The Kevin Sheehan Show - Wentz, Te'o, and Thom to the Final 4

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Kevin and Thom today with a menu of excellence including a celebration for Thom's first-ever trip to the Final 4! The boys talked some Manti Te'o doc, Stranger Things, Jack Del Rio, Carson Wentz, Jim Irsay, and Kevin snuck in a quick reaction to the Deshaun Watson suspension news.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show is Kevin. I'm here. Tommy is here. Please rate us and review us, especially on Apple and Spotify. It's really important, especially this time of years.

As we go into the last quarter of 2022, we're trying to generate as much revenue as possible for the podcast. And the ratings and reviews are really important. and many of you have responded, including Tommy, our good friend Sabah, from North Carolina. Sabah's got a review and a five-star rating. She had not rated the podcast before, which is kind of disappointing. She got to it much later than I would have expected. But she did give us five stars, and she titled her review, Sabah is Fighting Back. So she's referring to herself in the third person.

Hey Kevin, listening to your podcast now. I'm going to give you another five stars. So maybe she's already, I think you can only rate it and review it once. If you can rate it and review it twice, keep doing it, people. That's good for us. She writes, I never thought I was the only Heineke fan. I think I may be the loudest fan. I just wanted him to be given a second year.

First year with preseason prep with the ones, like Philly is giving Jalen Hertz. And it is true. Taylor Heineke never got a full off season as the number one quarterback. Ryan Fitzpatrick was the number one guy last year. She writes, I'm disgusted with Ron and Scott falling all over themselves, complimenting Wentz, undeservedly. They are proud that he didn't soil himself, question mark, question mark. He only scored when the Panthers subs were in.

They are doing worse with Wentz than what I do with Heineke. Love your pod and love when Tom is on. Tom is the best example of disagreeing with someone and still getting along and respecting each other. Thank you, Sabah. Sabah is certainly one of our longtime, interesting fans of the team, of the shows that we've been a part of. She is very opinionated. I don't really hear Ron and Scott falling all over themselves when it comes to whence. Actually, in just kind of reading between the lines a little bit, I'm hearing,

and I would even say Scott moving down to the sidelines, is just a bit of a window into some level of concern at this point. I had Joe Thysman on the show this morning, Tommy, and Joe said, look, the biggest challenge is just getting used to the new system, the new people and getting comfortable, and it takes some time. And I think that's what we've heard from Scott and Run. I don't think either one of them has been falling all over themselves complimenting Wence. In fact, Rivera's first statement about Wence on Saturday was we started slowly.

Now, it is true. Heineke hasn't been given the same opportunity of working an entire offseason with the ones. But I don't know. She's responding to me saying that like some of these people with respect to Wence, Sabah was the same thing with Taylor, and that they want to feel like they're the only people that are backing these quarterbacks. So if, in fact, they turn out to be right, they can say, see, I was the one that was right. No one else was.

You know, I've never been called an example. of a person who was considered reasonable in my entire life. So I'm very proud of that. I think that's harsh. I think you're reasonable most of the time. Yeah, but I've never been considered an example. Oh, no, you're probably not an example of it. Whenever somebody points me out as an example, it's usually something pretty negative.

Going back to my days, you know? Has it always been that way even before radio? Yes, you don't want to hang around with that guy, Johnny. He's an example of what you don't want to do. I like to hear that all the time. He might burn down the fraternity house. He might beat up some Chinese people. Oh, God.

Oh, God. You'll never let me forget. I wish I'd never told you that. But that's what we do on the podcast. Look, I haven't noticed any particular kid gloves with the way any unusual kid gloves with the way that Ron Rivera has been talking about Arson Wentz. He's been talking like a coach does, a coach who traded for

this quarterback. You know, he's going to be careful with his words more often than not. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's a bit of an overreaction. I haven't noticed in particular any allowances for behavior. And again, he didn't soil himself. Well, that was the whole point during the game. I mean, you're not going to, I mean, looking good in a preseason game when your Carson went. It's not really accomplish anything, but not looking bad does.

So, yeah, he didn't feel himself. That's an accomplishment. Sabah, I know, you know we love you. but when you say they are doing worse with Wentz, you know, oh, you're saying that they were, the coaches were doing worse with Wentz than what you do with Heineke. No, it's actually not.

I don't think so. We're going to know soon enough. We're going to know, you know, three weeks from tonight the NFL season opens up with Buffalo at the Los Angeles Rams. And the points... On Amazon Prime, right? No, that's NBC.

the first Thursday night game at the U.S. NBC. And then the Amazon schedule starts with the next Thursday night game, which I believe is Chargers Chiefs, which is a hell of a Thursday night game a week after the opener. But Buffalo is up to a two and a half point favorite. I think it's because Matt Stafford, there's some questions about his health right now.

So that line's interesting. It was just one a week, week and a half ago. it's up to two and a half. You can play that game in any game at mybooky.ag or mybooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And they'll double your first deposit all the way up to a thousand bucks. Again, mybooky.com, my booky.orgy.orgie. For all of your NFL preseason action and then all of the regular season prop bets

and all of the week one and week two lines are up. That never used to happen. But now with so many different legal sports books added to the mix, everybody's trying to offer more. So you literally can bet right now on week two and week three games and various places. I don't recommend it. We have to start the show. I guess we were just talking about Carson Wentz for a little bit. But we have to start the show with Tom Leverro is a final final.

four team in the DC sports fan bracket challenge. If you're hearing about this for the first time on our podcast, we brought it up last week because somebody had sent us a link to this thing that the DCsportsfan.com website is doing where they started with a field of 32 DC sports media people, excluding national media. people like Cornheiser and Wilbon, and excluding former pro athletes who are in media. And they did a, you know, an NCAA tournament style bracket. Tommy and I were both two seeds. I was upset in the first round.

I wouldn't even call it an upset. But it was a seeding upset. Joe Beninati, the 7th seed, knocked me out in the first round. Tommy has now taken out in order, Mitch Tishler, a route, Berries Verluga in one of the most one-sided beatdowns of the tournament so far, and then as a two-seed against Eric E.B. Bickle from the Junkies, who was the one-seed, Tommy destroyed him too. 65% to 35%.

You are into the final four. You're facing Buck who beat Jason Bishop, Lurch, from the junkies. it's you and buck in one semifinal, and then on the other side of the bracket, and I told you this when we got sent this, I said the most underseated person in this field by far is Zabe. Zabe was a six seed. And I said to you, Zab should be a two seed.

If you and I are two seeds, which I thought we were overseeded, clearly you were not. I was. But Zabe should have been, you know, on the two line as well. Zabe beat destroyed Chad Dukes

beat J.P. Finley and just knocked off John Kime. He's into a semi-final against Albert Galdi, ladies and gentlemen. Galdi just beat Koken, Smokin'Al Koken in a round of eight elite eight

matchup, 59% to 41%. So on one side of the bracket, you've got Zabe against Galdi. and then it's Buck against Tommy. Now, all four of the final four participants are good friends of mine and of yours, the other three. Yes. But on this podcast, and even outside of this podcast, I'm riding the Laverro horse, and I am pushing all of you on Instagram, okay, to go to the D.C. Sportsfan.com Instagram. It's at D.C. Sports Fan underscore com on Instagram, right?

At DC Sports Fan underscore com and vote for Tommy. Now, if Buck beats you, I'll be happy about that. Of course. But we... No shame in losing to Steve Buck hands. No, not at all. There was no shame in losing to EB if I had lost the EB. Or Barry.

You thought you were going to get run by Barry, I said, no, I think we can do something with the podcast. And that's when we started to push it. And you destroyed Barry. And so now it's Tommy against Buck. It's Galdi against Zabe in the final four. Go vote for Tommy. Let's get Tommy to be the number, the local champion in the DC sports fan bracket challenge of local media people.

They call them local media stars. That's a little bit presumptuous. but you're this is hey put it this way if you win this thing you will i know what you'll do with it you will print out the final bracket you'll have somebody created into some sort of piece of art you'll frame it and you'll put it in your office at home i've got no room on my wall for anything no you don't you don't you don't have any room i got too much stuff as it is you know oh my god walking into Tommy's office. I mean, it was really something else.

I mean, he had built a shrine to himself, and it was just unbelievable. And what was my office like? Your office was like one of those con games where they set up an office one day, and you go to take them to court the next day, and they're gone. it's like in the sting right when they set up the uh yeah the the book making parlor the horse the horse bedding room yeah the horse bedding room real quickly and then shut it down real quickly yeah i was always just

very much focused on i don't want to act like i think i'm going to be here forever um because who knows uh anyway vote for tommy in this thing all right i um do i wait a minute do i get some kind of a water plaque? Yeah, remember? Maybe I don't have to print something out. Hold on. Is there some kind of trophy? Do you know?

Yeah, remember there was some. Oh, you get a free t-shirt, courtesy of the Sports Extra Screen Printing and Embroidery place. Now, I told you that I thought that this might be the guy that I knew Todd from Sports Extra. He had this retail sports extra, you know, uniform, equipment place right there. on Old Georgetown Road and Little Falls, Arlington Road and Old Georgetown Road. Right there, it was on Old Georgetown, but it was at kind of that intersection. He had that store for years, and it was a great store. And so many of us that lived in that area used Todd and his company for uniforms.

Like, he did all of my, all of the teams that I coached. He did all of our uniforms. I don't think he's there anymore. He reached out to me to say, it is me, I'm running this thing. And I said, well, how the hell did you let, how the hell did you allow me to lose? But since I was a big customer. But no, he's doing it. And you can go to, he's got a website for all of your sports uniform and apparel needs.

It's sports extraonline.com. Sportsexstraonline.com. But vote for Tommy. So, yeah, you'll get a T-shirt from Sports Extra online. Okay. Good. Yeah. And maybe what you can do is you can ask him to print up a Kevin Sheehan Show podcast

t-shirt that, you know, you'll wear around. But probably not. By the way, speaking of T-shirts, I need, and you told me you were going to get me some, you know, D.C. Grey's apparel. I haven't received any of it yet. Chris Spira provided it with me. Yes, weeks ago, but I was waiting until we saw each other to give it to you. And I think we're going to see each other probably in September sometime.

Yeah, we will. So I'll deliver it to you then. Yeah, you've got the goods. Did I tell you what I specifically wanted? I don't remember. See, you're going to bring me something. It's going to be the wrong size. I definitely want a hat because the D.C. Gray's hats are great, the baseball caps.

And then the long T's and the short T's are great. And they're very comfortable. We still have like two or three of them around the house. I have one and I think one of my boys has one and one of them probably eventually kind of got worn out. But I love the logo. I love everything about the D.C. Gray's look. It's really cool. I mean, go to DCGraise.com and buy some apparel.

I mean, if you're a DC person, you know, just having DC on something, and it's, you know, obviously a great endeavor in terms of what's going on with the DC Graze, but it really, everything looks great. So there we go. We've gotten into two plugs so far on the show. You've got a stash, and I have one more plug to go. Okay. Do you want to do it now?

Okay. Yeah. Why not? Okay. Have you ever heard of something called SneakerCon? No. Is it like Comic-Con? Yes, it is.

Except, and this is a world I didn't know anything about until just this week. It celebrates the world of resale sneakers. Okay. Do you know there's a whole multi-million dollar business out there that exists for people who buy sneakers as soon as they come out. new brands and then turn around and sell them at large profits huge sums of money did you know about this maybe but i don't think so i mean i know that you know sneakers are big business and old you know vintage sneakers are big business and some of the ways that memorabilia you know is i don't know if that's a good comp for it or not, but explain it to me.

Well, that's part of it, but there's been this business that's been growing of people who, and they've been kids for the most part who have started these businesses, you know, waiting for the new shoe to come out, buying as many as they could, and then, you know, because the demand would be so great, turn around and selling them at three or four times the amount of money they pay for them. And it's turned into this huge business. And an attorney I know named Jeff Freed, he's based in Washington. I know him from, he was involved in a lot of boxing business.

He's been a sports and entertainment lawyer for years. He got involved in SneakerCon a few years ago and saw what a big business this event could be. and him and one of his sons, Brad, wound up, you know, taking it over and running it. And now they put on 35 or 40 sneaker cons all over the world. Wow. I'm looking at it. It costs 30 bucks to get in. Yeah.

It's at the convention center. It's a remarkable. Yes, it is. Saturday and Sunday at the convention center. And I'm always interested, you know, for being a closed-minded individual like I am. Yes. I'm always interested in worlds that exist that I don't know anything about. You know, there's all this whole universe of these resale sneakers that, you know,

they speak a different language. It's a different culture. And I had no clue what's going on. But now you have, they'll probably have 20,000 people at the convention center this weekend for this thing. Really? And not only did they do that, what Jeff and his son Brad did, they created an authentication company related to this, where they authenticate sneakers that are sold. You know, a lot of these sneakers can be sold to eBay. Yeah.

Yeah. And eBay was starting to have a problem with this. So they created this, you know, this authentication company, where. where you send them the sneakers, and they, you know, their experts authenticated and send them back to you with a certificate. And they've got about eight or nine warehouses around the world that do nothing but authenticate these resale sneakers. And their partners with eBay now on that.

So it's a huge business, and I was just blown away because I didn't have any idea it really existed like this. You know, but you know. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no, please. Well, with sports, I mean, you know, it doesn't surprise me with sports because there's so much, so many offshoots of the sports industry, but people are passionate about anything related to sports.

Right. And they're very passionate about these sneakers. I mean, not me, but these kids, you know, and I point out, I'm writing a call about it, just like you know, in a Mars paper. And it's not just kids anymore because this all started with. Air Jordans in the mid-80s. Sure. You know, that's what really started the sneaker craze. Yes.

And, I mean, those kids who bought those Air Jordans are 40 and 50 years old now. Right. You know, and they're still into this sneaker thing. So it's just a remarkable culture. And I'll write about it because, like, the trading card business. I mean, you know, the trading card business became a huge, thing, and then it fell, and now it's back again, bigger and more lucrative than ever, the sports trading card business.

All these little worlds that offshoot from the world of sports and sports fandom, I'm always interested in, and this is one of them. So a couple of things. I'm interested in it as well. It's funny, because as you started to talk about the whole sneaker thing and about how people buy up sneakers. I had a kid who played for me. He's now in college, or maybe he's graduated from college. But he was the nicest kid, his father actually was a friend of mine who I used to play a lot of basketball with him, was a tremendous athlete. And his son, Kevin, played basketball for me. And he

played at St. Albans locally in high school. And Kevin always had, like, I'm old school. I'm old school on this stuff. But, you know, at the same time, I'm, you know, I don't, I don't kill the spirit of, of anybody that is, is doing something. And I remember he would essentially have, like, many different pairs of basketball shoes. And he would be bringing, he would have like a different pair of basketball shoes on for every practice and every game. And as you're, as you were talking about this, I actually think what he was doing as a young, kid is he was buying up a lot of these shoes and reselling them. I think that's what he was doing. And, you know, of course, you know, when kids are that young, it's like the last thing I want them

focused on is the shoes. I'd much rather them be focused on their offhand in terms of ball handling or their defensive stance. Kevin could really shoot it, by the way, could really shoot it. And I think that's what he was doing. Now, I've lost touch with him, obviously, and even his father. But I know that he had like, because the kids used to tell me about it, including my son would say, you would not believe the shoes, the collection of shoes that he has. By the way, you know, a lot of these offshoot sports businesses are, of course,

you know, very, very interesting businesses, a lot of them. The ones that typically, well, after kind of the memorabilia stuff, which turns into auction-style stuff. But, you know, the offshoots of the golf business and the businesses around golf are, you know, those are the ones because of the, you know, as we've talked about before, and I tried to explain to you, it's a very rich white man sport and country club sport primarily.

But golf has so many businesses off of it that do so well. I mean, you know me. I'm not a memorabilia guy. Other than the card collection, the baseball card, and the football card collection I had as a kid that my mother, she hates when I say this because she disputes it, but it's true. She sold my card collections in a yard sale when we sold her a house. And I was like probably 18 or 19 at the time.

Tommy, if I had those cards right now, I don't know what, I have no idea what they would be worth, but I can tell you I had cards. I had so many Washington Senators cards. You know, those would have to be valuable. Frank Howard, as a kid, was everything to anybody who was old enough to remember the senators. And I had a bunch of Frank Howard cards. I had a bunch of Harmon Killebrew cards because my father was always a huge Harmon Killebrough fan. And I bet you if I had that card collection today, including my football card collection,

I bet it would be worth something. You probably would. Maybe not as much as you think because a lot of it has to do with the quality of the product. Right. You know, they rate the actual condition of the product in question. But the one thing about the sneaker thing, I think, is interesting. Well, many things about that are interesting. But, I mean, I admire, I'm not into the whole sneaker thing.

The only sneakers I ever cared about my life were Chuck Taylor black high tops. You know, those were the only ones I ever really cared about. But I admire the entrepreneur spirit of these young kids. Yeah. You know, of devoting their time and energy to something like this. It may seem strange that we're talking about sneakers. but there's a lot worse things. He could be devoting their time and energy to.

Oh, my God, yes. And there's lessons that are being learned. Oh, there's nothing better than when you see young people thinking that way and thinking entrepreneurially. And, yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because having been sort of an entrepreneur in a previous life, although this podcast is entrepreneurial, But, you know, being involved in, you know, I was involved in four different tech startups that, you know, I have very many, many, many times over the years had lots of conversations with people about, you know, their business ideas and they'll send me a business plan or an exec summary of some sort of business plan. And recently, I've gotten, you know, people that have reached out to me and said, hey, my son's got this idea.

Would you look at it and it's usually sports related? I mean, they're reaching out to me now because it's more sports related than it is because I actually used to do a lot of this stuff. But I love when you see younger people, you know, doing that. You know, it takes it's, first of all, those people are just by definition, incredible self-starters. But, you know, the truth is young people and their ideas are probably a lot more, put. you know, have much more upside than any ideas people our age are coming up with. And, you know, it's good to kind of when you, you know, to try to explain to them, this is awesome, but how do you make money?

And sometimes, like I say that, and they don't have an answer and I think, well, maybe they're right. Maybe the figuring out how to make money comes later after they develop a really good product that gets, you know, really good consumer response. because that's the way a lot of these, you know, massive companies, you know, started. I mean, Facebook didn't necessarily have a revenue or a business plan associated with it. They just knew that if they got enough users, they'd be able to figure it out. But, yeah, I love when young people are thinking that way.

I mean, if you have, like, if you're a parent and you have a kid like that, God, just encourage it. Encourage it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's a gene that I never. had growing up. I've never had that entrepreneurial gene. Yeah, but you would be a good entrepreneur. I actually think you would because as much as I make fun of you for being very close-minded when it comes to people, which you are,

you actually are very much an embracer of new things and new technology. And this conversation alone shows the curiousness of, of you. You're always curious about things that you don't understand, and you really have been, in terms of technology, for someone your age, this is a compliment, you're late years ahead of most people your age when it comes to technology.

Now, part of it is because of your job and the need to be involved in it to a certain extent, but you've always embraced it. Yeah, but there's certain people I know, friends of mine, who just had that mightest touch, you know, that they look at things that they see the world differently than I do. I mean, everything you may say it's right, but there's a certain kind of vision. You know, like there's a certain kind of observational vision as a reporter that you look at the world through. I think if you're an entrepreneur or a businessman, there's also a particular kind of vision that you see something that other people don't.

And I don't have that. I think that's true, but it also comes in combination with a fearlessness. You've got to be able to take that big leap, and then you really have to be a person that absolutely handles rejection well, you know, and responds to rejection well. Because every entrepreneurial endeavor, you know, for everyone that hits, there are going to be five that fail. and sometimes fail miserably, if not embarrassingly. And serial entrepreneurs just keep coming back, and then they'll figure it out. There is a, there's a fearlessness, and there's an ability to completely believe in yourself, you know, when faced with so much rejection that the really good entrepreneurs have. And to your point, I mean, there are people in my life that I've worked with before, one in particular, and I won't spend a lot of time talking about him.

He's been a very successful entrepreneur. He lives in town. He is the first person outside of sports that I worked for. And any time I have any kind of ideas or questions or thoughts, he's the one call. Because he's that guy that you described. He can look at something and then he's got the complete vision. I mean, he's already figured out what the exit strategy is on. it. And yeah, there are lots of people like that for sure. Hey, I wanted, go ahead.

This sneaker con, this sneaker con sounds like a pretty cool event, and that's, I'm kind of writing about it for tomorrow. Okay, well, that's good. I'm not going to, I'm not going to go, but I think it's, I think it sounds pretty cool. And 20,000 people you think will come through this thing. That's pretty amazing. That's what they think. That's what they think. Well, I mean, it's at the convention center, and they're charging 30 bucks to take. So they're certainly anticipating, you know, a big turnout. I wanted to tell you, and I know that you have not watched this yet, but some who are listening have, and others who haven't watched it have heard about it already. But I want to just make a recommendation right now to watch the Manteo Teo documentary on Netflix.

It came out earlier this week. I had several people immediately reach out to me, both on social media and just friends of mine saying, you have to watch this. It's called Untold the Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist. It's two episodes. It's a documentary, two one-hour episodes about the Manteo Tayo catfishing story from 2012 and 2013. I mean, just for those that don't even know what that means. means, I didn't know what it meant when this happened to him.

You know, the catfishing slang is for someone who misrepresents or sets up an alter kind of ego or on social media, sets up a fake person, if you will, and then somehow ropes somebody into their hoax. And that's what happened to Man Titeo. And I would ask you, because you haven't watched it, right now, what are your memories of the Manteo's story, which is now eight to nine years in the rear view. Well, I mean, it sounds, I mean, my memories are it involved a girl. And like you just described, I mean, there was, there was a whole effort to scam him to think that he was falling in love and was going to marry, if I remember correctly, some woman who he didn't know except on through the,

through the web. I'm going to wait until you watch this. You're going to watch this. This is actually a requirement for our next show. Because people are talking about this and this is right now

this documentary has gone viral. People are talking about it and they can't believe. It was an absolute phenomenal story and it was well told. I think you'll agree with me. But I'll wait to hear your thoughts and then we'll share our thoughts in more detail after you've watched it.

But it is really well told. At times it's riveting. My wife sat down and watched it with me. She didn't even know who this person was. She didn't care about sports. My memory going into it was that Manteo was like, you know, he had been, he essentially had been made a fool out of by this person who, created a fake girlfriend that he fell in love with without ever meeting.

But I also remember thinking that maybe he was complicit somehow in this whole thing because there was incredible sympathy for him during his senior year at Notre Dame for losing his grandmother and his girlfriend on the same day in the middle of a senior season, which he had come back to play a senior season. And he decided not to go into the draft the year before. was something that was incredibly damaging to Manteo financially and otherwise. It's actually a horrible thing that happened to him. But I remembered that I didn't remember the details other than maybe he had something to do with it.

But it's a chilling tale in many ways. But it's really incredible. So watch it and we'll talk more about this on Tuesday. what we haven't had a chance to catch up on because I don't think I told well I did tell you this because I texted this to you over the weekend because you reached out to me about something and I said I'm watching the finale right now but I did finish stranger things so I basically binged stranger things Tommy four seasons in two weeks that's pretty impressive and I that is pretty impressive I wouldn't have thought you would have liked it that's why I never suggested it to you I just didn't think you would. I thought you would have thought it was juvenile. I would have thought that you would have never watched it. I'm shocked that you watched it.

Yeah, well, you know when I started watching it? Your wife. When did it come out? When did it come out? 2016, I think. Oh, I remember. My wife and I were both really sick. I mean, at the same time, we had bad coughs, and we weren't going out of the house, and just,

it sounded like a tuberculosis ward in our apartment, you know? And so we pretty much were binge-watching whatever we could, and that's when we started, we started binge-watching that when we were both sick. It was probably after 2016, and we just couldn't get enough of it. You know, I mean, it's, I guess, you know, you've got to be, for, maybe I'm overstating this or over-analyzing it, but you have to be almost in the right frame of mind. Like if you're into binge watching at that moment, there's a good, there's probably a better chance you're going to like it if it's just recommended to you in passing and you just happen to watch it. Maybe I'm wrong. Well, it's the all-time.

We were ripe. We were ripe to like a show we were binge watching. It just happened to be that one. I mean, this doesn't matter to you, but it is the all-time watched show on Netflix. It's the all-time streamed show, period, in the history of streamed shows. And it passed... I can believe that. I think it passed the office, which was for a while the most stream show ever, and the biggest show ever on Netflix. it's no longer on Netflix. It's on that NBC Peacock network.

But I, so it's, I don't know if you've got to be in the frame of mind. I mean, to appeal to such a massive audience and to have so much success, really what it is is it's just a great show. Now, what I would tell you, because we haven't talked about this, I think the last time we talked about this was after I finished season one or season two, maybe. And then I ended up binging those final two seasons. I think the finale of season three is one of the best finalities of any show I've ever watched. You know, that was the one that, you know, the Star Court Mall finale of season three,

where, you know, you have in the middle of the show one of the more incredible out of the, just completely, I had no idea this was coming, nor should anybody have seen this coming, the song that Dustin and Susie sing to each other. other as the world's about to end. The never-ending story song. That was just a brilliant scene. And then the scene with 11 and Hopper, reading Hopper's letter, thinking that Hopper had, died, was an incredible ending to that first show.

I think that was my favorite episode, the season three finale. Season four, I liked. You may have told me this, but I don't know if it was on the podcast. But season four, which just came out last month. has like the first six episodes and then apparently you had to wait for episodes seven and eight. The finale is two and a half hours. Like the whole season basically are movies. You know, they're an hour and 20 to an hour and a half.

And then the final, the finale is two and a half hours. And I thought it was good. But here was the one criticism I have of the show. And it's the only one because the characters are phenomenal. I think it got way too sci-fi at the end of season four. And I think for some people, especially if you're not into sci-fi, which I'm not, but it did matter. You know, this show was great and the sci-fi aspect of it was, you know, one-fourth of the show. It's like what I've told you about Game of Thrones before.

The dragons are one-tenth. The nine-tenths of the 90% of the show is, you know, one-fourth of the show is, you know, one-fourth of the show. character-driven, 10% of the show is, you know, fantasy and dragons and other things. Let me stop you right there. Okay. You know there's a prequel coming out for Game of Thrones? Yes, I'm very familiar. Sunday night.

What's it called? House of the Dragon. Wow. Imagine that. Why would they use, and they were like Dragon, which was such an irrelevant part of the series, in the title? Right. Okay. Well, I don't know what House of the Dragon is going to be.

You know, it's 10 episodes here in the first season. It's Sunday night heading into football season. I may choose to just wait on this and binge it when it's over. I may decide to do that because not that I can't keep up with it. I don't have to watch it during Sunday night football games, but it's just harder during football season to get into some of these shows for us anyway. and probably for many of you. But Game of Thrones, which does not have Dragon in the title,

was 90% character-driven, which is why you would love it, and 10% on all the stuff that you think you would hate. I don't even know if it's 10%. I think Stranger Things is more of a 5-1 ratio. There's a lot of sci-fi, especially in season four. And that's the part of it that it does, That part doesn't interest me as much. I mean, I'm following it.

Don't get me wrong. But it's not as interesting as, you know, everything else in the show. Great show, though. Really great show with really good characters. And they're a really well-cast show, with the exception, in my opinion, of Winona Ryder. I just, I'm just not a fan of her playing Joyce Byers. Oh, I think she's pretty good. And I'm happy for her that, you know, she's gotten this extension on her career.

in doing this. By the way, she was in a mini-series on HBO that I'd recommend to anybody called Show Me a Hero. It's a David Simon miniseries about the fight for public housing and Yonkers. And Winona Ryder is in that, and she's very good. So if you go to your HBO archives, check that out sometime. I think it's like a four or five-part miniseries. but I like the sci-fi connection, the whole underworld kind of thing.

Upside down. Yeah. But I was kind of taken aback because I hadn't read anything about it, and I don't think, you know, I'm sorry, I'm just going to say it. I don't know if it's a spoiler or not, but I was kind of taken aback

that this wasn't it, that this wasn't going to be the end. Oh, right. I didn't know there would, you know, I just figured, you know, once everybody, once all the loose ends got tied up, that would be it. Over. Do you think it has a chance to really lose something with the fifth season? I mean, we've now seen four different, you know, versions of, you know, of the demigorgans and of now we know, and I don't want to be, spoiler, or what I'm trying to. Probably not to spoiler, spoil it for people who haven't watched it.

But we've gone through four different iterations of a fight here. I mean, are we going to, is it going to, I think it's going to be hard to do a season five. I mean, the predictions, it's funny, I've talked to a couple of my friends who also, you know, have watched it and loved it as well. And everybody's trying to make predictions about season five. The biggest, apparently the overwhelming prediction, and I don't see why this is, is that Steve is going to die. and that'll complete his arc from, you know, kind of asshole high school student to great guy to protector of Nancy, and then eventually he's going to meet his demise.

You know, he did get beat, he did get bit in the finale by, you know, that bat, that demigordia bat. I don't, that's not what I predict. What's obvious is that Mike is gay, and I don't know how that will manifest itself. in the fifth season. My prediction is the little younger wheeler girl that, you know, was in the height chair and now is a little bit older. And we've gotten these weird shots interspersed of her, especially in the finale and maybe, or just the last few episodes, that somehow she becomes a significant figure in the fifth season. Do you have a prediction? No, I have no prediction.

I think the scope of the fight that they'll face this time now is much bigger than any of the fights they faced before and that's what we will make this different. Who's your favorite character on the show? 11. She's great. She's great. Yeah.

I think Hopper and Dustin are my two favorites. And Steve, Steve's great. The dynamic between Steve and Dustin, I mean, it's a great comedian. you know, match. I don't know if they anticipated that when they started the series, but the two of them together are hysterical. Yes. Yeah, 11. She was in Kong versus Godzilla versus Kong. She's been in a few other things. She's British. But she's my favorite. Is she? Yeah, she's a... That doesn't surprise me. She's a Brit. She's a Brit. And she can really sing... I mean, can't they find any American actors?

and actresses to do this stuff? Well, half the cast that a wire was British for crying out loud. I know. I know. Well, most of the cast of Game of Thrones is either British or Irish. But you have, well, you do have, most of the cast is American and stranger things.

She's a Brit. I know. But, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, she also can really sing as can the guy that plays Dustin. Dustin, a big, you know, after that episode in that scene, my son told me he was a Broadway singer as a kid. He can actually really sing. He's, he was a great character. All right, we're

done with that. We'll get to some sports next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So Tommy yesterday on the podcast and on the radio show, we did, I had Pete Haley from NBC Sports Washington on with me yesterday. but I did it on the radio as well. Just like one big bold prediction, which we did the other day. And, you know, you stuck with yours, which is Carson Wentz gets benched by week 10. The overwhelming answer to the question was Jack Del Rio gets fired before the season ends or sometime, you know, midseason. And this is a big year for the defense and probably for Jack.

I kind of feel that way that even though I think. I think Jack Del Rio is a very competent, defensive mind in this league and highly respected, and I don't think anything he has said social media-wise or otherwise dust-up has really influenced or impacted his relationship with his players. There's no proof of it anyway. There's no evidence that it has. No, no evidence at all. I find it difficult to believe that it hasn't affected some of them, but there's no evidence to suggest that. And so he, yesterday, for the first time since the dust-up comments, he met with the media

and, you know, required to do so. And I talked a little bit about some of the things he said on yesterday's podcast. I know you watched it or read it. What did you think? I thought he did the best that he could, hundreds of circumstances. You know, he didn't he didn't give one word answers. He steered the conversation towards football, you know, pretty much every time, which is what you wanted to do. And he didn't lose school.

Am I right? Yes, 100%. I mean, it's funny. I mentioned this that you and I and everybody in the media, we get sent the, you know, transcribed pressers. after each one of these practices during the offseason, during training camp, and during the regular season. You know, they're transcribed by the PR people and they send them out. And, you know, just think back to last year and the year before.

Jack Del Rio, who has to speak as a coordinator on Thursdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays, whatever day it is. And Scott Turner has to do it as well. I mean, the transcribed version of his interview is always the shortest of everybody. He's like, you know, you have a lot of one sentence or, you know, few word answers. Sometimes it'll extend into two or three sentences. But if it does that, it's usually with him saying, well, you'll have to ask the head coach. You know, he just doesn't give you much.

Whereas the head coach gives you a lot. Scott Turner gives you a lot. And so, you know, Del Rio's transcribed interview yesterday was much shorter than any of the others. although there was, I thought he did really well, but there's a low bar now. You know, there's kind of a low bar organizationally. And they've created the reasons for the low expectation bar. But they just have to barely clear a very low bar. It goes for almost everybody there.

And so when- You're 100% right. I mean, they're basically, like, did they get through? a day without a disaster. Well, like we said, I mean, did they get through the day where they could add a day to the chalkboard that says it's now been four days since our last accident? And that's a really low bar. Like, just no accidents today, people, please.

You know, this was your point a while back where you said, you know, Jason Wright or Ron Rivera, whatever, and I think you really said it should be Jason Wright, needs to get together with the whole organization and say, please, please, let's not commit these unforced errors. Let's control what we can control. We don't need to keep creating headlines. We have no control over ownership and what they do. And we have no control over what the past continues to produce ghosts of Christmas past, you know, and what keeps coming up from the past. Which, by the way, let's be clear on this, people.

it's not media driven. It's Congress driven. It's victim driven. It's, yeah, the Washington Post certainly kind of initiated and got a lot of this started. That's true two years ago in July of 2020. But, you know, Jack Del Rio's, the goal yesterday with his first media appearance since the dust up comments that cost them 100 grand, just get through it without creating a headline. And he did it. So it was a successful press conference.

I'd say so. And I feel like for that entire building, there really needs to be leadership. Now, this starts from the top, and they don't have any leadership from the top, obviously. But Ron Rivera is really the leader of this thing. And somehow he's got to make sure that every day the goal is to get better on the field, and don't create any headlines off of it. Boom. Real simple mantra.

In McKinsey speak, the best business practice should be synergy, lots of synergies between the business side and the football side, where the football side wins, and we try not to embarrass ourselves. Boom. I don't know what it would be. Anyway, yeah, Del Rio did fine, you know, and he was asked, you know, people tried to ask him questions that could have gotten him started. Why'd you delete your Twitter?

Personal choice. What did you think about the fine? And he just said, just want to talk about football. And that's, you know, what do you think about the congressional hearings? I've got nothing to add, you know. All legitimate questions, by the way. Yeah, the one thing that he did say, there was this, I didn't talk about this yesterday. He was asked about preaching humility to the defense.

And he said, quote, to me it's always something that I stress. We are not going to be fearful of anybody that we go against. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we are really respectful and just prepare and understand the need to strain every day. That's what it comes down to. The league is full of talented players and coaches that are working to attack you. We want to work to attack them. but being in the right frame of mind, yada, yada, yada, then he finishes.

I think the humility part is a day one message. It doesn't really matter how you got here. It is about production in our business. That is what we are stressing, closed quote. Man, for an organization that has lacked humility for 30 years, that is, that's a message on the football side, especially, and on the business side that they really need to, take to heart. And I think, you know, it's been a better organization with respect to, you know,

over-promising under-delivering. I mean, there has been this sense that they're coming off Super Bowl years year-in and year out for a long time, that, you know, it was fantasy land for them, and it made them really unlikable. The best thing about the Joe Gibbs days, 40 years ago, by the way, the beginning of the 82 season, their first Super Bowl season. I had Joe Thaisman on the radio show this morning. He was great. You can listen to that by downloading the Odyssey. app or going to the team 980.com. But the best thing about Coach Joe is, my God, the whole keep it humble, be, you know, show humility, let's under, under, undersell and over, over deliver.

I mean, my God, he was obsessed, obsessed with never letting anybody in the organization say something that would create a headline. Now, occasionally Dexter did. you know, there was only so much controlling of Dexter. But man, he was great at that, and obviously he was a great coach, too. It's almost impossible to have that kind of control with this generation of players. I mean, you know, in this generation of players, even the second string quarterback has been a star probably on social media in his college town,

in his hometown. And, I mean, I think the idea of people telling you how great you are, one of the diseases that you have to avoid as an athlete, is much more accentuated now than ever before. It is, but there are teams that have been able to keep, you know, things keep a lid on it. You know, the Patriots, obviously, the Ravens. You know, a lot of the successful teams, you know,

are still pretty humble, you know, groups. Yes. Yes. All right. There is some other news, including some NFL news. We'll get to that to finish up the show next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right. Final segment of the show today.

Tommy's got something he wants to talk about, and I think it actually comes back to Carson Wentz. Real quickly, from Joseph Kay on Twitter, why aren't we working with another team practicing against another team like maybe the Chiefs in preparation for the preseason game in Kansas City. Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of teams do live scrimaging. Right now, I know the 49ers and the Vikings are scrimaging live. They play, I think, each other in the preseason. It's my understanding that Washington was very close to doing something with Buffalo this summer and maybe a little bit earlier even before the preseason games began. But the J.D. McKissick deal, where McKissick had committed to Buffalo and didn't sign the deal

and then ended up signing with Washington, killed that possibility. That's my understanding. I don't know if that's 100% fact, but I remember somebody telling me that, and I remember other reporters alluding to it as well. So I think they did want another team to practice and scrimmage with this summer. And look, Sean McDermott and Ron Rivera have a very close relationship. You know, that organization, many people in it and Ron Rivera from the Carolina days have a close relationship. But that the bills were super, super P-Oed by what happened with the McKissick backing out and then signing with Washington.

But yes, I think it would be helpful. I mean, a lot of these teams say they are just much, much different practices than the ones that are, you know, head to head with your own teammates. When you're going live with another team, it's a totally different ballgame. Tommy, do you remember when the Patriots came to Richmond? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the real exposure of RG3, I mean, to the public, pretty much. I mean, because the reports from the Patriots camp after one day in Richmond was, oh, my God, this guy can't play quarterback. I know.

Kirk Cousins is much better than this guy. I mean, that's really when that stuff surfaced. Yeah, the other thing is I just remember how incredibly professional and buttoned up the Patriots were. Like, on their practice field before the scrimaging would start, like nobody was ever. sitting, standing, or watching, or everybody was in motion. And watching Washington, it was just completely disorganized. It would appear comparatively so. The other thing I'll never forget is, I think that's the only time I've seen Brady in person.

And what struck me, it was the same thing that I felt the first time I ever saw Peyton Manning in person, is just how big Brady is. I mean, Brady is big. Like he's so much bigger than most of the players that he's throwing the football to or handing the ball off to. He's like offensive lineman size, not 300 pounds, but height-wise. Like just a big, big guy. But anyway, I know you wanted to finish up with something that came out of Indianapolis Colts Camp. So I'll let you do that.

Well, this was reported in the athletic. And apparently Colts owner Jim Ursay, is still not handling his Carson Wentz experience with Kid Gloves from last year. He didn't mention Wentz, but in talking to reporters yesterday, he said, we went through the season with some inconsistency at quarterback that led to a massive problem, he said. Now he said, we're set up for excellence. now we just have to do it.

And Matt Ryan has the same feeling in his heart. Can we say, without a doubt, okay, there's no debating this, that the cult are better off with Matt Ryan and Carson Wentz, right? Yeah, I believe that, yes. Okay. That's not a debate. Well, it isn't for me. I think Matt Ryan's a better quarterback than Carson Wentz, definitely.

Yes. But you could also say, as many of the, you know, Carson Wentz stands like to say, that this was all Ursa's, you know, doing. You can say that Ursae was significantly influential in this. The problem when you say that is that you're ignoring what Chris Ballard said about Carson Wentz. His criticism was scathing for a general manager to talk about his quarterback before. I remember saying at the time, my God, if they're going to try,

trade him. You can't talk about him this way. Frank Reich apologized to the fan base for vouching for him. So, you know, I don't disagree with those that say, well, Ursae really drove this. Okay. But if he were really that good, then Ballard and Reich would have never said the things they said, and they would have gone into Erse and said, it doesn't matter. We have a chance to win with this guy. Come on. And we just, you know, you know, Frank Reich would have jumped on the table and said, you're not trading my quarterback. I think so. I mean, he went down.

If he was a Carson-Wen fan, he was a conscientious objector in this thing. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. Everybody knows that Bobbers, that Jimers say can't stand Carson once. We know that. You know, we're three weeks away from the regular season starting, and at that, point Carson Wentz is going to have the opportunity to prove Philly wrong, Indy wrong, and Ron Rivera and company right. And that's the great thing about this, not to sound, you know,

clicheish, but ultimately it comes down to proving it on the field. And they're going to have a chance to do that. And we'll see who's right. You know, we'll see who's right. I'm skeptical. I'm wait and see. At the same time, I think they're better at quarterback than they were before. and they're the best they've been at quarterback since Kirk left. Both things are true for me. In terms of him being the long-term answer, I wouldn't bet on it. I'll leave it at that. Tommy absolutely thinks it's not going to work out.

I wanted to just mention real quickly, my God, what was announced today is something that was in the works last weekend had been reported by our good friend John Orand at Sports Business Journal, but now it is complete. The Big Ten and three different networks, Fox, CBS, and NBC, they just did a $7 billion television deal with those three networks. This is the biggest television deal in the history of college sports. It's $1.2 billion annually in rights fees that Fox, CBS, and NBC are paying to the big 10, and the Big 10 now is no longer, starting in 2023, in ESPN property. So they will not be no Big 10 games on ESPN. They'll be on Fox at noon for football, CBS at 3.30 when CBS gets

rid of the SEC after this year, and NBC on Saturday nights. And then the basketball games will be shown on Fox, CBS, and the Big Ten network, which Fox owns like 65 percent of or something like that. And USC and UCLA are going to join the league. And, you know, I did say to, to, to, John, isn't this kind of a precursor of Notre Dame joining the Big Ten? And he said, not necessarily. Notre Dame's deal and the amount of revenue they generate still may be greater even with this deal than getting like one 14th or one, you know, actually it will be one 17th of the future Big Ten revenues. But one of the reasons it's being written that the big. Big Ten's been able to pull this off.

And this is important for you Maryland fans, is because of the addition of the D.C. market to the Big Ten network and to the Big Ten. This is what the Big Ten saw in Maryland. They saw a basketball school, obviously, but they saw the D.C. Baltimore marketplace. Because a lot of their schools aren't in big markets. I mean, yes, Chicago is where, you know, Northwestern is. but Chicago is a Notre Dame town college-wise. It's not a northwestern town.

You know, they have, you know, they added Rutgers. Rutgers really isn't a New York team or a New Jersey team in terms of popularity. By the way, I would argue that Notre Dame is bigger in New York and New Jersey than Rutgers is. But getting D.C. as the biggest, the really biggest market, combined market of Baltimore and Washington into the big, 10 was a big part of why the Big 10's been able to demand the media rights that it's been able to demand. Of course, the other part of it is Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, these massive brands in college sports are the real driver. But, you know, getting some of those big markets, this is where the ACC really screwed up. But they really didn't have a chance to kind of match

the Big Ten offer for Maryland. By the way, you know, Kevin Willard is killing. it recruiting-wise right now for the Terps, especially for the 20-23 class. All right. Anything else from you? I got nothing else, boss. All right. We'll talk on Tuesday. Enjoy the weekend.

I'll be back tomorrow with Doc Walker, the day before the game against the Chiefs. Oh, look at this. Just as we are wrapping up the podcast, breaking news from Adam Schaefter, Deshawn Watson's getting 11 games, an 11 game suspension for Deshawn Watson. He's going to be fined $5 million. The $5 million is a charitable donation for Deshawn Watson. That means it's tax deductible. So it looks like the NFL and the NFLPA is settled on 11 games and a $5 million charitable donation penalty punishment for Deshawn Watson.

11 games, that means there are six games when he comes back. And one of those six games for the Cleveland Browns is against the Washington commanders on New Year's Day here in D.C. So 11 games means he's available for the last six. That means December 4th at Houston would be his first game as a Cleveland Browns eligible player. And I guess, you know, with Jacoby Brissette being the course, quarterback for the first 11 and a division that, you know, they're expected to be, you know, competitive with a pretty good team. If Reset can hold down the fort and go five and six or six and five gives them a chance when Watson gets back to, you know, lead them to a potential

postseason birth, although, you know, you would think that Watson would have to get acclimated to football again after it's been quite a long time since he's played football. and to his new team. More on this coming up on tomorrow's show. In addition to Doc on the show tomorrow, Ross Tucker is expected to be on the show as well. We'll talk a lot of NFL with Ross. All right, that's it for the day, back tomorrow.