Grant and Danny

Drea Cooper On Jayden Daniels, Our MVP Predictions In The NFL, Commanders Spotlight

9.5.24 Hour 4

1:00- Drea Cooper directed a documentary starring Jayden Daniels & other LSU athletes, and he takes us behind the scenes of our QB in town.

15:40- We get our preseason awards out of the way as you may be surprised with some of these picks!

30:00- We give you our Commanders spotlight for week 1, who will we be watching against Tampa?

Broadcast on:: 05 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

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. Welcome back to Grant and Danny on the fan. We are taking you up to football for the first time in 2024, a regular season game played tonight. The Ravens, the Chiefs, Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, the exclusive sponsor of our show, the law firm of Condor in Murad. They're going to guide you and your family in the right direction, helping you to draft a will, set up a trust, create a healthcare power of attorney, schedule a free consultation with their estate planning attorneys at kmloyers.com. Be sure to tell them we sent you, you'll get a discount. kmloyers.com. We will preview tonight's game between the Ravens and the Chiefs and break down both of those divisions, rank all four teams in order in both the AFC North and West coming up in just a bit. But right now, we're very excited to learn a little bit more behind the scenes on quarterback Jaden Daniels from Drake Cooper, who helped put together the documentary that's going to be coming out in five days on Amazon Prime on LSU and the NIL collective and the big booming business they've created that everybody in college football and college sports is now trying to benefit from. But LSU seem to have been one of the first programs on the scene. So, Dre, thank you so much for the time. We really appreciate it. You're on in DC with Grant and Danny. How are you? All right. Hey, Grant and Danny. Thanks for having me, guys. It's a real pleasure. Absolutely. It sounds like such a great project. What a great idea. I watched the trailer, and it's awesome. I cannot wait for this. Tell us a little bit about why LSU and kind of how you decided to do this. Yeah. I mean, look, when you look at the college sport landscape, the reality is since the NIL policy change, some would argue the scene has turned upside down. And many schools were kind of caught trying to figure out what to do, but LSU jumped headfirst into the deep end right away. And so they mobilized internally. They put together a team inside their athletic department to deal specifically with NIL. And right away, they saw an opportunity with Olivia Dunn, given her social media following. And so together they partnered and they put Livia on a big old digital billboard in Times Square on July 1st, 2021 and said, Hey, we're NIL LSU and we're ready to jump in and figure this out. So, you know, the stars aligned for us. And we ended up following some of the biggest names and college athletics all down there in Baton Rouge at LSU. What was the experience like with Jane Daniels? Obviously, we're pretty invested here on our end in Washington, D.C. as he's the quarterback in the moment, hopefully the future. What was it like to sort of be around him and what'd you learn? Yeah, I mean, look, you guys have an incredible player on your hand and an incredible young man. You know, Jaden was one of five athletes that we followed closely in the series. And, you know, you'll see firsthand what his experience was like at LSU, you know, for for some of your audience, they may know, may know, but others may not that, you know, he was a transfer kid. He entered the portal, but he didn't come to LSU with a lot of collective money. In fact, they weren't, they weren't going out any money for him to come. He had to prove himself. He had come out of, you know, Arizona State. Things were a little bit shaky his sophomore year. He had some challenges off the field losing both his grandparents. And so he was ready for a fresh start. And so you you pick up in our series, we pick up in 22 with with his retelling of the Alabama game at Death Valley down at LSU. And he beats Alabama in overtime. And that's really what put Jaden Daniels, you know, on the map down here at the SEC. And so we followed him across the whole school year last year. And that incredible, incredible Heisman run. So you guys can see it firsthand. It's going to be amazing. I know our listeners here in DC can't wait. Drake Cooper's documentary is the money game. It's on LSU, NIL, and where we're headed, a collegiate Lee in sports with amateur superstars at this point. More about Daniels, just kind of the guy he is, the teammate he is. I mean, you got unfettered access. I think you've probably been closer to him behind the scenes, hard knock style than anybody at this point, based on the doc you were doing last year. And then also I'm curious about his parents. I know I've just heard from reading some things about the doc that his mom was like more involved maybe than his dad in some of his business ventures. Like, what can you tell us about him and his family? Yeah, I mean, Jaden got an incredible support system. His mom, Regina, you know, plays a critical role, you know, both mom and dad have been there since the beginning, right when he started, you know, in popcorn or football as a young boy. So both his parents have been closely involved as he's grown up with the game. But yeah, when it came to NIL, mom ran the back end of that, right? She handled the business deals. And I think what makes Jaden's NIL experience unique in the context of our show is that for him, NIL, while he took advantage of it at times, it wasn't the primary focus, right? His primary focus was winning and supporting his football team. And he had, he had his eyes on the bigger prize, right, which was the NFL bag. And so he's lucky, right? Whereas if you're a gymnast, like Olivia Dunn, you don't have a professional lead to look forward to. You're done when college is over. And so, you know, I think for Jaden, it puts things into perspective that like, you know, you don't have to throw all your eggs into this NIL basket, you know, it's great to take advantage of this opportunity. But if you've got real skill and you've got an opportunity to go to the league, then you've obviously got to, you know, focus on the, on the big picture, right? Dre jumping off of that through this process. What kind of surprised you sort of thinking about Jaden Daniels and involved here? But what's, what did you not know going in? What, you know, kind of took you aback a little bit? That'd have to be bad, but just something that you went, I didn't know this is how it was going to go or some kind of detail that as you're doing this, going through this process that took you by surprise. Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of folks have opinions about NIL, right? If you're an avid sports fan, you know, I think most people are pretty leery of the idea of paying amateur athletes. And I think for a long time, we had this really romantic notion, right? That the idea of amateurism was this really special sacred thing. And, and while I do think there's something to be said for it, you realize that, hey, you know, these student athletes are part and part to the success of these schools and their help and generate revenue. So I think we all agree that they need to be part of, you know, the revenue share, if you will. But I think the thing that, that I didn't realize going into this, that became clear really fast is just how much time and energy goes into the NIL side of things for each of these student athletes. It's a lot of work. It's a huge responsibility. It takes tons of time to go, you know, do the photo shoots or go do the commercials or go do the event. And then you've got to create the content and post it. And so when you're looking at an angel wreath or Jaden Daniels, they've got support. They've got a team. They've got people that help them with that. But if you're a Leah Armstrong, who's a track athlete at LSU, you know, you're like most college athletes. Well, you're kind of doing it on your own and you're asking around and you're looking for support and it's hard to navigate. And I think you'll see that this idea of revenue share, which is where we're headed, I think it makes more sense when you understand the toll that NIL takes on these college athletes day to day. Drake Cooper was behind the documentary that's coming out now in five days on September 10th. You can watch it on prime video. The money game is what it's called. Jaden Daniels, one of the athletes prominently followed around. And with all the access, he got great insight into the commander's new quarterback. How much money is there to be made for just some random athlete in a random college sport? You know, it's one thing if you're Jaden Daniels or Libby Dunn who's a great gymnast and everybody followed her initially because they liked Libby Dunn. She was beautiful and she's talking about whatever, right? Like what if you're just me, a swimmer or Danny, a track guy, like, is there real money to be had? Yeah, it's a good question. And I think that's what makes our series so fascinating is that we follow six athletes, each of whom, you know, are on a different part of the NIL spectrum, right? So at the very top, you've got Libby Dunn, who is the biggest earner in NIL in college athletics, right? And then you've got Angel Reese and Jaden Daniels and Flage Johnson right behind her, you know, and they're making literally millions of dollars. And then you've got the quote-unquote average athlete, you know, you talk about the swimmer or in the case of Alia Armstrong, she's a track athlete. And in those situations, you know, we're talking much more modest money, you know, 20,000 here, you know, maybe 40,000 there, maybe 50,000 all in, you know, if you're real lucky, you can break a hundred grand, which look for a college, you know, that's a lot. That's still real money. That's still real money. And so we actually followed a men's basketball player, Trace Young, really interesting young man who is a, is a hype guy, right? He's the hype man for the team. He's all about bringing energy. But he only played maybe two minutes during the whole entire season, right? That guy made almost 200 plus grand last year. I mean, that's, that's real money. And he does it because he's a hustler. He knows how to play the game. He's really good at social media. And I think that's the piece that's really interesting here is that what you find is that the NIL game is really at the cross section of college athletics, social media, and the influencer economy. They all come together, and they all come together in our show. Drew, I just want to get your thought on something because your unique perspective and what you're going to be able to show so many folks here with this documentary. One of the things that always made me, you know, kind of my stomach turn a little bit as a kid and then growing up kind of pre-NIL was the idea of a grown up yelling at a college kid or being upset with him because they didn't catch the pass or make the shot or, or whatever, right? Where I'm going, if these are, you know, this kid maybe broke up with his girlfriend, maybe he had a midterm or something, right? It was like the, that still even though it may have been an illusion, it may have been fraudulent, still like an adult yelling at an amateur never really felt right to me. Well now, you know, they're, they're probably making more money than the fan is right now. It's, these are professionals in a way, but it's still amateur and I'm not really sure. So I just sort of wonder how you quantify that and just maybe your thoughts generally. That's like one's good or bad. It's just something that I've been kind of struggling with. Yeah. And I think that that's the gray area, right? That's what makes this, this issue so complicated. And I think that's why you're seeing the NCAA and the schools and different states wrestling with this in different ways. You know, I think that's why you haven't seen one clear set of rules. And I think a lot of that is because people are conflicted, right? It is, it is this nuanced situation where everybody, I think for the most part is in agreement that the student athletes deserve a piece of the pie. The question is how big is that piece and how does that function? Because to your point, I mean, some of these folks are, you know, these are young men and women. I mean, they're, you know, just getting out of high school. Some of them are leaving home for the very first time, 18 years old, 19 years old. They're just getting their feet wet in the, you know, quote unquote, real world. And look, when you're, when you're insulated in a D1 program, it's not the real world either, right? Everything's taken care to care for you. So it is tricky. I mean, you know, there's adult responsibility here in managing the money and managing the responsibilities. So I think it's just going to take time to kind of figure out how each school and each program sort of deals with that issue, which is how to support the student athlete, right? With these incredible NIO opportunities, but also figure how to balance it all right with school, with their sport. So there's a lot of pieces to this. And it is tricky because they're, they're young and they're growing up. The Money Game Series debut, Tuesday, September 10th. That's this coming Tuesday on prime video, Dray Cooper. Thank you so much for the time. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Dray. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Our pleasure. We're looking forward to watching and getting that access to Jayden Daniels, which is going to be fantastic. That's really for me. And the rest of it will be awesome too. I think it's a great subject matter. I'm fascinated and really intrigued by where we're headed with NIO. And this is the first look into it with this detail from the player perspective. But I'll be honest with you. I mean, they had cameras on and around Jayden Daniels for a year. I mean, just the amount we're going to learn about, find out about him, his work habits, what he's like as a guy. Well, this is the equivalent, as I said, of a hard docs type situation with the quarterback that's going to make or break this organization in the years ahead. Yeah, that's subject I'd be fascinated to watch a documentary about. You know what I mean? Just even that where it's the before one day, this thing was not. And then the next day it is. And it's a it's a mad scramble, like the beginning of a dodge ball match from the movie dodge ball, where we're going to the middle. We're trying to figure out the pile of money. What's legal? What's not Noah knows? And the schools that were set up to do well have done very well and those that weren't weren't. Now you add in the fact that that's my quarterback. I can't wait for it. I'll see you there. We got more predictions to make before the NFL season kicks off tonight. Our MVP rookie of the year, coach of the year predictions, plus a look at the two divisions that have action this evening in the AFC North and West with the Ravens and chiefs playing in about three hours. Let's get to that next on the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] There's plenty of meat on the prediction bone for tomorrow. We'll talk a lot more about the commanders season ahead and we'll go through each division with our rankings. But I didn't want to get some thoughts on the two divisions that get underway tonight out of the way. So we could do that in just a moment. Let's start though with some individual awards. We'll start with the most valuable player award Danny in 2024. Call your shot. Jalen Hertz wins the NFL MVP, the Kellen Moore, offensive coordinator, Renaissance, all the weaponry, all of the schemes, the system, the design. It will work this year close to 40 total touchdowns for a pro the golfins that's going to win the NFC East to be the number two seed, maybe three seed in the NFC. I went with my bold prediction earlier of Jared Goff as the MVP is about 20, 25 to one, depending on where you're looking. It's not crazy. Fandall 25 to one. Good value. He's not my pick unless we're doing bold predictions, but I definitely see a path to that for golf. I'll go with Josh Allen at the Buffalo Bills. They win the division. Less wide receiver help around him and the narrative is he did more. Maybe he did as a rusher. Maybe he's still at the 40 plus combined touchdowns and he did it with Curtis Samuel and a rookie wide receiver and Keon Coleman. But I'll say Allen who is eight to one to win the MVP gets the not over my homes. At some point, I think people just get tired of rooting or voting, you know, thinking about the same guy happens all the time. They kind of go outside the box and say, Oh, who can I give it to? So burrow and Allen make the most of their years. The Michael Jordan when the MVP calm alone did. I'm so sure Charles Barkley did. I'm so sure George just want to give it to someone else. Yeah. People get bored. I think that's probably how it goes. Rookie of the year. I don't know how many people care about the defensive rookie of the air around these parts. So let's just go. Oh, Roy, boring chalk. I think we're about to see one of the most prolific rookie seasons in NFL history. The situation is perfect. It's Caleb Williams. I'm on the same page. It's just hard to fathom him not putting up really good numbers in that offense. And I also think having a top 10 defense means the team's going to be pretty good. And maybe they're not going to be behind as often as they have been the last couple of years. So the passing yardage comes down. But I predicted earlier 4,000 yards for Caleb Williams. I think both he and bow Nix do that. And I do think Caleb Williams get Chicago over 500 into the playoff mix and is the offensive rookie of the year. I think Jaden will push him though. I believe that I think Daniels has a chance to be in the combo because as you know, I think he's going to run all over the place, make a lot of plays with his feet and with his arm. I think he'll be the ultimate kind of dual threat. And you add up all the numbers are going to be pretty impressive. Yeah. Some of the other guys to consider potentially Marvin Harrison Jr. is going to get a prominent role in Arizona. That guy could certainly put up some big numbers. If there's a, you know, let's say, Caleb Williams misses three games or Jaden Daniels misses a couple and, you know, neighbors goes for 1500 yards and 10 touchdowns. You could see something like that happening, right? But yeah, those one, two picks and quarterback, those are the, the, the prohibitive favorite, frankly. So here's my issue with any receiver, pretty much any non-quarterback. Pukka Nakua this past season had the greatest rookie year we've ever seen at the position. Didn't win the award. 105 catches, 1480 yards, six touchdowns. Think about that. Yeah, you're right. Over a hundred catches in almost 1500 yards. And CJ Stroud was really good. I'm not saying he wasn't, but it's not like CJ Stroud through 34 touchdowns or something. CJ Stroud had 23 touchdowns and five picks. It was kind of griffinish. It wasn't, you know, a year we don't see. Dak did something like it. Griffin did something like it. And he still won the award over him. Yeah. So I just don't know if wide receivers in a narrative award voted on by human beings have a real chance. It's going to be Williams or nicks or Daniels or, you know, one of those QBs, generally is how it goes. Just real quick. You mentioned defensive rookie of the year. Remember, this draft didn't have a defensive player taken until, what was it? Like 13 or 14 or 15 something like that? Yeah. So I like top of my head, I can't remember most of the guys that were taken. My sneaky favorite is Chop Robinson in Miami. They're going to pass a lot. He's going to pass a rush a lot, under put some sacks. I like Dallas Turner as the defensive rookie of the year for the Vikings. Yeah. In Minnesota, they took him as their edge rusher. He had a great preseason opener and rushed the quarterback a little bit. Also, look out for Jared verse was the defensive end with the Rams. They took in the first round. If you're looking for defensive rookie of the year options, how about your coach of the year in the NFL in 2024? If you're curious about odds, depends on where you're shopping. But Matt Eber flu's eight and a half to one, Jim Harbaugh, same Mike McDonald, 10 to one, Matt in a floor 12 to one where he morris 13 to one. Anything appeal to you there? Shane Steichen is my answer. Because again, I'm predicting a really nice season for the Colts 15 to one. I think Anthony Richardson has a really nice year. I'm a Colts believer. So I think he ends up winning it. I would go with maybe Mike McDonald, if Seattle, because they could go one way or the other. I just don't know what to think about them. I think they're one of the hardest teams to project and predict. But I could see Seattle maybe going like nine, eight, 10 and seven in a wildcard team and then McDonald in his first year as a coach of the year at 10 to one. The other one I would throw out there is Kevin O'Connell at 20 to one. Minnesota probably won't be good enough. But if they're a playoff team, Oh, yeah, with everything that happened? They got nine and eight. Like to me, that's a hell of a coaching job. And then I would just throw out Matt a floor. What if they overtake Detroit in the North and win that division? Nobody thinks they're going to going into the season. LaFluor would be in that conversation, I would think, right? You would think so. Yeah. I mean, just when it biscuits when we all think something's going to happen and then it doesn't and something positive took its place, that's where your coach of the year comes up. I know I don't know if that made any sense. But the whole world thinks Detroit's going to win that game by or win that division by three games. If Green Bay does, because they beat Detroit a couple times and they're the best team, then you could see a LaFluor rise in the top. All right. How about we go AFC North Ravens play tonight? So we got to go through our projected standings, finishing order. I know you have Baltimore winning the division. What do you have after Cincinnati game behind him? I think they're right there. They're frisky. They're team. Nobody would want to play in the playoffs, rightfully so when they were healthy, they went to a conference title game and they've been to the Super Bowl. So I got Baltimore one since you two, I think Cleveland finishes third just because that defense is so good. They've got great personnel, but I think they're quarterback away. I think Pittsburgh finishes fourth, losing the tiebreaker, maybe eight and nine. So I'll get cute, I guess, to make things a little different. I already had the Bengals win in the division. You know that. I'll say the Browns second and the Ravens third. So I'll go Cincinnati at maybe 12 and five. Cleveland at 11 and six, maybe 10 and seven. And then I'll go with the Ravens at nine and eight outside looking in as either the last wildcard team or maybe even missing out on the playoffs, a little over 500. I'm not completely convinced Lamar Jackson will make it through a fully healthy season again. When he's done that, he's been an MVP a couple times in the last four seasons, but obviously he has issues at times finishing the year out. That was the case in two of the last three years. So that's a factor for me generally with him. Also, I've talked about this probably too much, but I mean, they lost a lot on the defensive coaching staff on the defensive side of the ball. I've still got some questions there. I've heard good things about Zach or their new defensive coordinator. And I'll be rooting for him because he's a really young coach getting a shot. And I'm into that. But I think they're going to miss Mike McDonald, who we just mentioned is now in Seattle as the head coach of the Seahawks. So I'll go Bengals one Browns two. My bugaboo there is obviously Deshawn Watson is just not that good. But they're so good everywhere else. I think they're going to be great defensively. And I do like their weapons around him to elevate him to basically, you know, slightly above average quarterback play maybe. And that should be enough to get them to double digits. And then I'll have the Steelers rounding it out as well. You said this earlier today that your surprise, I guess, or disappointment would be the Pittsburgh because you have them maybe under 500 for the first time. The first time I could see that. I don't like the quarterback situation with Wilson. I don't know that Fields is any better. Although I think he'll start more games and it's just how many years can you finish nine and eight or 10 and seven with a bad offense. At some point the clock's going to strike midday. Yeah, they got away with it with like guts and bubblegum and heart and whatever grit last year, somehow winning those nine games. They won a game where I think the offense have like 12 yards numbers approximate. The schedule is not easy. In my opinion, it gets harder because again, you don't have the easy button for your offense. I think it's going to be a struggle. Even though I like Arthur Smith, especially as an offensive vine, go back to what he did in Tennessee, pretty innovative, pretty smart, pretty sharp, turn Ryan Tanahill into somebody that was serviceable and decent. But I just don't see it. I don't see it with this Pittsburgh team. They're built on defense, good coaching and toughness. And that only goes so far. They also aren't good at wide receiver outside of George Pickens. Nobody seems to care about that. Yeah. George Pickens, everyone claims is a wide receiver one. I think he's kind of one dimensional. He always catches the ball along the sideline on basically nine route type stuff. He's taking a couple slants and inbreakers at the line of scrimmage to the house, but just not a whole lot of diversity to his portfolio to me. But beyond him, it's Calvin Austin, Van Jefferson, who's on like his fourth team, they drafted Roman Wilson in the third round. It was buried on the depth chart right now. The former speedster with the bucks when Brady was there, Scotty Miller is with the Steelers now. But I don't know. That's just, that's not a very good receiver. And we're not used to that. By the way, Pittsburgh, you know, every team's got something they always seem to get right. Pittsburgh was receiver you basically, right? Like just one guy would give way to the next guy who was just a superstar at that spot. And they just haven't had that really. They traded Deontay Johnson, who dropped a lot of passes, but caught a ton of passes as well for them the last few years to the AFC Carolina, excuse me, to Carolina, right, to the Panthers. And by getting him out of the division to the end of, to the NFC and the other conference, they don't have to worry about it. But at the same time, I think they're gonna worry about the receiver room. How about we pivot to the AFC West with the Chiefs hosting the Ravens tonight, pecking order in that division starts for both of us with Kansas City. What's it look like after that? So I think the Chargers are going to be massively improved. Now, I think that you lower your ceiling when you play this way, but you raise your floor. They're going to be Smashmouth, Nebraska in the nineties, wishbone, tongue and cheek care. But basically, they're going to thump. Josh Palmer's there. They're best wide out who is basically a tight end. They're going to play heavy, try to make it easy on Justin Herbert, make a player to that way. But you know, this is what Jim Harbaugh does. He rolls in, plays his style, plays his way. You're going to win more with that guy in charge. So you're going to have to deal with some personality stuff. Like it's going to be difficult. He's going to alienate a bunch of people and make it hard to work with him. But your football teams are going to get better. So it's certainly the price you pay. I think the Chargers ascend in that division, mostly because I don't think anyone else is any good. I'm going to say second behind the Chiefs would be the Chargers as well. I'm higher on the Broncos, I think than a lot of people. I like Sean, Peyton Moore, who's punch back. Like give me, give me a level. Like if they finished second over the Chargers, it wouldn't surprise me. It's crazy. Okay. Like that high, like, I picked Bo Nix to go for 4,000 yards earlier in the day. Yeah. You know, now I don't love Bo Nix long term or anything like that. I think he's a good fit with Peyton. I think they're going to have a pretty good thing this year with a quick game and how they operate and insulate him offensively. But I'm going to say, you know, Chiefs 11 and six, because they're not going to really have to hit the gas pedal very often, they'll lose a couple of games, just kind of taking weeks off proverbially that they don't need to win. Probably could be better than that, but won't then I'll say the Chargers are nine and eight. The Broncos are eight and nine and the Raiders are seven and 10 kind of spread out that way. We sleep on the fact that Broncos last year, eight and nine, like everyone thinks they're going to stink on ice and be terrible. They were awful in the beginning of the season. We saw that firsthand with Washington, but they, I think they finished seven and four down the stretch without all that much. And now handpicked quarterback. Again, I think it's probably unfair to expect the world from, uh, from Bo Nix initially, but the fit is really good with he and Sean Peyton. You could just picture kind of like that New Orleans style 2.0 outside super quick passes, running backs involved, keeping things close to Delana scrimmage. Maybe the occasional shot play, but that's not what they major in. They're not bad. I think they finished third in that. This is kind of where I'm going. I mean, they got a decent cast too. Courtland Sutton, Josh Reynolds, Marvin Mims. Uh, they drafted two receivers in rounds four and seven as well. Uh, Javante Williams, Jalil McLachlan's kind of an undervalued, underrated running back, Autrich Estimae, they drafted in the fifth round as well. Pretty deep at that position. I still like Adam Troutman, who just Sean Peyton had experience with in New Orleans. Uh, Greg Dolsich comes over a tight end, a former third round pick. So yeah, there's a lot to like to me about that offense. I'm curious about the defense. I'm not really sold yet. Uh, I know Peyton and Lombardi will do a pretty good job when they've got the ball, Vance Joseph, having the time of his life on the defensive side of the ball. Still got some questions there. Special teams coordinator there, by the way, former commander's great, Ben Katweka. Is that right? Yeah. He's in Denver now. Well, I think Greg Winoski's there too, by the way. Are you kidding me? Inside linebackers. I think, I think I read that. I think that's a random thing to think that you know. I think I think it. I'll take your word for it. I would. If you told me Greg Winoski live next to me, I would say that might be the case. If you told me coach for the Broncos, I would also say maybe I can confirm he is the inside linebackers coach as of last year. Here we go with the Denver Broncos. Reg Menus score on for Danny. Oh, Greg, Menuski will kick him. Uh, Gratton Danny on the family. Let's go commanders stock report next on G and D. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Week one of the NFL kicks off officially tonight with the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. Welcome back, Grant and Danny on the fan. The commanders are just three days away from getting their season underway. It's time for our first commander's spotlight of this NFL campaign on this Thursday. Danny, get it started. A little spotlight, if I may, GP on none other than rookie quarterback, Jayden Daniels. What's it going to look like? What's the offense going to look like? How is he going to look under the very, very bright lights of NFL week one, the preseason is one thing planned for in front of a hundred thousand people in Death Valley in Baton Rouge is another thing. This is the NFL where the pros meet you and they're trying to defeat you. This is a challenge unlike anything he's ever faced. You've got Todd Bowles who wants to blitz as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning and really, but well, he's in bed. He's trying to blitz. That's going to be a formidable challenge. How do you handle it? Do you come out unscathed spot light? The offensive end position in pass rush, Dorrance Armstrong comes over from Dallas, forgotten man, I'd say going into the season, may have his first 10 sack season loading. He has routinely been the last couple of years in that seven, eight sack range, playing a lot less than he will with starter snaps here in DC. Cleveland Ferrell is more of a run stuffer than a pass defender trying to get to the quarterback, but that's where Dante Fowler, maybe Jamie Davis are going to come in. How much do they use Giovanni Jean Baptiste, the seventh round pick at a Notre Dame? I'm really curious about the defensive end position, put the spotlight on that group. Spotlight wide receiver too. Who's going to be? Diami, Luke McCaffrey, Noah Brown, at some point. I don't know. I don't know. And a two receiver set who lines up on the opposite side from Terry McCorn. I don't know how many two receivers sets we're going to see, by the way, but you might see some on occasion, especially if you go jumbo here or there and everywhere. I think a lot of three receiver sets. It'll be a little bit clearer with Zacchaeus in the slot, but I don't know who the number two option is. And the receiving core, I think the number two options are tight ends, running backs, and maybe even Zacchaeus by extension coast to line of scrimmage. But who's the number two receiver? Who's going to take that gig? Spotlight, Jer John, Johnny Newton, Johnny did not practice today, dealing with what is listed as a foot and rest. Of course, he had both feet operated on this off season. Then he was back on day one of training camp and we all celebrated that he didn't miss any time, except that soon there after he missed lots of time, didn't play in the preseason. Now is very unlikely to play in week one of the regular season based on the fact that he did not practice at all today. Not really sure what's going on with him. Hopefully we get some clarity as we get closer to or after this first game of the year. But spotlight on Newton, because while this year might not be overly significant, it's a big, big deal that they got that pick right. Alan or Payne or both could leave after this season. Probably Alan has got no guaranteed money. And then you're plugging Newton in at a position where you are hoping to be really good. Because as we just talked about, the defensive end spot is in the strength. So your pass rush comes from pushing the pocket, collapsing the interior. Johnny Newton, spotlight on you getting healthy and helping out spotlight. Manual Forbes. Now's the time, dude. Whenever you get a chance, this is a much better setup than last year. Last year, you were asked to be the savior of both a bad offense somehow and a terrible defense. It obviously didn't work out. Now you've got every coach in place that you would probably want. If you had a dream list, they're there helping you succeed. You probably be benched in a more competitive program. You'd probably be an afterthought, but you're going to get a chance here, probably because you were drafted in the first round last year. You're under contract regardless though, you money regardless. So where's your career going to go? Are you a great story that bounced back from adversity? Or are you the bus that a lot of people think you happen to be? Whether that's fair or not, that is the brakes, but you're going to get a chance. Spotlight and manual Forbes. Spotlight Bobby Wagner, the captain of the defense, the alpha in the locker room, the 34 year old who's going to be leading the boys all season long. 183 tackles last year led the NFL. He's led the National Football League and stops three different times and in solo tackles at different points in his career. Also at a multi touchdown season. This is an athlete who makes plays. He can be, I kind of create game changing moments. Now recently it's just been a human wrecking ball who gets people on the ground, but he has been at worst a second team all pro every single season since 2014. He is going to help fix the line backing position with Frankie Louvoo. Once and for all, spotlight on the guy running the locker room, the nine time pro bowler and future Hall of Famer. Welcome to DC Bobby Wagner. Spotlight Tyler Biotich, please, please just solidify this position. This has been a carousel. This has been a hot mess on fire left down in the sun and sprayed with skunk juice. The center position here has been the worst. We can't seem to get it no matter who the darling is, the previous regime or this is the time. Now we've got it. Now we're going to figure it out. This is an established pro, not a world beater, but please just be stable, please be sound, get everyone on the same page and keep Jay Daniels upright. It is crazy how bad they've been at center the last couple of years since Chase Roya got like seriously hurt. It has been a yard sale. There you go. Spotlight on your commanders here in week one as we get ready for the Tampa Bay Bucks on Sunday. We'll have a full preview of the game on tomorrow's show. The other thing about the center position, Danny, while I think about it, it's not just that they've guessed wrong or they haven't been able to solve it. It's also that they go through guys one at a time to your point. Like with injuries, it's just been a revolving door. It's been a and a killy seal. That has been they've got a couple of Elinors, but that's been an Elinor. They cannot swipe that car. They cannot land that plane. Biotish is the first time they've really paid anybody post-Rulier and expected that they've figured it out by throwing money at them. They've used like eight centers over the last couple of seasons. Grant and Danny on the fan. Let's get you one last preview of Thursday night football. It's the Sunday night crew on Thursday night. Hopefully that's not confusing, but Sunday night football on a Thursday coming your way tonight to kick off the NFL season and we'll get you ready for the nats and the pirates before we say goodbye on GND.