Grant and Danny
Beltway Blitz, Where's The Excitement For The Home Opener?
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Tell 'em that your girl Tasha McKeea sent you, the sharpest rides, affordable, sexy, sharp. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the name of your price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law. Dear Autumn Leaves, you won't be covering roads alone this season. Toyota's lineup of cool, colorful vehicles is ready to ride by your side. Take on fall in a trail tackling Tacoma, or go for the powerful Tundra. Head to toyota.com for more info or visit your local Toyota dealership today. Toyota, let's go places. Grant and Danny all over the DMV on one oh six seven and enrichment AM nine ten FM one oh five one. We're on the Odyssey app wherever you are and you can watch us on the one oh six seven the fan YouTube stream each and every day. The exclusive sponsor of our shows, the law firm Kondori and Murad, they'll guide you in your family in the right direction by helping you to draft a will set up a trust or create a health care power of attorney schedule a free consultation with their estate planning attorneys at K M lawyers dot com. Be sure to tell them G and D sent you so that you can get a discount K M lawyers dot com. It is time for our Beltway Blitz will be covering the NFL and the commanders, but we start on the diamond. Our buddy Toby Oldtizer, who is one of the co hosts of one of the great nationals podcast in the history of podcasting. Boston loose baseball joins us now. Top four time rough one for the locals last night. They got out scored 12 nothing. They got out hit 15 three and a position player pitching other than that. It went really well. Yeah. Yeah, there was not much going well for them. I mean, the only positive you want to take anything is Gore gave up seven runs, but only two of them were earned. But he gave up a lot of hard contact and sometimes you're going to have errors behind you. You got to pitch out of those things. So not a good one for the nats last night. But the crazy part about this thing, Grant is this is the year of all years that the nats have won the season series against the Braves. Not when it's a good team, not when the Braves have been bad, but this team, the bad nats team and a scuffling Braves team that's just trying to dig into the playoffs. This is the one where they won the season series, even though they lost last night, 12 nothing. Tobias Chunkay, give me kind of your checklist here down the stretch because you know, it'd be nice if they want a couple of these games to be good for the kids to experience some of that, maybe play some spoiler, but big picture, you know, I don't really care where they want to lose. I have a few things that I'm looking for. Just want to know what those things are for you. Is it, you know, CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia, Mackenzie Gore wasn't great last night, but a couple of others. What are some of the things that you're kind of circling here? If I see this, I'll be happy. Yeah. And number one is the first name you mentioned there at CJ Abrams. Like you look at his season, he had an all star first half and really though, I talked about this on the podcast that Grant mentioned, bustle loose baseball, is that last year he really only had one good month. It was the month of July and the rest was, you know, mediocre to bad this year. Now it's kind of the same thing except for instead of just one good month, it's been two. And now those two months were fantastic in April and June and they were MVP caliber player the month caliber months, but outside of that, it's been pretty pedestrian. So can he find some sort of rhythm going down the stretch here that he feels like he can work on stuff and get better in the off season? So I would love to see CJ Abrams come out of the funk that has basically been since that month of June that he can shake out out of that. And then it's the young guys, you know, it's kind of the same thing we talked about these last couple of years. It's, you know, how does James Wood continue to go about his at bats? And I saw someone that compiled a list of all of the, some of the top names in national's history through their first 60 games, whether it was Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, and some of those guys. And James Wood's numbers were comparable in different areas to all of those guys. So it's just about seeing how he continues to grow as a rookie. And then Bill and Cruz, you know, he's had some good spots, but he's also hitting just barely about 200 at this point. So can he find some sort of form going down the stretch here? And then with the pitching, you know, Kim, one of these guys, you know, we talked about this with JoJo last year. He was good in the first half, second half really struggled, but it seemed like he found something in his last two or three starts that he could build off. Obviously he got injured this year, so we weren't able to see it. But is there something where Gore can find a good start? Ervin can find a good start or two down the stretch here, just winding down the season. I think you just want to see a little bit of glimpse as they head into the off season. I think that will be the thing. Just seeing these young guys start to show a little bit of the form that some of the guys showed the first half. Toby, let's go back to Dylan Cruz for a moment. Three home runs for him in 13 games, basically a 37 home or pace. That's the good news, but he is now 10 for 50 at the plate. Even though the strikeout rate has been held in check, he has not been hitting a whole lot lately, hitting 200. What have you made of him so far? Yeah. And it's tough because I talked to him yesterday before the game and the big thing he said was finding a way to swing at strikes and he has done better with the strikeouts at this level than he had been. But I think the big thing for him is he just needs the experience. It's not that I don't care about the results, but I just think he needs to go through it. And last year, when he got bumped up to double A toward the end of the season, he's going to get about the same amount of games here at the big leagues as he did at double A last year. And if you look at the numbers at double A in comparison to what you're seeing in the big leagues this year, they're kind of similar. It's like a 200 average, like a 700 OPS, it's nothing spectacular, then he came back next this year after he struggled at double A and he did really well. I think you can maybe have some sort of form like that. And so it's just about the process with him going through it for the first time. That's more so what I'm worried about. If it's something where he starts chasing a little bit more, but I think he's contributed in a lot of different ways, not just at the plate, but defensively, I think he's been pretty good on the base path, he's been good. So I'm not really worried about the results at this point with him. I think you can see that he looks like a big leaguer even though the results haven't been great. Tobias, thank you, buddy. Absolutely. We'll see you pal. Hit that NFL. Senator Dares our guy, Mike Jones of the athletic joins us to talk about the NFL. Mike, why were passing numbers so down in week one compared to years past? I think because a lot of these quarterbacks haven't been out there in game speed, throwing to their wide receivers, you know, this is kind of the trade off that we're getting from everybody trying to be careful, not wanting to subject their quarterbacks to risks, you know, and not playing preseason action. In the old days, you know, they play a quarter or maybe a series in the first game, a couple series in a second, they play a whole half in the third and then watch everybody in the fourth. And then they're a little less rusty when the week one of the season comes. Now, basically, you're going out there. A lot of the starters have not played and so that's why it's going to take a little bit of time for them to get their timing down, the rhythm down, the flow of these offenses. So we'll come back here week four, everybody will probably be clicking on high cylinders by then. Mike, pick one surprise positively and negatively of the team performances in week one that you think actually could be more than an anomaly and actually could be sustainable. A surprise as far as how badly they looked was the defense of the New York Jets. I figured Aaron Rodgers is going to be a little rusty. He hasn't played, you know, in the fourth snap, you know, that doesn't really count. But, you know, their defense, especially Robert Solagoye against Kyle Shanahan, who went against every day in San Francisco and every day when they were in Houston together, their defense would be a little bit better. They were bad and I think that that might not be just, you know, a week one thing. That could be a problem that would hurt them. As far as a team that played well that surprised me, Sam Darnold and the Vikings. I really did not expect that he was going to look as good as he did. Yes, he was going against the Giants, but everything that I had been hearing was that, oh, the year with Kyle Shanahan really has helped him watching, learning from him and then Kevin O'Connell and I didn't really believe it, but the way we saw him, he was decisive. He took care of the football. He made good throws. He was in a good rhythm. Maybe it just took almost kind of going back to school and learning things the right way for him. Again, it's early, but I'm intrigued to see how this plays out for him. So this is a similar question of what's been asked here, but just deep dive into it. Give me a team that lost in week one, where you came away saying, you know what, they're going to be just fine. The Cincinnati Bengals are going to be just fine, even though they lost and the Baltimore Ravens, another team that lost and they're going to be just fine. Do you worry at all about that Bengals offense? I mean, this seems to be a thing that they do at the beginning of every year. Joe Burrow, just not healthy last year, injury no one's come back from at the position. T Higgins and Jamar Chase have taken turns being salty. I don't know if you've seen those Higgins, excuse me, the Chase press conferences, but he seems like a deep amount content right now. The vibes are not good. Yeah, they're not good leading up to it. I mean, both those guys wanted to get paid handsomely and T Higgins had to settle for the franchise tag. Chase has not gotten his payday, but I think once they get into this, they're going to be locked in. It's going to take a couple of weeks again, you know, because they haven't been playing together. They haven't been practicing together, but they always start slow, you know, and then all of a sudden they kick in. It's like it takes them a little while to get engaged. I'm not worried about them. I think they're going to be fine. As you go around the league here in week number one, what sort of data points are you looking at here, Mike, to go because here in some of your conclusions makes a lot of sense to me. Like if we gave a team some credibility coming into the season and they played poorly, okay, that's just week one, but there are surprises that happen in teams that kind of creep up on us every year. How do you determine whether, hey, this one is serious. These guys are in trouble and how do you determine, you know what? These guys will be fine. I try to not pass a whole lot of judgment until week four. Mike Shanahan always would say, you know, it takes a quarter of the season for a team to really find themselves. So I try not to make knee jerk reactions, but if you do see things that are like really bad, then, you know, I mean, Daniel Jones, trash. That's not going to get any better. Bryce Young and the Panthers, that's concerning for me, you know, but I also feel like, okay, I'm not going to get overly excited about the Saints because of who they were playing. So there's all these variables who they're playing, who they're playing against and how they played that really make you kind of, you know, either pump your brakes or kind of give them pause and figure, okay, this is going to take a little time. Maybe they're not going to be world beaters, but you saw some good things. Like Will Levis with Tennessee, that first, you know, the way they started the game looked really good. Second half, once the defense made adjustments, he looked pretty lost. Is he more of the second half or is he more of the first half? I don't know yet, but I think because of what he has around them, there's a chance for him to get better. So that's kind of how I try to look at it. Mike, one more quick one. Daniel Jones was really bad for the Giants in week one. How close to benchable do you view him as in a year? I know it's only one week as you're saying, but it's kind of a, he's got to work out for that front office. Like what's that leash look like for him from Dable? Well, I mean, I think it's a few weeks because Dable actually needs to win as well. So they went out, they got drew lock. They didn't draft somebody, but if you have another week like this, maybe two more weeks like that, then you really have to start looking at this and saying, okay, we got to make a change because we want to be here next year. And we know this guy is not going to be here next year. Mike, thank you as always, buddy. All right. See you guys. See you man. Hit that local 53 sounder. Please. Glen Griffin joins us covers the team for the Worshing 10 times. Liam, it's almost in the rear view mirror. It's almost Giant's time, but one final look back at this past Sunday. What are your big takeaways from week one loss? Yeah, the big takeaway is quite simply a defense looked bad. They looked out of sorts. They didn't tackle well. There was miscommunication on the coverages, and those are all things that the team said they addressed this week, and they're looking to put that behind them. And then on the offense, you saw Jaden Daniels flash that incredible scrambling ability, but really an explosive offense where they were not able to push it all downfield almost at all. And almost all those first down conversions, any chunk play came from Jayden's legs. And so that's something they're going to look to going forward is, is the defense able to clean up those issues they saw in week one, and is the offense able to find some chunk plays and not just put everything on Jaden Daniels, the shoulders. How will the defense clean up all their problems? It's something that we just got out of the locker room not long ago, and that's something that I talked to a few of the guys about Jeremy Chin, he's the safety and in a Dan Quinn defense of the really pivotal role kind of floating through the middle of the field. He says that they all sat down and watched film together to talk about, all right, you should have had that leverage on the outside on that play. You should have flipped over here. So he says that they've been taking a really cooperative approach to cleaning up that communication in particular. Dan Quinn said the same thing Tuesday is normally a player off day at the aspirin training facility, but he said when he came in, there were already players just on their own in film rooms together, breaking stuff down, trying to get better, and then tackling, that's something that you just got to practice. A lot of these guys, for example, Bobby Wagner, I don't think we need to be concerned about Bobby Wagner's tackling ability. He missed a couple of tackles on Sunday, but that guy's a future Hall of Famer didn't play a ton in the preseason. That's something that I believe will at least get cleaned up in the weeks coming forward. Liam, when did you start covering the team? February 1st, I started on the beat, the same day Dan Quinn got hired. Got you. Okay. So I love having you on. I hope you're willing to to come on with this for years to come. You're going to get sick of this. Okay. Over the last several years, I've sat here as this offense has sucked, and I look at the fact that Tera McCorran doesn't get the ball, and then someone else doesn't get the ball, and I never stop asking you about until it's fixed. It's not your fault, Liam. I want you to know this. It's not your fault. But here we go. This is our first one together. So buckle up. Many more to come. How can you go nearly three quarters? And there are two touches between Austin Echler and Tera McCorran in a game that you're allegedly trying to win. What is going on? Who do I need to yell at? Now you're for. Well, I think a lot of that can be traced back to the way that Cliff King's very calls an offense, and the way that Jayden Daniels sees that offense and sees his receivers during a play. He's coming from a program at LSU where he was playing with first round receivers and a well protected offensive line, and where guys were open, they were wide open. And so I think during Sunday's game, he could have had a few opportunities to push the ball downfield, and he's still protective of the ball. He does not want to turn the ball over. He doesn't throw a lot of interceptions, and you saw him instead, you scramble instead of trying to force that ball into a tight window. But Tera McCorran was a few inches away from that, you know, a deep bomb, 60 yards down the sideline. But that's the thing they're going to look to address is you can't just rely on your quarterback scrambling on undesired runs and a few screens here or there as your offense. I think it's got to be a Cliff King's very thing, and where the NFL is the not for long league, you're going to have to see how he adjusts in the weeks going forward. Liam Griffin of the Washington Times, where this covers the commanders. So Liam, what's your gut feel on week two, and how much different it'll look against the Giants? Well, you couldn't ask for a much better opponent for week two, given that the Giants have played an absolute egg against the Vikings. This is a get right game for both of those teams, and it's also going to be the home opener. So you under perform on the road with a new regime, a whole new flock of players, they have the biggest roster turnover in the league the commanders did. I think that the product on the field should at least look better on Sunday. Will it turn into a win? Maybe honestly, these two teams are kind of in similar positions with the amount of talent on their rosters. But the commanders have that home field advantage. I believe the commanders have a better quarterback, and I think that the defense can't look that much worse than they looked on Sunday against the Bucks. Give me a name or two in your opinion for Washington, who has a big game? Who has a nice one that we're talking about on one day on the defensive side of the ball? I think we're coming out of it and looking at Bobby Wagner, and we're seeing that he is back to form. We're like, all right, this guy is not completely washed. He may be an elder statesman, but he still has something to contribute to this football team. I don't think we're going to see him miss tackles again. And on the offensive side of the ball, I think this could be a really big Brian Robinson game. The team loves him, and they see him as one of the top two running backs in the league, and they really didn't get a chance to show it as much on Sunday against the Buccaneers. And so I think we could come out of the Giants game saying, all right, Brian Robinson is the real deal. Liam, great as always, man. We appreciate you. Thank you. No problem. Thank you, guys. That is your beltway blitz on Grant and Danny. We do it every day right at four o'clock. Remember last year at this time, we already knew that they had sold out this game. In fact, they sold out all of their home games, and we found out well over a week before most of those games. It was eight days out from the opener that they had sold out last year. That has not happened yet to my knowledge. We've not seen that announcement. What does that mean? I want to get into that next on Grant and Danny. The seasons may be changing, but the deals and the sharpest rides are unbeatable as ever. We're going on in Chicago. 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And the Eagles, they weren't very good and still won. Coming out of week one, going into week two, we'll take a look at the schedules within the East. But right now on Grant and Danny, I don't know if the commanders are going to sell out week one or not. My guess is they probably will. In fact, I texted someone today and they said that they thought they were closing in on a sellout, but they didn't really have any more details. And I didn't bother digging a whole lot more than that. So I'll wear it if we find out that they've already sold out. But here's what I know, last year, Danny, eight days before the season opener, they put out a graphic on Twitter and Instagram and they put out a press release to let everybody know they'd sold their home game out. And I'm not knocking that. I thought that was an awesome good thing, especially because the Arizona Cardinals were the opponent in week one and Arizona's fan base doesn't travel. So what we got in the first ever game of the Josh Harris era after he bought the team right before training camp was a very rare and a thoroughly enjoyable win over Arizona number one. But number two, a game where the stadium was full of mostly commanders fans, which almost never happens fast forward to this year. I understand that it's now been a year of the new ownership group and it's not the reactionary first month or two after dance night or sold, but you now have a main event and a main attraction in the number two overall pick quarterback, Jaden Daniels. Last year, you had a second year, fifth round pick who had played a couple of quarters worth of football and nobody knew if he was any good and they sold out. And what you and I've been saying a lot, what I was kind of clamoring for with more interest and more excitement and more juice for the season was it does not seem like there's a whole lot of momentum going into the year here. I feel like this is somewhat evidence of that. No, like is this discouraging or alarming in some way? Like, what do we think of that that a year ago, eight days before the opener, we already knew they sold out and here we are a couple of days out. And the assumption is that they haven't yet because they haven't announced. Well, it wasn't just this week, remember, this is, you know, weeks in advance. I mean, I remember I was just going back and looking during the break, you know, the week 13 game against the dolphins is sold out and, you know, this number of weeks in advance, we sold out. Thank you fans. Puff your chest out thing. It's a great validation for all the folks working so hard in the business office. It's great for fans to feel good about it because when you're buying into something, you want to know that you're not going to be the only guy sitting in the intersection like the famous photo with our buddy tailgate Ted, you know, like when you're down 50 points and it's just him and some tumbleweed. You want to know that other people are into you want to feel good about it. So it's, it's a nice validating thing. But the flip side is to your point, we've kind of experienced this in, you know, it's hard to quantify type ways, right, whether it's the energy or the juice or whatever word you want to use for it. We have sort of felt this on our side. There's just not the same level of excitement and trying to quantify why I think is a fascinating discussion. There's a little bit of everything to it. The same way on a negative side for, for so many years, why don't you fill in the blank person, go to FedEx field anymore and everyone has their story of the thing that was just too much for them. And they said, you know what, screw it. I'm not going. All of a sudden went from top, whatever in the league to down at the bottom and it happened. There was a moment, right? Everyone had their own experience, but it added up to enough indignities and enough. You know what? I'm not doing this anymore is that the numbers finally dropped flip side here. We're talking about reasons for excitement, typically in an NFL city. You draft the number two overall player, a Heisman trophy winning quarterback that's electric and exciting and is also a great dude by all accounts, right? Who just does everything right all the time and has a billion dollar smile. By the way, it's the first chance the fan base will get to see him. Yeah. He did not play in the only preseason game in Landover, Maryland because that was preseason game three when God forbid they would have played some players because as you could see this past weekend, they didn't need any more work. So they decided not to play him in the home game so that the other two games were on the road when he did play. So it's the first chance people get to go see him. I just, you know, you add in the fact that you know a lot of Giants fans are coming to the game as bad as they played. You normally grab these tickets in advance or if you're in this area and there are lots of people from New York, lots of Giants fans who are, it's your annual chance. Last year, you sold out with very little help from the visiting fan base. This year, you're getting a lot more help presumably from the visiting fan base. That's a reasonable thought, I would say, and you still haven't sold out. So how many different or fewer single game tickets are being sold for game number one? Now I was in Josh Harris's press conference a few weeks ago over at the stadium before the only pre-season game at home. And I know that he mentioned that season ticket sales were up 30% year over year. So from last year to this year, season tickets are up, which is a great thing. And that's a good sign and I'm happy and I'm glad about that. But I think this is a different conversation than that. This is a, hey, it's a beautiful weather. The commanders are home this weekend. It's the first time we get to see them. And last year with a new ownership group, tens of thousands of people said, I'm going to go. It seems like that number this year is way small. Has dwindled. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. The godsend that should be the savior, so to speak. I'm using air quotes, but like I oversight this story that Liz Clark wrote years ago, but you know, if you're a reeling sports organization, NFL team, what can you do? You hire a, like a hero coach, like a Jim Harbaugh type that everyone says, well, change everything and you put him on a pedestal or you go get a new quarterback high in the draft. That was basically the, the research had showed those were the two things for business to boom. And they basically did one and a half of those. I mean, I, I wouldn't put Dan Quinn in that category, but they have a new coach. They have a new GM. They have a new quarterback, openers in a few days. Hopefully we get the email any minute now and I, I think it will be sold out. In fact, I'm, I can't say I'm positive, but I would be shocked if it isn't. But my point is we're behind last year's schedule pretty considerable. That's, and that part's indisputable, right? So, and again, this is, we're not criticizing anybody. I don't, I don't want to speak for you. I'm certainly not. I'm not upset with anyone. Who is there to criticize? Right. I'm not, not going to anybody's people will take this as being a negative. I'm asking, is this a thing or more than anything else, I guess, Danny, to just, I'll shut up on this. I'm saying, isn't this evidence that our speculation was correct? And that's where I'm going is that we have felt this and we've communicated that to you guys and, and, and, you know, just, Hey, this is the feeling and it's hard to put a number on and there's still no number directly, but here's what we've got. Well in advance last year, the home games were sold out and they told you so. You haven't seen that communication yet, have you? Have you? Have you? Let us know because it probably slipped by our radar, but I haven't seen it. And that's, that right there is a more firm data point than you and I've been like, man, people aren't really seeing you that excited or calling in about Jane Daniels to the same degree that you would have thought. Now, I know it's not going to be 12 years ago. That's impossible where you were up until six o'clock in the morning with Pete Metters taking calls on just the trade to go get Griffin, not even Griffin himself. You know, doing an overnight situation. We're never going to get there again. I don't think that's realistic to expect. But this is a, just to sort of be stated, a firmer data point that kind of goes. People aren't quite as excited or ginned up. Maybe as they were in the past. I think there are reasons for that. I think the finality and the exhale and the, Oh my God, it's not Dan Snyder. Where do I put my money? Let me, let me do something to commiserate and be so joyful. We've had a year of that where it's still not Dan. I'm still in a honeymoon phase where a big picture I'm thrilled eventually will get out of that. But I don't think people have that run around with the hair on fire. I've got to do something to show it. Well, I want to cut one idea off maybe before it gets started too, which is if someone's going to say, well, last year it was week one, so we hadn't seen them play. And this year it's week two and they just played and it was terrible. So I'm less excited to buy a ticket because last year I'm just read the story on pro football talk. The announcement was made over a week before the game. Exactly. So my point is last year the game was sold out before they even kicked off against the bucks as it pertains to this season. Now I think it is reasonable to ask the question though, if you watched that game and you were thinking about going to week two, does any part of you feel less inclined to do so? I would say personally I would still go to this game because the Giants are a lot worse because it's the first time I'll see the team all season because I've never seen Jayden Daniels in person. If I'm a fan of this team who didn't travel for the preseason, didn't get to go to training camp practices or whatever. So I think I would probably still go, but it's a lot of money. You're talking about committing an entire day, you know, when my wife goes as a season ticket holder and I'm at the game for work, like that's babysitters, a lot of people have to hire babysitter. That's more money. You're leaving your house at nine in the morning for your tailgate. You're not getting home until four thirty. There's a huge commitment and there are probably people, Danny, who were on the fence thinking, yeah, I'll probably buy a ticket and then you watch them play against the bucks and you're just not as excited. I'm not doing that. Yeah. I think that's reasonable. I do too. I do too. But again, the difference is quantifiable and you already said it. Last year they didn't need a sample. Last year without Jayden Daniels and with with fifth round Freddy Sam Hall, who Ron Rivera just sort of discovered might be able to do it. Still, the thing I cannot get my head around is that there were more vocal, loud people excited about Sam Hall last year than there are for Jayden Daniels, which is just laughable to me in our little sphere of the world that we see for commanders nation. I don't know what the numbers would be on a social media study on Twitter or anything, but the people that engage with us, it was everyone can tell me I'm crazy. I mean, the proof's kind of been in the pudding every step of the way here. And I think the ticket thing going into game one is a tell. It is and I just, I, this is partly again, we're trying to think of this on a macro level, but all we can do is look through our own sort of micro experiences. If that makes sense to try to apply it to something larger and here's what I mean. I for one as a, as a fan, say lifelong fan, I don't know when I reached my ultimate breaking point where I just stopped having the ability to believe probably was during the Shanahan time where an adult couldn't fix it still and there was not that meant to me that nothing that ever could, but just beyond that, even with this new group and they don't have all the baggage that I have and I understand that they're just doing their best, but some of the promising and some of the, this is different, this is different, this is different. And then having it not be is deflating. So now when you promise me, I don't believe you anymore. That's, that's, that's the risk of promising too much and not delivering. You meant, well, I don't even mean just with regards to week one, it's just the kind of this sort of continuation of we're selling you guys on this. Wait till you see this, I've been sold the this by a bunch of different people, a bunch of different times and lost and been embarrassed. So I don't believe you yet. People wasted their good this on Rivera, you know, you wasted your good surprise on the last time. Let's go to George and Fredericksburg. What's up, George? So what's up, boys, first and foremost, great conversation. I'm loving that we're having it and it definitely is a macro discussion. Yeah, I think it's a culmination of a lot of things. And I think you guys have touched on a lot of them. First off, comparison to Robert Griffin, you're talking about branding, Redskins versus commanders. I think that's a big factor that is. I think the novelty last year was it wasn't really Sam Howe. It was we don't have been anymore. And that's why people came back. And now, you know, people are kind of over that. And it's like, okay, now I want to see change more than that. I want to see different on the field. I want to get out of this dump that's a stadium. So in a, and then as a common man, like who doesn't have season tickets, like if I want to have an experience that's better than TV, my family of five, I'm looking at probably twelve hundred bucks. Yeah, a twelve hundred is a ton. I mean, is that about right, you think? When you add it all up? That's not crazy. It seems like a lot because you can get tickets for what a little over a hundred bucks. Where's the other side? I mean, really, it's not worth picking nits on the number. It's a lot of money. There's no doubt. I mean, if it's a family of five, we're talking about, I would have said like eight hundred or so. Yeah, I don't know how exactly it had. Crazy amount of money. Right. I don't know how exactly it happened. But I'll just tell you this. When I took my six year old to a Nat's game, I somehow spent a hundred and fifty dollars. Yeah. And I got a credential. So. I can tell you how. Did you go in with your credential? I did. But it just, I was like, I'll save a little money. And but I got him a ticket. I still somehow spent a hundred fifty dollars. First of all, that's hilarious. Yeah. But you did that. That's really fun. Because I knew I knew I was going to be spending a ton. Even on somehow it was a two, a kids eat free day. Somehow I spent an outright, like you can't stop every day is a kids eat free day there. Yeah. Because all you got to do is go to section one, fourteen. There's a bunch of them. But we didn't like the look of that hot dog or something brown bag. We didn't want that juice box, whatever the hell the reason was. And I went to dippendots eleven times and I hate dippendots. I hope it closes. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. That was too far. I'm sorry dippendots. This point is true. It probably had way less to do with howling just everyone wanted to celebrate last year. Which is fine. But I guess my point is like the proof is here, right? We have not heard you think they would have sold out and not told us they don't want to get the word out. Yeah. And they don't want to pack themselves on the back for a sell out like they did last season. Of course they do. Eight hundred six three six one oh six seven is the number. What are you anticipating in terms of the environment? Are you going to the game and if you were on the fence, is there a chance maybe that you won't? Why do you think this year's is so different from last year in this way? We're granting Danny. Thank you. Thank you. a lot. a lot of the things that we're going to be doing. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be doing this. With Danny, I'm Grant. This is the fan. Welcome back. Thanks for listening. MGM National Harbor Lister Lines are wide open for you at 800-636-1067 right now. You can call us up at 800-636-1067. Anything to the idea that eight days before the opener last year, the stadium was already sold out. It isn't this time around. What type of environment should we expect? Here's what I don't want. Here's what I'm nervous about. I am nervous about one of these week ones where the story after the game is the road invasion. That is what I do not want. Does it feel like that to you? No, because the Giants are dreadful. And I think making the trip from New York is a big commitment. Here's my nerves though. I think you probably got these tickets maybe before the season started. Like, if you're a Giants fan, you're not buying tickets Tuesday or Wednesday to hop on a train to come down here probably to stay at MGM National Harbor and go to the game. But it's early enough in the year and week two that you might have said, "Let's make a weekend of it in DC. Let's go down there. We'll gamble at the casino and the river in Maryland. We'll go on a little Ferris wheel. We'll get over to the stadium." That's my concern is that there's going to be plenty of Giants fans there because it's the first game of Jayden Daniels. He was in his presser today talking about how excited he is. It's his first time to play in front of the fan base. I just hope it isn't a bad look. That's all. Well, I don't think it's as much, you know, Mikey Boombots taking the train down from New Jersey, from New York, whatever, I think a lot of Giants fans are already here because this is like one of the hub cities, right? New York, DC, Chicago, LA, Seattle, probably this way to a degree. But people from all over the country necessarily are here at all times. So it's less special. Like remember that a few years ago when they played Miami in week one, everyone's like, "How the hell are these Dolphins fans here?" It's not like everyone flew up from Miami. I'm sure some did, but it's the one chance you get to see the Dolphins. So you bought tickets to be able to come see them, your home team. I think there are plenty of Giants fans around. Like my college teammates have already been texting me that the loser of this game should be relegated and all sorts of other, you know, terrible stick that's hurt in my heart. But yeah, I think they're already here. I'm worried about it. I legitimately am. I think it's going to be a loud group of Giants fans. I don't know if they'll be, it'll be more like some of the dog terrible days of Snyder. Like towards the end where it was, you know, 65, 35 or the road team. But I'm worried about it. It can't be with a first game as an opener. But I sound like a broken record. And if you've listened every day for months, first of all, thank you, second of all, I hate that you've heard it so many times, but it shouldn't be this way when you have a number two overall pick Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. And that's not me blaming anyone or demanding that anyone opens their checkbook. That isn't the point. I guess more than anything, it's an acknowledgement of how bad this situation is. It is an acknowledgement of how much work is ahead of this ownership group and how desperately they need to start winning games. And the whole idea of rebuild versus recalibrate and patience, it's all true from a football standpoint, all of it, every word of it, true. They don't really have a lot of time though. In the sense of every minute, every hour matters, I mean, this is a perilous situation. You can't get people excited when you draft the Heisman Trophy winner who everyone in the country wanted, that's a problem. That is a really devastating realization. And if week one is just a mehburger out in and land over and it's just a bunch of people sitting around in blue and a couple of commanders fans tailgate in the parking lot in the first game of a new season, that's disastrous. A KB on Twitter said the performance in Tampa surely does not help close the gap on ticket sales leading up to the opener. If you were on the fence, I can't see how an all in the fence buyer would be pumped to go. I kind of agree with that. Yeah. Here would be my pushback. I talked to this dude at 1757 yesterday, the golf course we broadcast him from. I don't know that he was on the fence by any means, but he wants to take his five year old kid to a game this year. He said it was either going to be this game or the Panthers game in October, because those are the two worst teams they play at home. The two best chances. He said, I really want him to see a win. I really want to try to hook him, have a fun environment. They score some points, whatever. I don't know if they're going to beat the Giants or not, or if this is going to work out, but he's taking them to the Giants game. He knows the weather is going to be really nice. Yeah. You don't know what it's going to be like several weeks from now. So that was the choice he made. I guess I bring this up to just say it's the first game. It's fall. It's beautiful. September. I haven't looked at the forecast. Claire. Can you look up? Is it going to rain this weekend? I don't know. It's going to be 75 degrees or whatever on these are the best days to be at the stadium. Literally the September, October. This is the dream and it's the crappy giant. So you might actually be if you can't get up to go to this one, when are you going to? So you've never seen Jaden Daniels play before, by the way, you're going to see his first passing touchdown, hopefully. See, it's going to be a high of 83 and partly cloudy this Sunday. Little warm. Yeah. A little warm, but we'll toast. You got an hour by hour there. One o'clock. What's the weather? But if I had to guess, it'll probably be 81 at kickoff eight. Is that funny to anyone else? I had to guess. I mean, what do you count? How was that calculation? Done. I'm not doubting you. That's incredible. But I just, I'd like to double click on that. 81 at kickoff. All right. Somebody, somebody text me when you're in the crowd with your thermometers. Ready to kick off. Was that funny to you? It was very funny to me. But we should also ask Derek too to get the weather guys opinion. Oh, the second bit though is this. I think it's actually, it's a really good way to look at it. Derek, would you mind looking up the forecast for us and see what you got? Because we heard when this group took over, I mean, you were allowed some transparency. Obviously you're spending six plus billion dollars. You're allowed to look at a few things. But once they actually arrived, it was like one of those, I forget what the name of the show is, but it's where people have storage units that are vacated and like you get like five seconds to look inside and then you go, okay, I'm either going to bid on or not whatever storage wars. I think the show is. Once they got inside the storage unit and they went, oh, sweet Christ. Yeah. Oh my God. This is so terrible. We didn't know. We knew it was bad, but we didn't know it was this bad. I mean, that's the owners with the books. Yeah. There's the way there's one evidence of that. The now we're outside looking in going, hey, what is it in there? And they're going, no, I don't look now. We're cleaning. We now know it's probably worse than we thought. Let's go to Tony who's in Woodbridge on GND. What's up, Tony? How's it going, guys? We're chilling. So I actually bought tickets before the season started for my birthday for the Giants game. And I was talking to my fiance, I said, you know, maybe we should just tell these tickets so we can have a couple extra books in our pocket so we can spend something else on our birthday. And we asked about like five people and nobody wants them. So I guess we have to go to the home opener. Enjoy the game, buddy. That's hilarious. First of all, did you think you were going to make a profit or something? Well, I mean, at least get my money back. You know, I threw in a parking pass for free, you know, two tickets. So did you buy, did you buy them on the like team website or was it secondary market? We bought them on the secondary market. I think they were like 160 a ticket. Oh, that's that is a little steep. All right. And that's lower level. I'm guessing. Yes. So that's the thing. If I was buying, like, I almost always buy higher, especially now there's no high seats in that stadium. And the higher up the cheaper and the views not bad. All right. So 320 bucks for you guys. And then the parking pass was how much? 70. All right. So were you listening? Were you trying to sell them for like 390? Actually, I was going to give them a deal to get 300 flat, but nobody wants them or a guy. Sorry, dude. But enjoy the game, though. Have fun. What's your, what's your, what's your Twitter account in case someone's listening and wants to make a deal? That's a lot of letters there TJ or DQ. All right. Well, good luck, man. Happy birthday. He can't get rid of him. This guy. I feel bad for him. Tim's in Gainesville. What's up, Tim? What's up, guys? I just want to say, like, I don't think it's not worth the time to sit two hours round trip. Like for me, for example, to get there, it would take two hours round trip. And then on top of the traffic, just getting in and out three hours sitting and watching an abysmal product, it's not worth the time. I don't blame anybody for not wanting to go. It's just not worth it anymore. Yeah. So we're, to be clear, and maybe it sounds like we are, my goal is not to blame anybody as much as to point out and juxtapose one year ago to now with Nubby Sam Howell versus the Heisman Trophy winner in his first ever game at that stadium. And everyone was pretty jacked up. And now this year, so far, five days closer to kickoff, still no sellout. We can get back to this. Got to blitz the East next with some of the reporters who cover the other teams in the division. Some good football content coming your way in moments on Grant and Danny. The seasons may be changing, but the deals and the sharpest rides are unbeatable as ever. Hey, what's going on? It's your girl, Tasha McKeea. And I need you to join the sharpest rides for their fall into savings event where they're offering incredible prices on their massive inventory. That's right. Everything is on sale now. Not from sleek sedans to rugged SUVs and sporty convertibles. 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