ, going back to Seattle, week one. But nobody's going to jump ship. If Denver loses, if, you know, Carolina loses, if Minnesota loses, there's a little bit of pressure on the Vikings because, you know, the Kevin O'Connell hire, you know, has a lot of people thinking that's going to totally change the direction of this team. but they open with Aaron Rogers and the Packers.

You know, Washington getting Jacksonville at home in an opener, even though I think Jacksonville should be improved, and it should be an improved situation, certainly, from where they were a year ago. But we know what the reaction will be on Monday morning as we're taking phone calls if it's an L against Jacksonville. Yeah. Totally.

Yeah, I mean, you're right, dude. And you know what I've realized, I think, with a lot of the fan base is I think a lot of the fan base have have and this is probably a much broader, longer discussion, but it's gone from like

skeptical but cynical almost. And I think like you said, like, they don't want to hear this, they don't like this word, but it's kind of an expansion product out here right now. Like, it's, they're trying to, they're trying to you know, redo the house while living.

in it. And it's tough to do. And I think if they lose to Jacksonville, there will be a huge portion of the fan base that just is dismissive and kind of saying if it ever was. And you're right. Well, it's, you know, I've compared it to, you know, the opening of a new restaurant. Like your first experience, if the food sucks and the service sucks, you're not coming back. And they're targeting new customers here for this new, this new look and new feel of a team. And they've got to contend in this first year. This is what

Dan always feared. He feared the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the detachment emotionally from so many. And if he had to change the name, he understood it meant probably targeting a new fan base or a significant portion of the, uh, of the fan base would be new. And that product's got to be good. And, you know, they've got to contend this year. They know that. And so a loss to Jacksonville. Trust me, we both need them to beat Jacksonville in Detroit. That would be the healthiest thing for everything we're involved in is content, creators and providers.

All right, man, I know you've got to get in and do your show. Thanks for doing this, as always. It's good to catch up. And JP's show with B. Mitch, 10 to 2 on 10-6-7, The Fan, and the podcast with Pete and with Mitch. get that wherever you get a podcast. I'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you, Ken.

Take care, man. Barry's Ruluga from the Washington Post next, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Barry's Ruluga coming up is my guest. This segment of the podcast with Barry is brought to you by Window Nation. Window Nation has their football halftime show deal going on. What does that mean? It means you can score new windows from Window Nation for half the price.

Buy two, get too free with no limit. You put nothing down. You pay nothing with no interest until the year 20, 25. Lower your energy bills, raise the value of your home with new energy efficient windows from Windonation. If you've got old windows, they're 10 years or older, they're sticking, they're drafty, you're losing money on your energy bills, and the value of your home isn't as high as it should be. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to Windonation. mention my name.

You'll get a free estimate. Barry's Verluga from the Washington Post jumps on the podcast with us. Barry, of course, writes prolifically for the Washington Post, often, maybe more often than any of the other columnist there. And a lot this time of year about the football team. And you wrote, and I read it late yesterday, a column just about the quarterback carousel of this 21st century. with this football team and that Carson Wentz becomes the 26th starting quarterback. And I love the column in many ways because of some of the play-along stuff that you had in the column, but we'll get to that in a moment.

But for those that didn't read it, give everybody kind of the gist of it, which is, yeah, there's a new quarterback, but doesn't this feel like deja vu all over again? Well, I mean, Kevin, we've had this conversation a million times before, just with different people playing the role of Carson Wentz. Like when Alex Smith, you know, they gave up a pick and a player for Alex Smith with the idea of, okay, now we've stabilized the inherently unstable quarterback position here. I think it's kind of funny that Dan Snyder, who never speaks publicly, and his only public comments since they rebranded the team,

said in front of the Maryland Gaming Commission last month, You know, we finally got our quarterback. I mean, that quarterback was, I'm not predicting terrible things, Carson Wentz, but it's inarguable that the quarterback that is going to solve all of their problems was booted from Philadelphia and booted from Indianapolis after one year. So, you know, it's not Carson Wentz's fault that he's joining a franchise that hasn't stabilized the quarterback position for 30 years. But it's, if you're a fan sitting on the outside,

outside, you're kind of have to be programmed by this point to think, okay, what makes you the guy? He will be on Sunday the 26th different starting quarterback for the Washington NFL franchise since the year

2000. And in the column, I kind of wanted to play a little game, like, who can you name the previous 25? I think you know, you would be as good a candidate to name all of them, but it would be struggle. It's just been such a revolving door that it's almost hard to quantify. And so I think as a

fan base, you're kind of left saying, okay, maybe you're the solution, but I'm just not going to assume you're the long-term solution before you've even taken a snap. Yeah, I don't, you know, I probably would have been able to name the 25, but it would have taken me some time. I did much better with your quotes. Barry in his column had four quotes. I mean, you know, about, you know, the quarterback and the excitement over a quarterback before a season started. And I think I got all four of the quotes right. Your first one was he has the charisma, he has the character, he's got everything you want in a quarterback. And that's why, and that's what they're supposed to be the face of the franchise. That was Doug Williams on

Alex Smith. I did not remember that it was Doug Williams, but I did guess in my own head, Alex Smith. The second one that you had was you feel his experience, you feel his presence in the huddle, you feel his ability to retain information from a meeting and take it out to the practice field and apply it. That one was a guess that it was Keenum, but I had no idea it was Kevin O'Connell. But I did guess it was Keenum, which I thought was my most impressive guess of the other ones. And then the easiest one was you talk about a guy not being experienced. I believe in the guys. I believe in them.

And I've been doing this for a long time. I knew that was Shanahan about Grossman and Beck before 2011. And then your last one was we do feel very confident and comfortable with the quarterbacks on our roster last year. And that was Ron last year. I kind of remember that quote talking about Fitzpatrick and Heinecke, et cetera. So anyway, sorry to get sidetracked there. but it was a really good way to do the story to have it be sort of a play-along for the reader. What do you think the chances are that they got it right this time?

You know, did they get it right for 2022? I think they probably did. You know, we all at different points and to different levels got caught up in the Heineke story last year. It was very fun at times, and he made it. it both with his play and his personality, you know, easy to root for. But I think after 17 games, you just realize how physically limited he is. But he belongs on an NFL roster because he could come in and he could lead a drive for you in a pinch or he could win a game for you in a pinch.

But in over 17 games, it's just not a viable solution in a league that is really driven by how good is your quarterback. So my feeling about this season, and I can't quite escape it, is if they won seven games with Heineke as the quarterback, and the defense underperformed, particularly on third down, and they're better at the quarterback position, and I'm not saying Wynch won't make some of those mistakes that he's kind of known for, but if you just watch practice, you know that the potential is there in a way that it's not, with Heineke because Carson Wentz can kind of flick a ball outside the hash mark and make a throw-down field in a way that, you know, Taylor Heineke has to kind of coil up his whole body and launch it. And Blanchez has the arm that Heineke doesn't. And then you add on top of that an easier schedule this year and not a first-place schedule.

It's hard for me to believe that they won't win more than the seven games they won last year. So is that eight, nine, ten? Somewhere in there is. is what I feel. But do I think that in five years we're going to be talking about the Carson-Wentz reign here? I just, that's hard for me to imagine. I mean, since, I put this in the column, too, since Mark Rippin, who of course was the last Washington quarterback to win a Super Bowl, only one quarterback has led the team in passing for four straight years, and that was Kirk Cousins. And you and I have talked this one to death, too.

I mean, that feels like a stable time for Washington quarterbacking because he did fit a lot of team records and he threw for 4,000 yards. But you have to remember that it was a year-to-year, even week-to-week referendum on first his contract and then his level of play. It did not feel like – I mean, there was a reason he wasn't signed long-term because it didn't feel like he was a no-brainer solution to be signed long-term. term. So it's a long-winded way of saying, I think they probably could be better both at the quarterback position and as team overall this year. But I just don't see a situation where Carson Wentz is the quarterback of this team for the next six, seven, eight years. Yeah, well said. I think I totally agree with that. Cousins led them in passing yards in 2014? I had it. Yeah, I can get it. Obviously 15, 16, and 17.

because he started every single game. But 14 was the year that he came in for Griffin, and then they went back to Griffin, and then Colt McCoy started a bunch of games. I can look at it, too. I'll find it. I'll find it. But yes, unless I got it wrong.

No, no, you probably didn't. Because I'm guessing it was probably close. Because remember, Cousins had a couple of horrendous games that year. He started off in that Jackson, in 14, he started off that Jacksonville game coming in for Griffin when he got hurt and he was great and he was great for a couple weeks. But he threw like three picks against the Giants on a Thursday night and then had a terrible game against Tennessee when he got benched for Colt McCoy. I think it was the Titans. So the passing yards that year, and you're right, it was amazingly close.

It was Cousin 1710 and 1694 and then throw in 1,057 yards from McCoy. So that wasn't. So yes, Cousins led the team in passing yards that year. And then obviously, you're right, the next three years. He was off running. I just pulled it up as well. The thing about it, too, and this is probably when Jay first kind of started to figure it out, although I think he knew it before this.

But Kirk only played five and a half games that year, you know. And Griffin played in nine. And Griffin's cousins ended up, you know, averaging more than 100 yards or almost 100 yards more in passing yards. that year. So, you know, for you, and kind of we're in the same boat and trying to come up with, you know, ideas for every show and you've got to come up with ideas for columns. I mean, there's not a bigger storyline this year about this team than the person we were just talking about. And the people that decided he was the right way to go after Russell Wilson got dealt to

Denver, right? There's no storyline close to this being a referendum on the decision to trade for Carson Wentz. I don't think there is because you know, sure I've said this before, I feel like

with this franchise at some level, I'm like a guy playing a two-note xylophone. Like, I'm just banging on quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, and owner, owner, and those are the two most important things that if you if you take your eyes off of those, you're missing the biggest point.

I would say, though, Kevin, that there might be a contender for a strong secondary storyline that would approach Went in importance, and that would be Jack Del Rio. And what does he get out of this defense? And does he improve the unit as a whole and individual players, on their own because it's impossible to argue that last year wasn't a regression. And it was a regression in, you know, team statistics. They were second worst and third down percentage and not better than middling in any meaningful statistical evaluation. And then do, you know, does Montez sweat break out? When Chase Young comes back, does he have more than, you know, whatever it was, a

sack and a half in eight and a half games. Do they get more out of William Jackson? Does their first round pick from 2021 become a viable solution at linebacker? I think Del Rio and by extension Rivera, because he's a defensive head coach and was a defensive player for so long, I think there's reason for scrutiny there because so much draft capital over so many years has been put into into that unit and to have it to perform the way it did last year. You know, it puts some focus on the players, but it also definitely puts focus on the coaches.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think the defense, you know, I've said this so many times, and it's very sort of reflective of NFL teams without elite quarterback play, and that is the whole outlook of your team changes so much faster. You know, week to week, year to year for sure. A year ago, we were talking about this dominant defense. This defense is going to be, you know, 85 bears. They're going to be a top five, worst case, top 10 defense.

And, you know, hopefully Ryan Fitzpatrick will upgrade the offense. And a year later, it's like there's more confidence in the offense. And the biggest question mark really is, you know, Jack Del Rio's defense and it bouncing back. That's the nature of these teams that don't go into every season having a chance because they've got an elite quarterback. Things change dramatically, and they've changed in terms of the outlook of this team. So I do want to ask you about Ron Rivera.

You know, he has raised expectation levels to a certain degree by talking about the third year and what they did in Caroline in the third year. Of course, they had Cam Newton and Luke Keekly, et cetera, and that this, you know, should be the beginning of a run here. You know, essentially is what he's implied. don't think he needed to set those expectations because there weren't any when the season ended last year, but they've gone out and they've, you know, made the big trade, the big splash with Wents after trying to do it with Russell Wilson. What happens this year if the season goes south

to Ron Rivera? You know, I think it matters the degree that it goes south. I mean, if you're talking four and 13, which I don't, I mean, there would have to be a lot of injuries. It would seem to me for them to have a season that bad because given everything they've went through the first two years, which was, you know, last year was crazy in terms of COVID, in terms of quarterback injury, in terms of, you know, crazy personal situations that happened late in the year to sweat and others. It's hard for me to imagine that it would, you know, kind of devolve to to that kind of low. I think what would be interesting is, what if they kind of tread water when Rivera has said we're in position to make this big step forward? What if they're

seven and ten again and not really a factor? And I was looking at the schedule last night, Kevin, and I know you're a big, okay, let's go through the schedule and do, you know, wins and losses. Well, I know. I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but I'm actually the opposite. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I know. I'm thinking of your mock scheduled. Oh, right, right, right, right, yeah. But if you do that, you know, there's, it's difficult to see, you know, an easy path to 10 or 11 wins, which would kind of represent that the major step forward that Rivera is talking about. And put that in the prism of, you know, I can never escape. It's hard for me to talk.

about a single season without thinking about the overarching umbrella of this franchise that is, you know, this century, they have won 10 games exactly twice. They've never won 11 games. I went back and looked at it, and it's not that New England is a fair comparison because you could do this with any franchise. But in that time, New England has won 10 games 19 times, which is just a staggering discrepancy. So I'm curious. about what if, I think the most likely, you know, result is that they win seven, eight, nine, or just say seven or eight or nine games. What if, what does that represent?

Is that a step in the right direction? Is it a lateral step? And how does Rivera handle all of it? I think to some extent, Kevin, the optics and the logistics matter. Like, if their roster is intact and they're basically injury-free, which never happens, in the NFL, but if that happens and they get Chase Young back, and they have all the players that they expect to have available, Curtis Samuel, and Dotson is an impact first rounder, and Wentz plays okay.

What is Rivera's kind of game management? What's his roster management? What's his decision-making? If it's kind of a treading water year, then I'd be curious about how itchy the owner gets, because, you know, as, you know, the only coach to survive more than four years under Snyder is Gruden, and that lasted five games into the fifth year. So I don't have a definitive answer, but I am curious about how it all shakes out. Yeah, I think, you know, the context that would be most important, actually with a seven, eight, or nine scenario, no playoffs, is Carson Wentz.

Did they get it right with Carson Wentz? And by the way, I don't think he'll get fired. I don't think Dan and Tanya really can fire him at this point. I think there's an expense issue. I think there's, you know, the all eggs into Ron Rivera-coach-centric thing. I think, if anything, what would happen is just Ron would lose a lot of confidence from virtually everybody if they won seven games and Carson Wentz, you know, was terrible, you know, and wasn't very good. But I'm kind of with you.

Like I said yesterday or the other day with Tommy. The floor for me is seven wins. Like, I think their floor is really high. They're just not a terrible team. They're not good. But I just, Rivera also, Barry, has always, you know, gotten his teams to play for him. They've never imploded. He's never had a team completely implode.

You know, six in 10 twice in Carolina, the first year he was there. That was a four-game improvement. And then the year that Cam was, you know, pretty much hurt for a lot of those games off of the Super Bowl year. But, yeah. Lastly, before I let you run, actually two more, and then I'll let you run. Number one is this, and I asked JP this because I just had JP on the podcast. I think this game Sunday is pressure-packed for Washington in this opener. I mean, the league served up Jacksonville at home, if you want to call it home.

We don't know what the crowd will look like. And, you know, Detroit and Week 2, it's a startup business for all intents and purposes. it feels very much like an expansion team. And you and I both know what the reaction will be on Monday and all week if they lose to Jacksonville in the opener. I'm not sure any NFL team has a bigger must-win situation in week one than Washington has. What are your feelings about that? Yeah, I don't think you're off base there. And I think, you know, when the schedule did come out, you thought, oh, my goodness, they're opening with Jacksonville at home and Detroit on the road.

They could start 2 and 0. And I mean, I've had this discussion with my colleague and friend Adam Kilgore a bunch. I'm like, well, you know, they could get off to a good start. And you've got to understand any other team is looking at Washington on their schedule thinking, oh, that's a winnable game. And because it is, it's a winnable game. It doesn't mean you'll win it, but it's a winnable game. If I were to take the three possible results after the first two weeks, that they're two and O,

they're one and one, or their O and two, I think the most likely, scenario is one and one. And I'm not saying which way it'll go. But you're right, the tenor, because this is such a week-to-week league, and because you have so much time to chew on results in between one game and the next, the tenor in town next week would be really tense for the people who still care if you start by losing. at home to Jacksonville now. That said, like, the reality is Jacksonville is not going to be

the dumpster fire that it was under Urban Meyer last year. They have one of the best quarterback prospects in the game in whatever, a quarter century. They have a running back who was that guy's college teammate who was hurt all last year.

They have a professional coach now. They won a Super Bowl, whatever you think of Doug Peterson. And they improve their offensive line. I mean, they're going to win some game. Washington has to just make sure that Washington is not one of them. I don't disagree with you.

There's a lot riding on if they win the Jacksonville game, and they do so in a convincing fashion, I'm not saying they're going to beat them, you know, 30 to 3, but if they're kind of in control of the game and it feels like they were the better team, that sets up the week and the season a lot better than, you know, what would become an extremely tense week and perhaps months going into that Detroit game. Because the schedule actually gets somewhat harder after that.

Philly comes here. While the schedule overall is easier, the Houston's and Atlanta's of the world don't appear until later on the calendar. So I agree with you. A lot of pressure on the commanders this week. Yeah, and I agree with Adam too. I mean, these games basically are toss-ups for the odds makers. Both of them will be.

Because really there's not that much difference between these teams. Jacksonville and Detroit were the two worst teams last year. They're not projected to be the two worst teams this year, as you described. All right. Last one for you. Everybody knows, I think most people know. Barry is a Duke guy. He's an ACC guy.

I don't think we've talked. Maybe we did. Maybe I had you on the radio show after all of the UCLA-USC stuff to the Big Ten. But where do you see the ACC three years from now, four years from now, whatever it is? And where do you see Duke? It's really tenuous, Kevin, which is a crazy thing to say. Now, they do have this Grant and Rights Clause in there. I mean, if you want to really get into the weeds, where it's going to cost the team, you know, in triple-digit millions of dollars, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to exit.

And when I say team, I mean, it's cool. Now, could that be offset by whatever Clemson would get to join the SEC? see, it sure could. The ACC is actually hampered by its long-term TV deal now that looks like it's under-valued. And, you know, flagship members, my understanding is that some important football members, not even just, not even Clemson, which has had the most success recently, but maybe the two more traditional powers, Miami and Florida State, are not happy with the current state of things. I think there are questions about the least. leadership of Jim Phillips, the new commissioner, who I think doesn't have a great feel for the league.

He's a Big Ten guy who is an athletic director at Northwestern before he got this job. When you have something that sounds crazy, like the idea that North Carolina would join the Big Ten, and what would that mean for basketball? I mean, you and I both know the ACC is a basketball. basketball first league. College sports right now is being determined by college football, first and foremost, and basketball is riding in the back seat. That's not how the ACC has worked.

So it's a tenuous time, and people are, I think, nervous about what's to come. And it's really hard to make predictions about what's to come, because if we'd had the discussion six months ago and you had said, USC and UCLA are going to join the Big Ten, I would have said, what are you talking about? That is insane. Everything seems to be on the table. And the ACC, which started all this conference realignment stuff back in 2003, is instead of in charge of it this time is more along for the ride and waiting for the fallout.

If I told you two teams from the ACC landed in the Big Ten, two would it be. Boy, I think it would be those Florida schools. I think it would be Miami and Florida State just off the top of my head. Into the big, I'm talking about the Big Ten. I mean, I'm not even kidding you. I think those are the valuable football. Geography doesn't matter anymore, right? Because Rutgers and USC are in the same conference. So to me, you're going away from regional rivalries and easy travel and all that kind of stuff to what are the most valuable properties. And in my mind, Clemson, which has risen under Davosweeney, is as a long-term property, not as

valuable as Miami and Florida State, which have been down in recent years, but have the recruiting base and the tradition. So, I mean, I'm just, you know, I'm guessing, and these guesses are, that's all they are, throwing darts at a dartboard. But to me, those two properties are the most valuable football entities that the ACC has right now. Well, I hope it's North Carolina and Duke if it were to happen. That would be the best thing for me and for basketball. But who the hell knows? Thank you for doing this, as always.

I hope you're well at Barry's Verluga on Twitter. and it's S-V-R-L-U-G-A is how you spell Barry's last name. Of course, read them in the post. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it anytime. All right, that's it for the show.

Thanks to J-P. Thanks to Barry. Back tomorrow with Tommy. Lots of predictions for the upcoming NFL season and the commander season on the show tomorrow.