Grant and Danny
Full Show- Thursday, September 26th, 2024
a pleasant Thursday afternoon, September 26, 2024. Welcome into Grant and Danny on the fan. We are taking you up to six 30 tonight, just two hours of programming for you on G and D. And then we'll keep it live and local in the nation's capital with overtime deep into the evening with the Nat's having already played already lost today. It's our time to shine on the Grant and Danny radio program. Hello, Daniel. What's up, buddy? What a soupy, humid, gross day today. Just dumb. That's all. That's all I got for you. It's it's disgusting. I went to the game. Yeah. My son asked a couple of days ago, if we could go to a Nat's game, which is awesome. Very cool. One of the first times he's ever done that. And because I could say, yes, for another like week, I decided we kind of had to make it happen. And because they have early bedtimes, today was the day to do that. So the kids came out to the ballpark with the wife. We had five year old, three year old and baby and stroller. And they wanted to climb all over me, sit on my lap. Yep. They look, they all looked like they had just like come out of the woods after 10 hours unattended to just sweaty hair flopping around. But they have to touch you so much. You know, like, I love my kids, but it's the touching. It's the sitting on you. It was just too hot for all of it. The good news is, we didn't spend a whole lot on food. The Nat's I tip my cap once more. Kids eat free all season long. So we got the free brown bag lunch with the hot dog and the chips and the water for the kids. The only thing I had to get them was ice cream. And the person at the ice cream stand was kind enough to divvy up that $110 bowl into two bowls for your boy. Here we go. So we even saved on that. So victories all over the place, except between the lines, right? But we were winning off of the field. Indeed, sir. And dude, Bruce would be proud. And then the lovely fam stopped by here in the studio and grappled a little bit with Uncle Danny. There was a lot of rough out with Uncle Danny. It's, there's different style of uncle. There's like the Chris Russell style uncle where it's like, Hey, but you guys will find a quarter behind your ear. And he's like yelling and everyone's sure what the production is. He is quarter behind the ear. Uncle. Then there's why don't you come over here and punch Uncle Danny's arm? And then I'll pick you up and turn you upside down. And now all of a sudden they're sound effects and we're webbing each other. That's kind of, you know, that's my style of uncle. You know, it was over to my nieces, not into anymore. Oh, well, this was the first time these guys had played some of those games. So not only fresh to them, it's fresh material. Not only are they loving the material, I'm gonna get requested to now like use them as vacuum cleaners. Oh, totally. I don't know if I'm in game shape. I don't know if I've got that in me. You can do what you have to do when you turn the kid upside down, you make them kind of sound effect like you're like you're cleaning the floor. Was that the race car driving back? No, so race cars. Right. That's your race car, right? Your truck at a truck stop is like that one, right? The vacuum is like you're going back and forth on the carpet. And then how would we'd whacker compare? I don't know. Can I do it? We'd whacker is like a more just feels more like gas run version of that. I don't think I can do that. I tell it, let me go. Let me go listen really close to a weed whacker. You know, a weed whacker in your portfolio? Probably should. That's embarrassing. When's the last time you we'd whacked? What's today? They's the 26th to about two weeks ago. True story. And I'm not proud of this. Okay. But my neighbors will tell you this is true. I haven't we'd whacked when I cut my grass in years. Yes. I'm the guy that just leaves like, like I do a really good job up until like the stones on the garden or whatever. I don't own a weed whacker. I find weed whackers to be I don't know what I do that's wrong. I go through the string constantly. The string always falls out. I can't keep the string in. Like if you want to talk about my Eleanor Nicholas Cage trying to steal the Shelby GT. The thing I've never been able to figure out that it seems like no one else has a problem with weed whackers. There was one time when I lived in a small townhouse where I had a plug in basically electric weed whacker that didn't rely upon strength. It had like almost like this metal bar of a cutter that's that I feel like that's so dangerous. Is it? I mean, I don't know anything. Yeah, somebody made it because it's a great call it. So I don't think people were dying. I don't know. But that was the only time and I don't even know whatever happened to that thing. The battery went bad probably. And I just stopped using it. But yeah, I have gone years at a time without weed whacking not proud of that. But it's just kind of where we are. I bought the combo that uses the same rechargeable battery. Weed whacker slash leaf blower. Right? So it's like, can we charge the battery? And it's got a slot for each one. That's for the for the same battery. I hate those. Where do you keep the battery in your garage? Yeah. I'm so bad. Anything that's like battery operated, the battery will be lost in no just pummeled it was no way. This thing size your heads. It's not going anywhere. I mean, that's it's one of the worst substantial units. I still just never find anything. Yeah, I have. I were there with you. But I really like weed whacking. I'm I'm basically, I can't stand the side of them. My wife doesn't care really that much. She's like, do it. Don't it doesn't really matter. To me, like it's they're yelling at me. Like they're telling me that I'm wrong. They're like, Hey, you zilch. You don't accomplish very much. And if your wife wasn't around, you'd accomplish nothing. So I'm taunting you. And I'm like, you know what, I can I can beat that weed. I can I can destroy that weed in my yard. Highlight of the game today. Mm hmm. Ovation for Corbin. That was neat. We talked about it on that's post game just a few minutes ago. But it was a. I thought a respectable moment from the fan base and it was a prideful moment for me. One of those. This is a good look for us. Mm hmm. Like I saw Bobby Whit Jr. in the Royals dug out. I was behind the visitors dug out a handful of rows up with the kids. And I saw them kind of talking to each other and like pointing over toward Corbin. They're probably going, what in the hell's this about? This guy just pitched a mediocre game and has an ERA of about six. But I'm sure somebody knew what was going on. Yeah. Final start, final year, six year contract helped win the World Series. Two players left. And he's the easiest punching bag in the world. And I've been taking some of the swings. I get it. I think we all have taken our turns. Yeah. Jokes right themselves. But if I could be an old man for a second and get on my soapbox at a time in sports and in life, when the little things have never mattered less showing up, caring about doing your job, like the stuff your dad talked about, your curmudgeonly uncle, you know, gives millennials prop, you know, guff about just punching the time card and saying you're going to be somewhere at the right time and then showing up before you're supposed to be there and never screw in anybody over. Like the baseball version of those things is what Patrick Corbin did. Now it didn't pitch well enough. That's his crime. And I totally get that. It was bad for the last count of five years. He was the worst pitcher in baseball. If 2019 didn't happen, then we could have a different conversation, but it did. And everyone says, well, it was the worst pitcher. I mean, there were other pictures that were worse. And there are other pitchers, pitchers who were equally as bad who never pitched as much as him. So you don't know it because they were terrible. And the team said kick rocks or they were terrible and got sent down or they were terrible and got cut. And in Corbin's case, because of his contract, like Top Gun, they just kept sending him up. And I think it's admirable to just kind of keep taking the assignment. No, and you can't fly the jet. Yeah. I mean, you got cases a month ago or so where David Martinez is going, yeah, no matter what Patrick Corbin's throwing 100 pitches tomorrow because the bullpen's wiped out. How lonely a feeling is that? You know, you have lost it. You don't have it. You know, it's not going to go well. And there's going to be thousands of people watching you booing. You're angry at you as you just keep standing on that mound all by your side getting shelled or not. It's lonely out there. There's nobody coming to help you. Um, yeah, the level of professionalism, I think is, is, is important. It was a good example for, for his teammates. They, they adore him. Understandably. He also, uh, he knows wife made a huge donation to the Nats Youth Academy that there's a scoreboard now that's in his family's name. Uh, that's, that's part of it. So he named it the Grant and Danny scoreboard on our behalf. I think he named it, uh, maybe it's the Corbin scoreboard. I don't know. Oh, weird choice. Yeah, should have gone with the Grant and Danny. Nice. Youth Academy scoreboard. For like the four interviews we did with him. Yeah. A couple of times you talk to him in spring training. Over six years. Yeah, it is officially G and D now on the fan. The Nats are in the rear view. So let's get to a little preview of tonight. We got an NFC East collision in prime time. Week four kicks off in the NFL Thursday night football Cowboys giants. Let's tee that up next on the fan. All the fans are sensing it. They're coming to their feet. Corbin is going to give the baseball. Davey Pat some on the chest and then Pat some on the side of the cheek and makes a single the bullpen and nationals fans all around nationals. Park are coming to their feet to salute Patrick Corbin for the final time. Welcome back. Grant and Danny on the fan. The nationals lost to the royals. Your pals now keeping your company until six 30. Let's turn the page. The NFL gets going tonight. Week four and it's the NFC East taking center stage in prime time again on Thursday night football with the Cowboys and the Giants. This game feels like a got to have it game for Dallas. The Cowboys came into the year expected to win the division. It was going to be them or Philly. The two teams at the top of the East. They are one and two. They have now lost back to back games. They got embarrassed by the Saints and even though they lost close to Baltimore with the comeback, they actually weren't really that close in that game for the majority of the day. Anyway, they played pretty much three bad quarters. So Danny, now you're looking at the Giants this weekend. If you can't beat the Giants tonight on Thursday night football, they've got the Steelers, Lions, 49ers, Falcons coming up. All teams better than New York. All teams probably as good as at least one or both of the teams they've lost to. This thing could go really badly for them really fast after paying CD lamb, paying deck. They already came into the season, placing their head coach Mike McCarthy on the hot seat. They lose tonight. The hourglass begins on McCarthy. Yeah. They're in dire straits. Now I could also see them ripping off a win tonight and then, you know, getting mildly hot to, you know, do what they've done last couple of seasons and get the double digit wins. They, what's happened though with this franchise is they've got, they haven't gotten better, right? They've kind of had to stand pat because of these massive contracts they've had to hand out and then there's up, you know, maybe one or two more coming. So they, they've gotten sort of worse around the edges. And that's really starting to show up here as they've, you know, gotten off to this really, really sluggish start. They're not bad yet, but they're also not that good. Maybe as other teams are kind of getting better and there's some attrition and some of the guys they're counting on are a little bit older, a little bit more chipped away, a little bit more injured, a little bit less explosive. And here they are, as you said, on the road on Thursday night football, where weird stuff happens. I mean, it's a short week and it's a divisional divisional game where the Giants haven't looked as terrible as I thought they would. This might be a slug fest. And you know, you're getting one the following week from Pittsburgh. They are in a tough spot right here. If they end up one and three headed to Pittsburgh, can you imagine the chaos? I mean, look, obviously they should win their five and a half point favorites, but when teams are favored by more than five and a half points against the spread this year, they're not two and 14. I mean, against the spread that is. But the season's been utterly unpredictable as my point, like the underdogs have hung teams like the Giants and matchups like this have performed really, really well either straight up, see Washington against Cincinnati, or just keeping the game really close. In fact, the biggest statistical underdog in the NFL has won in all three weeks. Week one, New England over Cincinnati. Week two would happen and then week three with the commanders over the Bengals. So something to think about going into Thursday night football, I just think the Giants have actually looked better than the Cowboys for two straight weeks now. Doesn't necessarily have to mean a whole lot, but in week two, when the Giants lost to Washington, basically because they didn't have a place kicker, the Cowboys were busy just getting their chest kicked in and the Browns hosting the Giants this past weekend when New York won 21 to 15 made that game closer late than it looked like it was going to be early on, but they didn't really have answers from elite neighbors who's been unbelievable. That might be what I'm most happy about tonight is to get to see Malik neighbors for four quarters in prime time without multitasking with 10 or 12 other games. Do you realize he's leading the NFL and targets as a rookie? Yeah, there's nothing else on that offense. It's worth a damn. So they're poor speed them. Yeah, the other part of it, he's good. He's damn good. He's got 37 targets. He is chewing up 48% of their receiving yards individually as one guy. Almost half of their passing yards have been to Malik neighbors who's on pace for I think I looked this up yesterday. So it's it's not exact, but it's something like this over 130 catches and over 1500 yards. We saw Jayden Daniels put on a show when he got his chance the other night. This is the other rookie who looks like a potential rookie of the year so far in the NFL. He gets his opportunity with the country watching this evening. Yeah, I mean, he's almost averaging eight catches per game. You do some quick math on that. And you know, he's, as you said, over 130 catches and just outstanding numbers. He's terrific. So that's the challenge for the for an opposing defense is basically, he's lining up everywhere. Whatever we do, we have to worry about him. You don't have to worry about Wanda Robinson or Darius Slaton or Tyrone Tracy or Daniel Bellinger or anybody else on that roster because it ain't good. Now, Singapore is fine. The running game and they've actually been better there than I thought they'd be. Nothing dynamic or remarkable. That's not going to stop tonight because the Cowboys are the worst run stopping team in the NFL right now. Yeah, but to me, run game stopped themselves, right? You could see these dominant run games. Look at these run totals. The Green Bay ran for a million yards and scored 16 points a couple of weeks ago. Those, those drives will end up stopping themselves, whether it's a procedure penalty, whether it's holding something, you know, a stuff run, somebody makes a play. To me, it's about, can you slow down? Can you stop? Can you neutralize to some degree like neighbors? You do you in the football game. I think it for doubts. Other side of the ball, biggest storyline is trying to get CD lamb going for the Cowboys and then that defense. Mike Zimmer in week one was lauded for the plan he put together against the Browns, but we've figured out subsequently that the Browns are just not that good. And in the two game since against the Saints and the Ravens, the Cowboys have gotten embarrassed defensively over a two week span. They've been arguably the worst defense in the league right there with Washington. And now we just had a guest on yesterday breaking down the Cowboys when we blitzed the East, the storyline is maybe Mike Zimmer's had the game passed him by. So it's a big night for him as well. I mean, you've got to find a plan to slow down the Giants. It shouldn't be that hard. It's as you said, one receiver in neighbors and it's Daniel Jones at quarterback and they're going to hand the ball off to single Terry. A bunch was normally between 16 and 20 carries. They could also use a fast start talking about Dallas, by the way, like it feels like they've sleepwalked through a couple of these games New Orleans. They never got back into it. Baltimore that a furious rally late in the game. But if they play with a lead, I'd like to see what it looks like. More on Thursday night football before we get out of here in the six o'clock hour next, has your thought on what the commanders could be this season changed at all based on their Monday night performance. Let's get to that on Grant and Danny here on the fan. [silence] G&D. Welcome in your back on the fan after day baseball right here on one oh six seven, the fan this afternoon. We're going to take you all the way up to six 30 tonight. Shorter show the normal overtime deep into the evening live and local this evening. I want to remind you that this show is sponsored today and every day by our friends, Condorian Murad, that law firm. Just sent us out to Cincinnati. We hung out with those guys for a few days. They're good eggs. They're going to square you and your family away. Get you set up with a last will and testament. Set up a trust for you and your family as well. Schedule a free consultation with their estate planning attorneys. Visit kmloyers.com. Tell them we sent you, they'll get you a discount. kmloyers.com. Danny, you know how much I pride myself on not being reactionary? Yeah. And on not trying to allow something amazing, whether it's positive or negative, something abnormally good or bad to influence how I feel in a small sample. Man, is it hard not to let Monday night change the eye line a little bit on this season. Your imagination running away with you is not ridiculous after Monday night. The question we want to pose on the phones and they're wide open for you at 800 6361067 right now on GND. Does that Monday night win, whether it's Daniels's performance, the offense going to second straight game without punning the fact that in a hostile environment, the commanders put on a clinic with the football, just how they handled themselves. Does any part of it change how you feel about this season? Your prediction for what they're capable of win total wise this season. Absolutely. 100%. I didn't think they had that offensive performance in them at any point in time. I didn't think you could take advantage of a bad defense. I thought they were the get right week for everybody. It's to the point where in some big money fantasy leagues that I'm in that I come in with one of my good buddies, they were one of the teams that we had listed as let's stream a defense against them. Let's treat them the way we would treat the Giants or the Jaguars now or the Panthers when Bryce Young was quarterback, et cetera, because they're not going to score very much because they're so limited. That's not the case. This offense has gotten steadily better each week. The week before was a great sort of kind of harbinger for this where they didn't punt. They moved up and down the field and red zone sabotaging, but of their own doing, prevented touchdowns. Well, you take away some of those sabotages and you score a bunch of touchdowns. You never stop scoring touchdowns, apparently, if you're in this offense. Now, they're not getting 38 points a week. This isn't the greatest show on turf Rams, but I didn't think they had that ceiling. I thought their ceiling was a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot lower. So egg on my face. So yeah, I have certainly upped kind of what I view as their offensive ceiling because I've just seen it. That was tremendous. And I didn't think they'd get their all year. I would be lying if I said Monday night has not changed how I feel about this season and what they're capable of this season. Jayden Daniels in week one and week two was basically exactly what I thought he was going to be early this year. Jayden Daniels in week three blew me away, which isn't to say that I didn't think he would make the throws that he made. Although those are low percentage throws and they were amazing. I've always kind of like everybody else. You watch him in college. You see the arm talent is there. You go out to one training camp practice. You can see he's immensely accurate. He's got that. It's never been a question of can he do it in terms of standing in the pocket and making throws. It's does he want to do that? What does he want to be? Does he want to be a throw first quarterback or does he want to take off and run 16 times like he did in his first game ever? And that's kind of what I was and still to some extent I'm curious about. But he can obviously do everything you need him to do with his arm. But I think week one and week two Jayden Daniels and week three Jayden Daniels are two very, very different guys in terms of the decision making running versus throwing leaving the pocket to reset to throw versus just head down taking off trying to go get yards with my feet. Just a different guy. That performance coming this early in his career. Maybe it ends up being an outlier in a month and it was just a fun thing. I think it has to change how you feel. That was a really special quarterback and performance. Similarly, I was skeptical of Cliff Kingsbury. I still have questions about Kingsbury. But through a couple of weeks now, week one again, not withstanding. But the majority two of their three games, they've had all the answers offensively. They have moved the ball up and down the field. Now the Bengals defense is terrible. The Giants defense is not particularly good. The one good defense they've played they really struggled with. But you're going to play a lot of defenses that aren't that good. You get to play Dallas twice as an example. A terrible matchup on paper for Washington. Meaning from their perspective, I think it's a great matchup for the commanders when they've got the football. That's two games that are going to be on your schedule. Just top of my head. There are plenty more like that, right? I think you're going to be able to move the ball on the Eagles who aren't particularly good defensively. Those are the top two teams in your division. I worry about Washington's defense because I don't think it's going to get a whole lot better. I just don't think they have the personnel and the secondary to be very good. The more we watch this thing, the more it becomes evident, that's going to be a year-long problem. I hope they'll improve. I don't know how they couldn't. Yeah, one is more than zero. They are the eighth worst defense in terms of DVOA, which basically like takes a lot of basically stuff out of the equation to level the playing field for how you're performing. Eighth worst in the DVOA stat era ever. It's just been ugly. They're the worst cover team by far in terms of EPA per play allowed in the league. So that worries me. It's not going to come as easily as it did this past week. They're going to commit penalties like they were able to avoid that they're going to turn the ball over more than zero. Yeah, the fumble that you recover on a miraculous play about Allegretti isn't recovered and all of a sudden the game is different. They've caught a couple of breaks here and there. So yeah, things are going to equalize. I'm 100% with you. But I think I'm actually answering two questions here. The question is, has your season thought on this team changed? What do you think they're capable of your prediction for the year? And to that, I have to say yes, it has because they are better offensively. The Kingsbury thing is working better than I thought. And Daniel's playing the game he just did. I did not expect this early. The other question I started answering when I got off track there is could they be really good? And I think that's a whole different thing. You see what I'm saying? Of course I do. Yeah. Here's why they're not going to win 11 games or whatever. That's different than hey, you thought they'd go seven and 10. Uh huh. Or do they have a higher ceiling than that now? And I just don't know how you could have watched Monday. Maybe it's unsustainable to some extent. I get that the Bengals are over for the season and they're just not as good as everyone thought. Still people think that they're better than they are and I don't really get it. But it's not about the Bengals. It's about Washington. They are Luke McCaffrey made plays. The Ami Brown made plays. Terry McClure and look like he was 25 again. It was a really eye-openingly impressive performance where we saw the best of a lot of guys. So here's this. This is how I'm viewing it. I know it's sort of answering ancillary questions based on the on the main question, but I think it's instructive. So before the season started, I go, I think their offense is going to be a two and a half or three. And the games that they win are, you know, Jayden Daniels, miracle work, scramble, 80 yards like Griffin against Minnesota, or, you know, something kind of you win a slug fest like they did against the Giants beating another bad team who can't do anything on offense. And I thought their defense would be also like a three or four that out of 10, not good, but also not atrocious. Well, I was wrong on both counts. Their offense is a higher number than that TBD where they finished, but it ain't a two or three. And their defense probably that good. Their defense is probably worse. It's probably a one or one and a half, even to sort of not even opponent dependent. So how we get to the record, how that affects things, that'll be kind of fun to find out. But to me, I'm going, my evaluation of the offense for the season now looks to be so completely dead wrong. Because I didn't think they had that in them. That's the part that I'm stressing here. Week one, week two, okay, you know, we sort of, you could excuse each one. Okay, it's the first time they're spoon-fooding Jayden Daniels trying to bring him long slow. Week two, okay, the Giants stink. Week three, I'm not saying the Bengals are good, but you don't do 38 points and you don't punt even against crappy defenses. There are plenty of bad defenses that force a punt here or there that get, you're more than two in completions. There are more, there are plenty of defenses that over the last several seasons where Daniels would have had more in completions than total touchdowns in that game. That offensive performance was so great. I'm going, okay, I was wrong about what I thought their offense was or could do. Yeah, for me, it's actually two weeks to, you know, not just the one. It's the Giants game and the Bengals game from an offensive standpoint that have me ready to reassess a little bit through three weeks. So for myself, I never thought they were as bad offensively as you did. And I've never hated their personnel to the same extent that you do. Having said that, I didn't, I wasn't high on it. I didn't love it. This was not the greatest show on turf, but I really, really liked the Echler edition. He's been outstanding. I think Noah Brown is a decent enough wide receiver to type the fact that he was available as a godsend. I actually think Zacchaeus, who's been very limitedly involved, the Ami Brown can serve roles. It's not to say they're going to be good or scare anybody, but the way they use receivers, I just don't think it's going to be what they major in or care a whole lot about. It's a lot of stuff at and behind the line of scrimmage, for the most part, it's going to work out. The way they've run the ball, Brian Robinson going for a buck 30 against the Giants. The Bengals then said, okay, guess what, Brian Robinson's not going to beat us and Washington said, cool. No problem. And they threw it outside. So you saw them do the thing they want to do. Then a week later, a team bow up and say, you're not going to do the thing you want to do. And Washington said, no problem. We've got another way to move the football. The fact that they've been able to zig and then zag and then zig again gives me some hope as well. So yeah, for me, the sight line has changed. How good are they? Probably a different conversation we can have, but it would be hard pressed. I think to find people who shouldn't be optimistic about them, maybe I'll kick in their coverage a little bit after a game like that Bengals game. And this is the ultimate sin as a football fan. We all know it, right? The one week big reaction, but that's why to me, I go back now over what is a three week sample and the growth that we've seen. Let's go to the phones. 806361067. There's a line open. Did Monday night has the early part of this season changed how you feel about Washington's next 14 weeks? Let's go to Martin and Landover on Grant and Danny. Hey, Martin. Hey, how's it going? Good, but that's okay. Gentlemen, I listen to your argument just a few or your conversation and it was making me sway my original opinion, but I'm going to have to stick with my original opinion because I just see that I already had like a really high opinion of Jay and Danny. It was my QB number one coming out of college. I wish I had my board in front of everybody like, yeah, he was the guy I wanted. So I already was like high on him. I was worried about Brandon Coleman, but he looks like he's more athletic than I thought. So they might have got a hit and left tackle. So really, I'm kind of happy about that. The interior line showing a lot of promise. I was skeptical. That was actually what I was worried about. So the office has been exactly what I thought. It's better than I thought, but I was thinking that, you know, the office was going to be, you know, pretty good. I just thought they were going to be all right. That damn defense. Oh my God. It's bad. I don't know what I'm looking at. I don't know if they're playing defense. Yeah, they're not playing the ball. Yeah. What are they doing? And I'm going to throw this on Dan Clann and Joe with their weakness last year with the Cowboys, whether they're run defense and you have to stop the run first. You just have to. You'll take your lumps in the pass game, but you cannot get gas. It's demoralizing. It is just hugely demoralizing. It is depth by paper cut. Thanks for the call, Martin. Appreciate you. It is demoralizing the perfect word because when you give up the big plays down the field in the secondary, like that throw to chase, you just feel like you don't have the Billy's and the Joe's. Like, you know what? We don't have the athletes. We can't hang with them. It's a scene from, remember the Titans where Ryan Gosling, like the little white corner comes up to Herman Boone. And he's like, I can't play with these guys. I can't run, you know, whatever. That's how it feels sometimes when you're getting just toasted by better wide receivers. When you're getting just torched for seven, 10, 12, eight, five on the ground, which has happened at times against this defense this year. And you have no answer. You're just getting bullied and demoralizing is the perfect word for it. But they're not good at anything. No, it's not like, well, they take away the run and then they get beaten to pass. If you want to run, you could do that. But if you want to pass, you could also do that. Yeah, what's on the whole menu is available to you guys. What would you like today? How do you want to move the football? The kitchen's open. Short passing game? No problem. Throw it out that way. No one's going to tackle you. But if you want to go over the top of everybody back behind them near the end zone, cool. There's where you're going to throw it to. What can they hang their hat on defensively right now that they do at a passable level? They're not turning people over one through three games. They're not pressuring the quarterback. That's nonexistent at this point. They're they're not limiting big plays. I guess there's nothing they've other than week one, I think they've tackled pretty well. Is that fair? I thought in week one, they did a terrible job tackling. I do think the last couple of weeks have been better. But when you're tackling people nine yards from the line of swimming, regular hustles and catches guys from behind, he leads the league and the hustle physical tackle. That's true. He's got that going for him. So his answer is he doesn't feel any better because the defense is abysmal. That's fair. Yeah. So that's that's kind of how I net out, right? Where I go, the offense is way better than I thought it was going to be and the defense is worse. But the offense being better is way more important to me. Certainly. But I don't just mean in terms of the future and Jaden Daniels. I'm not even saying that. I'm saying in the way of being a good football team, if you're a great offense, you have a chance to win shootouts. Like your ceiling is just naturally higher than if you're a bad offense. So in that net, it should still kind of come out in the wash in the plus, right? If the offense is better than you thought and the defense is worse than you thought, that's actually more ideal than the inverse. That's what I would take. If I if I had to pick and meaning one's going to be worse than you thought, one's going to be better. I would pick that 100%. Josh upper moral burrow on Greg and Danny, how you doing, sir? I'm doing great doing great fellows. Yeah, I'm incredibly optimistic for a few reasons. First, just because of the competition, both that we have faced and that we will face, I know that this is not the bingles of years past. But guys, this is, you know, a Super Bowl caliber team two out of the last three seasons, right? And with a incredible quarterback who still has a lot of punch to him and some of the best receivers in the league. And, you know, yes, they did torch us, but we kind of hung in. And I do want to say, I feel like St. Juice is just playing with, I was at the home game. Obviously, watch Monday night really closely. He's playing with a little, you know, punch. I don't know. He's got a little, like, vigor to him that is like, I know he's getting beat, but he's hanging in there a little bit more than I've seen before. And I know that's really squishy, but would love for you guys to react to that. But also just our competition moving forward, we should really win five of the next six games, right? I mean, they're against either absolute scrubs or very, very beatable teams in the Browns and the Panthers and the Bears and the Giants and in the Steelers. And so the momentum coming out of that, if we've already banked seven games heading into the more difficult part of our season, that's pretty incredible. So I think for me, it's more about the competition, playing to the level of a team like the Bengals and then, you know, the relatively easy competition in front of us. Appreciate it, Josh. See, but his answer there tells you he feels a lot better. Yeah, without a doubt, right? Because he's now saying, look at the schedule, look who they're playing. They're playing a bunch of scrubs where after week one, if we looked at that schedule, Washington is not going to play with or not on the same level, let's say, as Pittsburgh, right? Looking at just bang through them. This Cardinals game, I now give them a really good chance to win. They had a bunch of chants in that one. I would go above that. I mean, to me, it'll be disappointing if they don't win this weekend after what they just did against Cincinnati because the Cardinals are not a playoff team. They're just a math NFC team. They're a pain in the butt to play. They play hard, but nobody thought coming into the air. They're more than a seven or so wind team. The Browns don't look very good. The Ravens are off to a bad start. The Panthers stink, the Bears stink, the Giants stink. That's the schedule all the way until Pittsburgh, which is like in November, essentially. So after week one, when we looked at that, we're going Cleveland's probably better, but it's a toss up. Carolina's really bad, but can Washington take anyone for granted? They're doing that to us right now in Carolina radio. The Ravens are going to bully them. And the idea now that we could look at it and go, Oh, well, the commanders should beat the Cardinals. There's no reason to lose to the Browns at home. You can maybe hang with Baltimore. You got to beat Carolina, Chicago. That answers the question that people just now view this thing so much differently, which is scary because it was only the one game. I guess you could say it's two wins, but that's what happens in this league. When you haven't felt the loss and been humbled in like 15, 18, 19 days, you just start thinking crazy. But that's where we are now. Yeah, that's, but it's, it's also again, that that ceiling makes nobody saying now the, well, I mean, maybe the occasional like, you know, die hard or lunatic river when a call is going, this is who they are now 38 points a week. Doesn't matter to the defense book it. But I think that's ludicrous. But to me going, I didn't think they had that performance in them. So the average of the previous three games is a plus offense, right? That's one bad in Tampa, one solid, although, you know, we would say good, you didn't finish, but they, they didn't yeah. So I'd say plus and then one incredible. So that's overall way, way, way, way, way better than expectation. So yeah, so boom goes it out. Another way to say it is if they play every game like the last game, which is sometimes I think how you view it as, you know, just going through a schedule and what you just saw, if they play every game like the Tampa game, there are four and 13 team. If they play every game like the Giants game, there are six and 11 team. If they play every game like the Bengals game, they're a 13 and four or 14 and three team. Seriously, like that's what we're talking about here, like the nearly perfect offensive performance with the quarterback playing at an MVP level every single week, you go 13 and four, 12 and five. So now you're looking at it through the lens of what if they got the Bengals game in the bag? Why didn't they just pack that? Take it Arizona? Now you beat them by. Let's do that. Yeah. 800, 636, 1067 is the number. Does how Washington played against Cincinnati change how you feel about this team? Yes or no? Or is that dangerous? Because lest we forget they were awful in week one and then in week two, they survived pretty bad Giants team largely because the Giants had an injury to their kicker. They could easily have been Owen to having played one pretty good team and one bad team. Now we're looking at this thing after two straight wins with a 40 point nearly victory over the Bengals. And it feels like we're starting up as a fan base growing confidence. G and D on the fan. Yeah, they all have their thing. I think he doesn't. He's very competitive fire. You see it on the field, but so far you haven't seen a negative play impact him or a real positive play. He just kind of does his job and wants to do it the right way. And so I think he's up there with some of the best I've been around as far as being able to play the next snap and not let good or bad affect him. Offensive coordinator Cliff Kingsbury. How can you be both in your bag and talking into a microphone at the same time? Maybe the microphone is in his bag. Maybe it's a microphone glass. All the kids have been telling me he's in his bag, but he was at the podium. So maybe the podium is also in his bag. I don't know how that works. Think about that. Jaden Daniels, first and completion percentage fourth QB rating fourth and first downs per attempt seventh and QB are second and quarterback rushing yards first and quarterback rushing scrambles first and quarterback rushing touchdowns through three games. Question for you is did that Bengals gym change how you feel about this football team moving forward? Let's go to Vick and Akakeek on GND. What's up, Vick? GND. What's up, baby? Hey, buddy. So, Brandon, I haven't disagree with you in a while, but I have a slight disagreement. I do not believe if we continue to play like we play versus the bangers that we will be at 12 and 5, 13 and 14. I believe we could be a nine-win team that couldn't make the playoffs. I can go on record as saying this, but I said this over time with Doc and I said this on Adam Epstein's show. Right now, I believe we are at least seven plus win team that could make the playoffs, and what I said last weekend. You can't make the playoffs with that type of defense. I do believe we will win more games, and I do believe we can win more than seven games because of the ability of our offense, the coaching of our offenses of coach coordinators. You got to remember four weeks ago, we were saying the offensive line was in trouble. We want to die, Jayden was going to get crushed, blah, blah, blah. Officer's line is played very well. Agree. Yeah. Not thank you. And our offensive line also has shown that we could run the football and we want to be nasty. We want to be aggressive at the point of attack. We maul people over. We're watching it before I so that changes the tempo of a team and how teams respect you, but right now, there have been, I'll leave with this, I have seen our defense be better at times that that made me compare Romba various, some of his defenses to ours, right now and saying his defenses at times were better than our defense was at whatever beat. Nick, I mean, and I appreciate it. Sorry to cut you off. There's no doubt about that. Here's why. Here's how I know that. Through three games, this is the eighth worst defense in history via DVOA during the time of that stat, which goes back decades. Now, I don't think that means this is the eighth worst defense of all time, or that's where it's going to end up. But I do think he makes a credible point in a reasonable call to say, if you play the defense you played against Cincinnati, Vick's right, you cannot make the playoffs probably. I don't think there's ever been a playoff team. There are some of those Saints, Breeze teams with bad defenses, Peyton Manning's Colts teams every single year, some of my home's chief's time of his career, like awful, but I don't know that they've been this, which is to say when the other team gets the ball, they're going and getting points. Yeah. One negative thing happens. You don't pick up a first down after a first down penalty and it's, you know, second in 20, you know, down me Brown doesn't make two ridiculous catches and run subsequently, and you don't pick up a fourth down. Like stuff happens, right? There's going to be adversity. And if you had one negative thing take place on offense, you lose that game this past week. So yeah, I mean, that points well soon. Let's go to Eddie, who's in Woodbridge, home of the Vikings. What's up, Ed? Hey, how's it going? But thank you for taking my call. So yeah, so I think we can go from a 4 and 13 team to maybe a 7 and 10 or or 8 and 19 if the offense manages its humility. The defense is so bad that we can't, we can't do we can't score in six plays because then the other team comes back, they score in three plays. We've got to still have a level of running the ball of ball control to keep those other offenses bomb. And when I say manage their humility, a lot of fans are going to be saying, Oh, hey, Jayden, give us another 50 yard bomb. Do this or? Yeah, well, okay, fine. We get that 50 yard bomb on the end of the fifth play, but then someone else comes back and they score into this going to play. So we've got to make sure that we don't score too quickly that we keep their offense off the field. If we can manage our humility, we can we can get up to perhaps a nine and I'll take the home runs when I can get them. I'll never turn down the 50 yard bomb. I will tell you now, but he actually has me thinking about something, which is to say, Cliff Kingsbury loves pace. He loves tempo. I've not really connected these dots yet. I should go back and look. But I know after one week, Washington was the fastest offense in terms of pace of plays run in the league. I don't know where they rank after three games, but I do remember one time sitting in Mike Shanahan's office asking him about tempo and pace and why don't they run more hurry up. And he was arguing about how detrimental it is to a defense. It's kind of what he the caller was just talking about. I'm not saying you don't want to move the ball quickly. You always want the explosives bring on the big plays. I'll disagree with him on that point, but the tempos works. It's worked for Daniels. It's worked for the offense. It's worked to get good looks against bad conceptual either designs or packages or the wrong group of players on the field for the defense. It's worked for the offense. It probably also is fair to say, Danny, that it makes life a lot harder on the defense. Well, to a degree, I think it only happens when you go three and out though. And you in you ran hurry up to do it. They had 33 minutes of time in possession against Cincinnati, 38 against New York. So to me, time and possession is effectiveness. And they punt the least of anybody. So let me rephrase then. Maybe to this point, it's not an excuse. All I'm saying is if you're going tempo and not staying on the field, that's it. We'll make a bad defense is life harder because they've stayed on the field at a rate that, by the way, will not continue. It hasn't been a problem yet, but it is something Cliff Kingsbury needs to think about. If you're going to be coaching this team and calling plays on this team with a terrible defense, maybe you've got to be a little bit of a good soldier for the coordinator on the other side. You're also coordinating the defense too, or you get like a half producer credit on that, right? I mean, if you're going hurry up tempo and you go three and out a couple of times, you can't do that again the next time, right? Because your defense is right back on the field to give up so many points. Let's go to Eric in Silver Spring. How are you, sir? Gentlemen, gentlemen, how are you doing buddy? Great. Thank you. First of all, I always want to know who's the one that has the MLB gig on the radio? I do an MLB show. Is that what you referenced? That's you. I knew the voice. I'm like, I know this voice, man. That's funny. Morning, Ziya. Yeah. I'd break down the minor leagues for you. Yes. Okay. I knew the voice sound. So let me tell you this. I know everybody wants to play the game. This is good, but I'm going to be that one game at a time guy with this team because we all know that this thing can crumble fast with this team. And I don't want to get my hopes up high and then they bring them back down and then, you know, by the end of October, we're talking about, so who do we draft in the first round? So been there. I'm going to be. Yeah. I'm going to. Yes. We've been there. I'm just going to say this. This is when I kind of felt good about this team is when the Bengals scored and we came right back and scored on them. That's when I said, wait a minute, we got a different team here because, you know, in the past, we would have been down either 10 enough in the 14, nothing going into the second quarter. And it just would have been downhill from there. Eric, you're a grown up. Yeah, they did it five times, by the way, when the Bengals scored, they came back and scored. I mean, that is such a grown up adult, mature way to look at it. And it's how it should be done. I have seen people basically slam the gavel down on Daniels being the answer. I've seen some of the national discourse, which I find ridiculous three weeks in about Caleb Williams being bad and Daniels being good. And the wrong pick was made by Chicago and all this other stuff. We live in a funny time with how this league is covered. But this is the beauty of the coverage of the league, too. We have so much time to fill in the blanks. There are games every once a week, and then everyone talks for six days gets themselves frothing at the mouth. And then there's another game and we overanalyze and over break that one down. So there is an element to your point of everyone just needing to take a deep breath. And if I'm going to say that on Daniels or Williams or anything else, I say it for the goods. I think you got to say it about maybe Washington's defense, too. Look, if they could play like they did against Cincinnati a handful of times, then we can slam all the gavels down. The jury can come back in and everything can be returned. My guess is they're not going to have that performance again offensively, because it's really, really hard to do. I mean, that one was once every several years kind of stuff. Yeah, everything has to break right everything. And it did. And it was magical. It was fun. I deserved that one. Seriously. I loved it. That was a great experience being in that stadium. But like, you know, the one time that Daniels doesn't see anything he likes breaks free instead of wiggling out and doing some kind of weird spin pirouette to then jog for a first down, he gets tackled and it's fourth and something. And then the snap doesn't work. I mean, things happen that are going to be adverse. And the defense right now can't make up for it. Right now the offense is making up for everything. I want to ask Danny, this question next, we'll hear from you guys on this as well. 800 6361067. What was your vision for the team before the season and what is it now after two wins and the craziness of Monday night that nobody saw coming. This is the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] It was awesome. Obviously, it's a very emotional hard fight win. On the road, it gets in the hustle environment gets a very solid team in the Bengals. And just to go out there and fight it out to the end and be on the other side of the victory meant a lot to see all the fans have traveled all the way out there. Go out there and just show them some love, see family and just see Doug. You just sit up there and you reminisce. Doug was doing this back in his time and he put in the time here, man. So me and Doug had that relationship. It meant a lot. >> Jaden Daniels, talking Doug Williams. Welcome back. Grant and Danny on the fan. Danny, how many wins did you have for the commanders before week one? >> Seven. >> So did I. How many wins do you have for them now? >> That's harder. I'll say eight. >> Eight toward nine. Their offense has been excellent for two straight weeks. If they can be close to as good as they were this week, I'll just say giants good. That's better than I thought that might be eight, but the defense is horrific. Obviously, that's where the eight probably makes more sense. I also still, and this is not something fun to talk about. I still have a hard time envisioning Daniels playing 17 just based on how he plays at his size. It's always been one of my biggest knocks. Everybody yells at me for the three things that bothered me about him coming out, which isn't a set in like him, like them a lot, just wasn't my number one prospect because I had three real big holes I couldn't get past. One of them is durability, and I hope I'm wrong. But if you were to guarantee me right now that that guy plays 17, nine's in play, like I was seven to eight was kind of how I felt. And now I'm eight to nine. So it sounds like we're similar areas. >> Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple things working against me going up higher than that. One, Arizona, Cliff Kingsbury's time there. They would start out like gangbusters. People would seem to figure it out or people got tired or something. Consistent red zone struggles there in Arizona didn't happen this past week, obviously, but these are kind of themes that I've been watching. >> We have not talked about this at all, but for people that don't know this because you didn't follow the Cardinals, why would you? Cliff Kingsbury's Cardinals teams as a head coach, but namely his offense is what she was in charge of would come out of this shoot as one of the best in the league for several weeks and almost year by year to a season as the year went on, they would come back to the pack. It's like he would spend the off season figuring things out, mixing potions, coming up with these plans, and then people would adjust. I also to that point, we talked, I didn't think yesterday or Monday was ever in the cards early in the year, but one of the things I have thought if you remember was, Jayden Daniels is going to get off to a really fast start because the quarterbacks that are the dual threats who can run, there's just things that you can't prepare for. They've got this cheat code ability, third and fourth down. And until the team makes an adjustment, you saw it with Anthony Richardson, I don't think it's good at all. Last September, you've seen it with a bunch of guys. We saw it with Robert Griffin and so many others, like the early start for these guys compared to as the year goes on and the adjustments get made can be different. So that you could bring up in the same realm as like, yeah, we're seeing this now, but where are they in seven weeks? It doesn't mean it's going to keep growing. Yeah, in 2021, for example, there are other years too, but they started 10 and two score and basically 30 a game in Arizona, finish one and five down the stretch with only one other point total north of 25, you know, so or it's kind of this other shoe that's lingering hasn't dropped that. I don't know if it's going to drop, but it's something I'm thinking about. You got to see it to believe it. Yeah, something I'm thinking about a little bit. Again, I didn't think they had this. So my I'm already up. Yeah, I don't think Tyler Murray ever played a game like Jayden. No, he did not. Which makes you think maybe Kingsbury's got a little something he can work with here that he didn't before. Let's go to Judy and Gainesville on the sand. How are you? How are you guys doing? Hey, buddy. Yeah, no, so I'm like the last call, I'm taking it one game at a time. You know, last, even the last season was last season, you know, first four games, you know, Washington was two and oh, you're feeling good. And then I didn't expect this to be Buffalo last year, but then that horrific Thursday night game with the Chicago Bears and everybody assumed that we would win. We all know how that went. But um, I think the only thing that I like about these current four games, I mean three games and moving into four is that aside from Jayden's growth, I like the growth of our other rookies, you know, especially Luke McCaffrey. And I think that the more we play, the better he's going to get. So that's one thing I'm very optimistic about having an actual additional wide receiver in a core that, you know, has been not as bad as we initially thought, but could be better. So, you know, having the young kind of move forward. So I had them at Devin wins. I think right now I'm still at seven wins. So that's where I'm at at the moment. Appreciate your duty. Much appreciated. 40 yard game for McCaffrey on fourth and two was an eye opening play. He made a couple of really nice plays. We talked a lot about the fact that he was third in the league in separation going into that game. That on bloodlines, one of my favorite axons. You got a brother, you got a dad who was in the league, you know what it takes. You got people you can lean on you've been in the clubhouse in the locker room before back on bloodlines. And Brendan Coleman looks pretty good. I thought he actually had some great snaps. You go back and watch now with the NFL pro stuff, like whoever you want to and lock in on them. He had a pretty strong performance. He was really good, but I was kind of the play he wanted back. Otherwise, I thought at times he was big and physical and powerful. Callahan's in Minnesota listening on the Odyssey app. What's up guys? First time, call her a long time listener. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for checking us out. Yeah. Um, I Zorn normally isn't really ready, but if you give him a moment, he comes out of his office. He's going to be now. Okay. And then he comes running in. He gathers the show. You're good. I expected it. And then it delays. No, no way. It's a new thing. We're trying. So we're never really prepared. We're trying it out. No worries, guys, but I'm 22 years old. I love this team with my heart and soul. And to say that I did not break it here, watching that game would be a lie in Daniels, man. I know it's only week three and I'm taking it week by week because always been as mediocre or below average. So I'm taking a week by week, but what I saw from him, everyone says, comparisons, the thief of joy. I'm always comparing QBs that we have with other stars in the league. And it's always pain and misery. But after seeing that, dude, if I'm not electric about it, I don't know what I would like. It's I'm blown away. Our defense though, buns, but other than that, you should be excited. Callahan. And no one should rob you of your hope right now, in my opinion. But be excited responsibly as all I would say. Yeah. I mean, like it's week three. So everyone's in this rush to figure it all out and to judge it and to scream about what should have happened with the first pick and whatever. Just watch the football. There's a lot of it still coming and feel like if this guy keeps playing like he played in that game, he's going to be a hell of a player for a really, really long time. Yeah. Three things to be excited about. Daniel's performance, the sale of half a million breakpads and the potential merger with Silencio counterparts. That's a huge deal for Callahan. All of those huge deal, huge deal, big, big deals. We're taking you up to six 30 on Grant and Danny here on the fan Thursday night football tonight, the Cowboys and the Giants. Who should commanders fans be rooting for tonight? I think this is actually a really, really easy answer that could surprise you. That's next on the fan.