Grant and Danny
Full Show- Tuesday, October 8th, 2024
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Cap's defenseman, John Carlson stops by as they get ready to open their season on Saturday night. They've got a huge 50th celebration party plan for Thursday that Carlson will be at. We'll talk to him about that in two hours when he joins us at four. By the way, we're giving away tickets to the caps and the stars nine days out on Thursday night next week, right at four o'clock, out of the blitz when Carlson joins us, and at five o'clock because it's Tuesday, our usual appointment every week with Austin Echler. If you have not heard that interview, it's getting rave reviews. He is outstanding. He's so good. He will be with us presented by I T cadre coming up in about three hours right here on GND. This is about as good a Tuesday rundown as you're going to find three, four, five heart of the order type stick right there. I love that. The only thing I have to report before we get into the regular meat of the show, I had a horrendous case of the hiccups earlier tonight and I wasn't near because you know, my foolproof method where you have to drink and then swallow upside down, right, which gets rid of the hiccups. It's not a believer in that. I don't really buy it, but I know you swear by it. Yeah, because it works. It's 100% effective every time. There's no way of sends or buts, but I wasn't in your place where I could do that. So I had to like grin and bear to help my breath that didn't work. I like tried to think about something else that didn't work because every, you know, whatever, just 28 seconds on the dot, it's like one of those terrible hiccups. You know, those like old old guy ones. I had those. It's hard to tune character. Yeah, it was just horrendous. And I finally got myself near a chair where I could do my hangups, I down move and drink and instantly gone. But I had a good 15 minute run of bad hiccups. That's my story. It is Tuesday, which means commander survivor on Grant and Danny. You are going to Facebook. Facebook dot com slash Grant and Danny to vote a player off the island to give a player immunity. Last week you kicked Iran pain off the island. So this season so far already eliminated Emmanuel Forbes, the Ami Brown, John Allen, Doron Payne and the four games Washington have played to this point, both of the premier D tackles on this team among the four players about that, by the way, has to pack their bags in the first month of the season. Brian Robinson came into today immune for his efforts this past week. Doesn't need immunity because he scored two touchdowns on seven attempts in the first half before he got shut down at halftime, playing with a banged up knee. But today you're voting these players available, right? Somebody goes home. Somebody gets immunity. Robinson can't get it too straight week. So still alive on offense looking for immunity and hoping not to be sent home. Jaden Daniels, Austin Echler who joins us at five o'clock. Terry MacLaurin coming off 100 yards did have a lost fumble and a drop touchdown. Zach Hertz who nearly lost a fumble was saved by replay assistance. Brandon Coleman at a strong game at left tackle. Miles Garrett didn't have a single stat, not one zero stats other than snaps, meaning he was on the field, but you wouldn't have known it. Coleman's in a timeshare played about 50% of snaps and then Sam Cosme, a Cosme did have a penalty, I believe, but mostly was pretty good. Gave up. You know, what in the penalty it was the early sack that he got beat. That's right. By Zadari Smith that I'm thinking of defensively, Bobby Wagner, Frankie Louvoo, Benjamin Saint Jews, Quan Martin, Jeremy Chin, and then Austin Seibert. The kicker is still around. Seibert was perfect again. Wagner at a big game. Louvoo had two and a half sacks. Maybe in the best player on the field for Washington, Saint Jews did nice job and coverage against Amari Cooper. So those guys should all be safe, but it's your vote. Not ours. Facebook dot com slash Brandon. Pretty easy vote for me this week. I'll reveal who I voted for later on or you can find that yourself by going to Facebook dot com slash grant. This person on offense had eight targets, but only two catches, a couple drops, a couple balls that absolutely 100% should have been caught that weren't Zach hurts. Yes. Okay, you're sending Zach hurts home and you're giving immunity to, I'm thinking it's either going to be Jaden Daniels or the Daniels probably didn't have as good a performance as Louvoo did. Louvoo should get immunity or Bobby Wagner for me. Hey, it's Frankie Louvoo. That's the Frankie Louvoo game. When I think of the Frankie Louvoo game this year, I'm going to think of the Cleveland game where he did everything. What did you do? He didn't serve popcorn to section 300. That's the only thing he wasn't able to do on Sunday. And I'm not gonna hold it against him because they did everything on the football field. If Robert Sallow wants to serve popcorn in section 300, he'll be able to. He is now available to do that. He was fired today by the New York Jets. I did not see this coming after a London game with another game coming up against Buffalo. A big game, by the way, this week. Now, Tuesday is the off day in the National Football League. Mostly players are not even in the facility unless they're getting some treatment. They're at home, but he got to work studying the film doing the things he normally does walking to his office first thing this morning. And he got intercepted before he got to his door to sit down at his desk. And he was told he was meeting with ownership Woody Johnson, Chris Johnson, his brother. They promptly dismissed him. He's been fired. They have elevated defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrick, who is a solid disciple. Asala was five games into year four. He was 20 and 36 as the head coach of the New York Jets back to back seven win seasons the last two years. Last year, obviously, they lose their quarterback, Rogers and the opener. So they wanted to give him a shot with Aaron Rodgers. And he and Rogers have been butting heads. I mean, that is the worst kept secret in the league, mostly behind the scenes, but occasionally publicly as well. You've seen some weird interactions. We talked about the press conferences last week, where Rogers went after Sala for not basically coming down on the lineman for jumping off sides on false starts rather saying that Rogers needs to clean up his cadence. There was the weird interaction on the field where Sala went to give him a hug and Rogers kind of shoved him away. To me, this is pretty obvious. Aaron Rodgers runs that team. They went and made the deal with the devil. And maybe that's not the right phrase here, but they brought in the 40 plus year old quarterback who wants to run the show who was angry in Green Bay because they wouldn't let him run the show. They said, here you go, sir. Here's your organization. Take us to the Super Bowl and forgetting for a moment that Rogers has really struggled and not playing well, it's been a disaster mostly. Like Sala's defense is number one in the NFL right now. The offense is 27th. Sala fired. Rogers is going to continue to start and probably try to bring in his buddy Davante Adams. Yeah, easy to get rid of one than the other at this point, right? Just give him contracts. I felt like his days were numbered when he said the maybe Rogers has to change his cadence or clean up his cadence, whatever that was. I thought that was the most wrong thing anybody has ever said at a podium, like the weapon that he has. No, Aaron Rodgers, this I'll get down Roger in a second remains a lot to deal with. His first team all a lot to deal with. He's the captain. He'd like to own the team as well. He's a lot to deal with, but that's still a weapon. That cadence and that thing has gotten more free plays than anybody in arcade in human history. I mean, that is a thing that needs to be emphasized and utilized. And when he said, yeah, man, I got to clean up the cadence. Wrong days are numbers. I wasn't the first time either. Remember in in mini camera that excuse absence, excuse absence thing. Yeah, when Rogers was in Egypt, I think it was. We didn't know that at the time, but instead of just coming up to the podium and lying to everyone for the betterment of either your relationship with Rogers or just to not create drama, like let's not even make it that he had to put Rogers over and make him look good, but just to avoid in a major media market where every molehill is a mountain, everything's a thing. He came up to the podium and was like, yeah, it's an unexcused absence. He'll be here when he wants to be here. And it made Rogers the bad guy in that situation. Now, I'm not pretending like he's a victim. He chose to go to Egypt. Right. He is the bad guy on one of the few times that he should have been at the office working with his team where it's mandated all off season. But that was a choice that Salah made that clearly damaged their relationship. You got to know who you're working with. Rogers is a giant pain in the ass who wants to be appealed to and appeased and told how good he is all the time. And he doesn't want you pushing back and bristling like he wants you to do it his way. So if you're going to play games with Aaron Rogers, you're going to get the horns every now and then. So between that comment and then the podium discrepancy, we need to do something different with Snap Count. And then Rogers saying, or we could just hold guys accountable, you knew this thing was rotten from the inside out. Yeah. So I did not expect you land on the plane from coming home from London. And then the first day you come back to work, you're gone. I was stunned when I saw this today. I thought he was going to get fired because they just don't look right. But you thought at the end of the year, right? No, somewhat sometime during the season. So you thought they continue to play like crap and eat you'd fire. Yeah. That was definitely a possibility. I guess for me, I hadn't really thought about it beyond. I didn't think it was this right now. Yeah, I did not have right now. I'm not, I'm not some sort of seer. I also don't think Salah is a great coach. Again, he's 20 and 36 overall. He has not gotten the quarterback situation correct, which is not all his fault. He's not gotten the OC situation correct, which certainly recently has nothing to do with him because you're basically placating Rogers by going and getting Nathaniel Hackett. Having said that though, Danny, you hired a defensive minded head coach. He is the defensive leader of the building, right? He is the head of the snake on defense. And since the moment he was hired, they are number one in points per drive. They are number one in EPA per play defensively. He gave you a great defense. Now your GM, Joe Douglas, has to pick players on offense that make plays. Your decision at quarterback has to work. I'm not saying his hands are clean here, but when you hire a defensive minded head coach, if they give you a great defense, they kind of did the thing that they do. Like the guy you hired walked through the door. And if you want to blame him for the quarterback situation, because that's partially on him too, no problem. But I guess my point is when you hire defensive minded, you better get quarterback right. Because if you don't, it cannot work. So they are, there's, there's some things that aren't necessarily, I don't know if it's on Sala, a little bit's on Aaron Rodgers, a little bit's on Nathaniel Hackett. I don't know what I don't know. I do know this. Breeze Hall was excellent. I promise you that's a good running. Are we sure? Yes. Because I was sure before the year, his numbers are awful. There are atrocious. Brian Baldering had a great breakdown of this, where there is just on a play that should be getting five, six, seven, eight yards. There are dudes in the backfield that are, that are ruining it. Like they, their run game is broken. They're the worst run team right now in the NFL statistically. And they're among the worst run teams that I've, that I've watched. I mean, they can't do it. And that's with Breeze Hall and Raylan Allen, both of whom are you would think I think we feel like are really good. Yeah. Breeze Hall is explosive. Can do a little bit of everything. He's got a little, I'm trying to think of the guy. Why am I blank on his name? Held out for a year, Pittsburgh still running back. Yeah. He's got some lingon bell to it the way he doesn't glide the same way, but has that kind of little bit of looseness. Breeze Hall can play. He's averaging three yards a carry. Let me ask you a question though. Why is he averaging three and their other running backs are averaging more? I'm not saying he is the problem. Like Braylan Allen, before this past week, I think was at five yards. He's at four and a half still in the mid fours. That's a pretty big discrepancy. It's a large discrepancy. I think I think it's early game. It's first down. Let's do the thing and that to Breeze Hall is getting stuffed. Listen, I haven't gone carried for Carrie, but remember those years where Washington starting running back was pretty pedestrian and Chris Thompson's averaging five yards a carry on draws and getting better looks? Who knows? What's true? But Allen runs hard and I like him too, but Breeze Hall is a stud. Be that as it may. They're broken right now. And instead of firing everybody or firing everyone on the offensive staff or doing something to try to fix this, they're going just for the top, the head of the snake to see if maybe that gives them a jolt. But if your evaluation of the Jets is they're a pretty talented team with some good pieces. They're season slipping away. Like they're two and three and probably should be worse than that. Like they don't look good at all. They're all that sticks below this week. Yeah, which is a nice little one way ticket to two and four perhaps right now. I think you give them a little bit more of a chance because of that seemingly locked in dead cat bounce. Doesn't mean you always win. But when a team fires a coach in season, that next game is almost always better than the several that precluded it. Wouldn't you agree with that? Yeah. I mean, that's why that's why the the term has been coined, right? I mean, you look at, you know, any kind, there's a major change. I mean, Carolina is back to being terrible, but the first day it wasn't Bryce Young, everybody's skipping free in the fields and their offense was the best in the sport that weekend. You know, now they've progressed back to the mean in any Dalton's doing any Dalton things. But that happens when when a coach everyone's like ding dong, which is dead. We feel better about ourselves now and we go out and play a little bit better. If I'm a Jets fan or if I'm in that front office, this move at least gives me hope that something will change. Doesn't mean solid was the whole problem. Frankly, the problem is the offense. Yes. I mean, the problem is unequivocally and irrefutably when they have the football, not when they're defending. They're great when they're defending. This change is nothing Nathaniel Hackett still Nathaniel Hackett. They need Rogers who through three picks, mostly bad picks in a bad performance in London to play a lot better. None of that changes when you fire Robert Salah, but you're just hoping for a momentum shifting goalie pool, basically. Like when the team is playing like crap, maybe the goalie isn't 100% of the problem. Let me let up a soft goal or two. You've given up five goals after, you know, 25 minutes or something, but you pull the goalie because it just rattles everybody's cages a little bit and you start to walk a little straighter, a little narrower. They got the bills this weekend. If they win that game, they're in first place. You get that. I mean, you specifically, but think about this. Buffalo's lost two in a row that dolphins are dead. The Patriots are awful. They might be going to Drake May here in the next week or two. It's there for you. If you can just be okay on offense, and I think maybe this is a let's just see if we can motivate people to be a little bit better on that side of the ball. Yeah. This is one of those. It's worth a shot. Type, type moves, right? Again, it's, it's unfair. It's why the head coach makes so much money. It's why he's in charge. So you get this, you know, we again, we can't fire 15 people. We're not getting rid of Aaron Rodgers. There's nothing. There's only so much we can do. Our hands are pretty tied before this thing slips away. Let's try to do this now and try to get this thing on the right track. I don't know if it's going to work long term or not, but I'm, again, I'm surprised it was today. I thought they'd go another couple of weeks. They'd be middling. And if their eval is, we're too talented to be this bad, then yeah, get rid of the culture setter that the head coach, but this is basically to me, a tug-of-war between Aaron Rodgers and Robert Salah that Aaron Rodgers won. I'm taking a three second video midway through a several hour road trip, but man, do the Packers look like they did the right thing right now. The way that Jordan love development is gone, siding with basically Gouda Kunston, the floor, letting Rogers walk and contrarily, man, does it look like some teams dodged some bullets who let the jets be the team to get into the Aaron Rodgers business. But Salah fired today, pretty stunning news out of the NFL. We're getting ready in DC for the commanders and the Ravens this weekend. The two highest scoring offenses, Danny, in the National Football League this year. Think about that. And we've been talking a lot about the record four and one and how good the commanders have been. They are must see appointment television. They have scored 155 points this year, most in the league, the Ravens at 147 second in the NFL. And they're doing it in similar yet, you know, to each other, but different ways than a lot of the rest of the league is, right? I mean, these are the one to rush offenses and, you know, cue all the run and dang ball. See, we told you guys, you know, claiming victory about that. You know, I point to some pretty prolific passing totals and some really efficient passing totals for Jayden Daniels and, you know, Lamar Jackson through for almost 400 this past week. Yeah, they're the best two running offenses to your point in the league. The numbers are the Ravens averaging 211 a game. The commanders averaging 178. Nobody else is at that threshold. But, you know, I always say points don't come from the running game. Well, number one, these teams are putting that theory to the test, obviously. But a lot of the points you think about Washington, a 66 yard pass, a 41 yard touchdown dropped into the bucket, right? The deep shot, 55 yards to McLaren sets up a rushing touchdown. The explosiveness in the passing game for these two teams coming to your point from the top two running games in the league. Absolutely. So, you know, it's certainly unconventional, but this is kind of the modern way to do it, right? Everyone would love to have a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning pat in the football and let's just go five wide and sling it all over the place. Well, the next best thing is this cheat code of an athletic quarterback that even when you're wrong, you're right. And they mirror each other in a lot of ways. Baltimore further ahead, obviously, this has been a group that every time Lamar Jackson is healthy, they win 65, 70% of their games win 11, 12, 13, 14, sometimes 15 games. They've been excellent. And they got up to a kind of their, you know, a middling start. Washington is off to a rowing start. This is the matchup of the week. Top two dual threat quarterbacks in the league. Daniels has run more than any other quarterback 57 times. Jackson second on that list with 53. Daniels, if you're looking at how they get to their rushing totals, Jayden Daniels scrambles a lot more on passing plays. He's back, especially when pressured. We can go into these numbers later, but he turns passing plays in the quarterback runs a lot, whereas the Ravens actually design a lot more runs for Lamar Jackson. And that's been the big difference. Daniels, 28 scrambles, nine more than anybody else in the league and 11 more than Lamar Jackson, but it's the scheduled planned runs for Lamar that has him number two to Daniels within four runs this season in terms of attempts at quarterback. Pro football talk came out with their power rankings. Just a few minutes ago, they've got Washington five, by the way, I've seen them five, two different rankings today. I have a reaction. No, we can see my face luster on YouTube. We are streaming live, by the way, on the one oh six, seven, the fan YouTube page. In addition to being live coast to coast on the Odyssey app and all over town on one oh six, seven, I'm doing that thing when I have an explanation, my wife asked me why did you do that. I just kind of I can't believe it. Like it makes sense, right? I mean, they're prolific offense and improving defense. Everything seems to be going swimmingly. They belong there. I don't know what to do. So I actually want to dive into this with you right now and we can open up the MGM National Harbor listener lines on this as well at 800-636-1067. Where are the commanders ranked for you right now? I don't need the specific number necessarily, but maybe the better way to put it is. How many teams are can you make the case? Can you say are actually definitely better than Washington? What is an unreasonable thing to say in terms of where they could rank among the power rankings in a league where there are just two or five and oh teams and therefore in one and have the best offense 800-636-1067. We'll get into that next Lewis Riddick at three. John Carlson at four. Austin Echler at five. Gonna be a heck of a show. Grant and Danny on the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] We may be excited for the start of the football season. However, we all know folks around us may have lost a friend or family member recently. The exclusive sponsor of our show, the law firm, Kandorian Murad, can guide you through the difficult probate administration process. They'll help bring clarity and closure to a loved one's estate schedule a free consultation with their probate and estate planning attorneys today. Visit kmloyers.com Be sure to tell them GND sent you. That's kmloyers.com. It's a survivor Tuesday Facebook.com/grantanddandy to vote a commander off the island based on their performance on Sunday against the Browns and to give a player immunity. I think there's plenty of options when it comes to immunity after a game like the one they played against the Browns. Lewis Riddick's on the show in 30 minutes. ESPN analyst very, very high on Daniels since before the draft looking forward to talking to him on this show. Danny, the question is, how many teams are better right now than the commanders? I think the way to answer that is complicated based on whether or not we want to make this solely on these five weeks. Or do you account for expectations coming in, recency over the last few years, kind of lifetime achievement? Because I'll give you the example. In other words, right now this moment, the lions are the commanders. Well, the lions through five weeks have not been as impressive as the commanders, but they were really good last year for an NFC championship game team a year ago, have Super Bowl expectations. They're a better bet to still be in the mix at the end of the NFC playoffs this year. But is that what we're talking about? Or are we talking about who through five weeks has played the best football? Then Washington is higher on the list if it's the second criteria. So I'll give you another example. San Francisco, they're two and three. Are you 100% sure with a lot of pelts on the wall there in San Fran, where they get right and they go to NFC title games and Super Bowls every other year, it seems like how sure are you that they're dead in the water? Right now they've played what? The 17th or 18th best in the NFL? But there's some pedigree, some track record here, whereas this is all very new new for Washington. So it's always that's kind of that subjective measure, right? Where it's hard to figure. So people can do whatever they want with their rankings. What I am doing here, when I answer this question is I am looking through a very small narrow window at just five weeks of football. Like so take names out of it, take cities, circumstances, who's played the best football? Organization does not matter. Jersey being worn doesn't matter. It's a blind ballot, so to speak. And my evaluation began at 1259 each time before week one, let's say, right? And by way of that metric right now, I would say the commanders have been more impressive than the chiefs who are five and oh yeah, the commanders have been more impressive than the lions who are four and one. The commanders have been more impressive than the Texans who are currently ahead of them in the pro football talk rankings as well. In fact, the only team probably I would have ahead of Washington just based on these five weeks is the Minnesota Vikings at five and oh. And I say that after the Vikings just played their most pedestrian game. But I do remember that the commanders in week one were pretty disastrous and it was a fairly disgraceful effort even for a team under a new staff. But is that the way we should be looking at it? Like does that work for you? It's helpful. That's a data point, right? Versus, you know, big picture who's going to be good in a couple of weeks who's shown enough, who's going through it right now, like Buffalo is really good. Now they've lost his past week and they've lost too straight. I'm going to bet on them to have, you know, double digit wins and be a factor in the AFC postseason when it comes to it, right? Same with Baltimore, same with Kansas City. We all know this Kansas City is the weirdest five and oh team ever where they don't have much prolific. And are you sure Juju Smith, Schuster is going to be the dude for the rest of the way, go for a hundred yards a week? Of course not. But we also know that it's Andy Reid and Pat Mahomes. So they, they deserve every benefit that out they get. I guess said differently. It being really good through five games or number two in the power rankings or whatever gets you nothing. There's no moral otherwise victory about that, right? But if that's the exercise, then you can put them as high as second or third in the NFL right now. And without, without questions. So Minnesota's won the best point differential in the sport. Defensively, they've been so good. I think they've given up the second fewest points in the league through through this many games to who to I want to say the Jets. Yeah. The number one defense in the NFL yardage. Yeah. I mean, they've been fantastic in that regard. Fewest points allowed in the in the NFC rapid fire here. More impressive to this point in the year. And remember that week one happened. I think it's easy for us to forget that because these last four wins, but our accounts if we're doing five weeks, five weeks. Yeah. Lions are commanders. I'd say Washington. Me too. Vikings are commanders. Vikings. I would agree with that. Chiefs are commanders. Washington's been more impressive. Ravens are commanders. Washington. Texans are commanders. That one's really close. Texans got blown out by the Vikings. Yeah. They have one loss where they just didn't show up. We're terrible. So other than that, they were really good. Yeah. So that was close. I'd still beaten teams like the commanders have. Yeah. Again, now we're picking nets. These are top five teams here. Yeah. Um, so I would say Houston because the way they beat Jacksonville two weeks ago, I'm kind of going, you deserved to lose that game. You got up on the skin of your teeth. Washington's got that version of that with, with the Giants. This is a close one. I narrow edge Washington in that. Same Packers. Washington Falcons. Washington. Bucks. Washington. I mean, that's kind of, there's a big drop off after that. You get the point. Now, maybe someone could just turn on the radio right now and say, who cares that they've been the second best team in football. And okay, that's cool. I get your point. But to that, I would say, oh my God. There's 32 team. Yeah. This team is normally in the 27 to 32 range. And right now we're suggesting there has been one team more impressive than Washington. And it's a five and O team that going into its game this Sunday had the front running MVP at quarterback. Let's go to Jeremiah and Fairfax on G and D. What's up, Jeremiah? I'm doing good. How are y'all doing today, buddy? Um, so my metric, I kind of did it with a little bit of both. I'm taking into account how the teams. I'm also CD lamb, CD lamb, even if the Cowboys were struggling. So I'm kind of doing a mix of both. I'm also practicing in injuries. My calculation, I recounted there are nine teams ahead of the commanders. And I'll just go ahead and list them so I can do that real quick. Yeah. Hang on a quick. Let me. I got a question first though. This is just the commanders played them this weekend. You would expect to beat the commanders. Is that right? Yes. This is these teams lined up to today, October 8th. I would expect the commanders to lose not by much, but to lose. All right. Let's hear it. So my nine are the bills, the Ravens, the Bengals, the Chiefs, the 49ers, the Falcons, the Buccaneers, the Vikings, and lastly, the Lions. I know record wise, they're not all equal to the commanders, but I feel the talent that they have on their team and just what we know them to be would get them the victory. So I think it's a smart call. I think it's all reasonable. They've already played the Bengals and they beat them, right? They're about to play Baltimore. I don't think they'll be Baltimore. So I would agree with you on that one. You could throw the Chiefs and the Niners as mainstays in their no problem. San Francisco just lost to a Cardinals team that Washington blew out. And I know that's not how the league works, but hard not to acknowledge that fact. But yeah, I mean, we are elbow deep into something that is hard to quantify here. When you start putting together a power rankings, they could lose all of those games. They could also win them all, which is why they very much are in play in the top three. Yeah, to the college point, you'd expect them to be competitive, which is different than we're used to around here. The point to me is remember when the number of times we'd be 28 or 31st or whatever the number was, and people wanted to quibble with that, that's not the point. The point is you're in that bottom bucket of crap. This point is they're in the wonderful bucket that glows when you open up the bucket. Yeah, my point is there's not a team they could play on Sunday where you wouldn't give them a chance right now, or where you would say they're definitely not going to win that game. They're the largest underdog they've been at any point this season, by way of the books, seven points going into this Ravens game. And it feels like a toss up kind of game. Let's go to Nate in DC on G&D. What's up Nate? Hey, how's it going guys? All right, you took the words right out of my mouth. Picture the scene from Dumb and Dumber, so you're saying there's a chance. Okay, so at the end of the day, you asked who we would rank ahead of the commanders at this point. I would rank no one. I feel as if, just like you were saying, we could beat anybody on the field. Statistics and all of that taking into account and past histories, and I get all of that. And I know that it's talent all around the league 32 teams. But against any of those other 31 teams, think about this. Before we played the, I mean, before we played the giants, they picked the giants to win. Before we played the Bengals, they picked the Bengals to win. Before we played the Browns, they picked the Browns to win. Now they're picking the Ravens to win. We can beat anybody. So at the end of the day, I ranked nobody ahead of the commanders at this point, because even the best team in the league, which is the Kansas City Chiefs, are playing very human at this point. Yesterday, I think they were their best game. They handled New Orleans with ease. They got a 400 offensive yard outing. Patrick Mahomes threw for 300. Kelsey looked better. They had a receiver step up in Juju Smith, Schuster. So finally, they connected some dots that they hadn't been able to. But that had been a really uninspiring kind of lethargic. We're winning because that's what we do around here. Mm-hmm. But it's not like we're good. This isn't style points, Chiefs. This is, uh, let's just go to the next week. Yeah, there's just no one that would really scare me. And that doesn't mean Washington can't go out and lose, you know, a few games in their next four or something like that. That absolutely is on the table. But they have now gotten to a point where they could win every week, where they should be in every single game the way things are trending right now. 800-636-1067. The question we've asked you guys is how many teams are definitely better than Washington in this moment? We'll get back to that. Plus, I found a couple of really fascinating stats about the first month of the season in the NFL. I'll throw at you. We'll do that as soon as we return. Lewis Riddick in 20 minutes. Austin Echler today at five on Grant and Danny. [BLANK_AUDIO] He's Danny. I'm Grant. This is the fan at the top of the hour. Lewis Riddick is going to join us ESPN analyst. We'll talk to him about the commanders. Four in one start that nobody saw coming. Jaden Daniels playing the way that he has as well. He has been masterful. I saw a couple of really interesting stats. Wanted to pass along really quickly, Danny. Did you know that the Minnesota Vikings have trailed in their games this season, basically only a couple of minutes of football in five games? That's wild. Three minutes and 26 seconds trailing through five games. Since the 1970 merger, only the 2009 Saints who had not trailed for a single second. The 84 Dolphins, you know about that team, right? They lost in the Super Bowl, minute and seven seconds. That was a damn Reno-led operation. The 2023 49ers were five and oh, they'd trailed for a minute 45. And then the 99 Rams greatest show on turf who won the Super Bowl had trailed for two minutes and 30 seconds. Then it's the Vikings at three 26 crazy number that they have not chased. And it was the first time this weekend against the Jets where they were really in a tight game. Sam Darnell threw a bad interception in the second half. They kind of played a little bit tighter. You could tell so much of that is it's been 72 and sunny. It's not going to be that way the entire time. But I just thought that number was staggered. That is that is not. So you look at, for example, they beat Green Bay by two, but they had this enormous lead. Green Bay came roaring back. So you figure out those eight seven. Yeah, there's some minutes there. I think San Francisco was similar. I don't think they trailed for much in that game if at all. I know it ended up being a one score game. But that's how you get to those kind of totals is you score first and then kind of hang on. Here's another crazy Viking stat over their final five games on their schedule. Again, they're one of two five and O teams in the league, the only five and O team in Washington's conference. They are going to face two teams in their last 12 games with a winning record right now. Atlanta and Detroit, who they play twice. Their opponent winning percentages for 69 the rest of the way. But they got Green Bay in week 17. Green Bay is three and two. Pending again, well, this was from Sunday. So I guess there you go. So it says pending today. So now the Packers would also be a 13. Yeah, pending today. It said I thought it was before last night, but this is from Sunday. So you're talking about Atlanta Detroit and then if we're throwing the Packers in at three and two. Opponent winning percentage then has shifted closer to 500, but three out of 12 teams with winning records. So before the season started, I did not pick them to go to the postseason, didn't pick and win the division certainly. And the reason was I didn't think they'd be bad by any stretch, but I go their first six games. There's only one team in there that I go. Yeah, that team's not very good, which is week one against the Giants. I'm going this row of San Francisco, Houston, Green Bay, Jets, who I thought were going to be good and Detroit. That's that is as tough a schedule to start a season as you're going to find. Slobber. Five of those six teams are either defending playoff teams or probably going right back again, right? And they're five and only that stretch. They got Detroit now after after their by-week and week seven. What an unbelievable start for them. Unbelievable. One other number I made note of yesterday that I saw. Rate of drives to reach the red zone. The commanders get to the red zone on 60% of their drives and NFL high. The next best team is San Francisco at 47%. Nobody's over 50 except Washington. And they're at 60 in terms of getting to the red zone. Speaks to the lack of punts. You know what a big deal has been? Fourth down, they're eight for eight on fourth down. Eight for eight. They have not been stopped yet. And they're not just going for fourth and ones all the time. They had a fourth and three with a 34 yard Daniels run. It's not a touch push situation either, right? No, they've had a fourth and four, I believe in there. They're eight for eight on fourth down. They're one of the best teams in the league on third down, but they get into field goal range, AKA the red zone for a chip shot. 60% of the time. That's pretty, that's incredible. Cyber still hasn't missed. He's perfect in as long as 45. Like they have not asked him to even kick anything close to a 50 yarder at this point. They haven't had to. Let's go to the phones. Joops and Gaithersburg. How many teams are better than Washington right now? So I'm going to be a hypocrite in my statement. Analytical guys, we're the best of the best. But I have guys who are the best of the best. I can't say the bike in because Sam Darnold, if you remember when he was with Carolina, he had a hot start and then those ghosts just popped up on him. And I'm feeling like I'm about to creep up on him now. The only team I think that's better than us is Kansas City. My reason why is because they backed it back to full range of champs, their current reigning champs. And with all the injuries on offense, they're still five and no. But I don't mean I don't think we can beat them. Outside of that, really, I think we're the best of the best, man. And like I told you guys before, this is not a finished product of the offense. You've still got peace in the development. Well, there's no doubt about that. But the results aren't going to get better, right? The team might get guys to play better or it might be different and even get improvement in certain areas. But the numbers, you know, you're not going to never drop passes. You're not going to not be behind the change. You're not going to never turn the ball over. As we've started to see slightly more the last couple of weeks, you're trying to dig out a third and 10, third and 11, gets a little more difficult. Unless Daniels can just avoid a sack and throw for 66 on third and 13. Yeah, which, you know, you just count on that every week. I mean, those, those amazing plays are amazing because they stand out. Just do more of that. Mike and Colesville, you're on Grant and Danny. How many teams are better than the commanders right now? I don't think you can say any teams are better, but this is the NFL. And teams have a way of figuring you out. But that's why I think we may never get to the point where we say any team is better because there's no figuring out this office. You've packed the box and Jayden's going to pick you apart or Edward's coming at you on the screen. You drop seven and our running game is unstoppable. So we may end up looking at a season where nobody's fired at the house. There's some sustainable to it in all sincerity, right? When you have that equalizer of a quarterback that's that athletic who can make wrong into correct. Like, again, I keep pointing to this one, play that fourth and three that you referenced. Cleveland won. Cleveland got everything that any defensive coordinator would ever ask for. An unblocked hyper athletic rusher who Washington should have drafted, quite frankly, a couple of years ago. That guy has Jayden Daniels dead to rights until it's a 34 yard game. There's, what are you supposed to do? What is anybody supposed to do? And I think to that point, there's stuff you could take away. This office isn't so elite that, you know, the weaponry that you just, you know, you can spin the wheel and have it just land on somebody that's incredible. But right now that equalizer of a quarterback that makes the wrong right makes it really hard to be able to stop everything all the time. Grant and Danny with you on the fan. We'll talk to Austin Echler about his banner performance at a 50 yard run, a 33 yard catch on a screen, another nice return on a kickoff. He'll be with us today at five right here on the fan. Caps fans, you'll be excited to hear that John Carlson is with us as part of our blitz. We're giving away tickets to a caps game next Thursday night, right at four. And then Carly is on the show at that time. But next top of the hour, as soon as we return in just a few moments, Lewis Riddick, ESPN analyst on the commanders in the first five weeks in the NFL right here on GND. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] >> As is the case with our local football team's defense early this season before Sunday, there's times in life where we see our loved ones struggle, especially as they get older is the exclusive sponsor of our show, the law firm, Canori and Merad will guide you through the process of managing health care, financial power of attorney, securing guardianship as well for a family member. Schedule a free consultation with their elder law and estate planning attorneys today. Visit kmloyers.com. Be sure to tell them that we sent you a GND and they will take care of you, kmloyers.com. They're gonna give you a discount if they know that we sent you their way. Let's go to the bet QL guest hotline. Welcome on to Grant and Danny right now ESPN's terrific NFL analyst, Lewis Riddick. Lewis, thanks so much for a few minutes in DC. We're the commanders of the talk of the town. How are you? >> I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? >> Pretty darn good. It's fun to have a four in one football team or local. We're not really sure what to do with our hands, Lewis, but what have you seen so far that you say, you know what? This isn't just something new. This is sustainable. This team is good. >> Yeah, I think, you know, obviously a lot of that optimism and the shift from hope to expectation centers around Jaden and his development clearly. I think there's no question that what he is doing as far as his development, his mastery of the offense. I shouldn't say mastery, his continuing mastery of the offense, his leadership, his efficiency is something that's definitely sustainable because that's who he's always been. As far as someone who was willing to put in the work on the field and off the field, ingratiate himself, the teammates, immerse himself in the playbook, and then he's just freakishly skilled. So yeah, that's definitely sustainable. As they continue to build out this roster and continue to make sure that protecting him is sustainable, having him have weapons is sustainable, continuing to build out the defensive side of the ball so they can give him more crack that it is sustainable. And actually, and keeping the infrastructure around him in terms of the coaching staff and the support staff that allows him to go out and execute, you know, making sure that stays as stable as possible, that's also something that's, you know, by and large up to the people who are in charge in Washington. So it's all sustainable. It's all something that can be built upon from here. And I'm sure that everyone who's in a position to affect that understands just how much it's not luck. They didn't hit the jackpot, you know, out of luck. Everyone knew all along that Chicago was going to take Caleb. It did the absolute right thing and drafting Jaden and now, you know, it's off to the races with him. So yeah, it's, but I think the shift is on or rather maybe it's already taking place. Like I said, when you're moving from, well, I hope we're pretty decent to now. I expect us to be pretty damn good. I expect us to put up points. I expect this young man to play well. I think that's well underway now. And that is a pretty good feeling. Louis Redick on G and D. I mean, he's clearly the son in this solar system. There's no doubt about that. But what about some of the other main characters in this story right now? I mean, you've been on the front office side at the, you know, highest levels and interviewing for GM jobs. Adam Peters getting his first crack seems like he hit a home run in his first free agency class. Dan Quinn getting a second opportunity so far. So good for him. And they're just, it just seems like they're so ahead of schedule. Like they're press conferences. We're using words like rebuild and patience and time. And right now we're one of the best teams in the league, five games in. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, it's part of the job when you're head coach and your general manager is managing expectations, both internally and externally. And I think that's because you don't, you want to be realistic, you know, as best you can based upon what you think the forecast of the future looks like. And it's always cool and always a lot of fun when maybe you shot a little low and then you wind up exceeding those expectations. And it's not because, again, it's not because it's luck. But because guys maybe developed faster chemistry, developed better, you know, within the coaching staff, chemistry developed better, most importantly, on the football field. And, you know, then the conversation changes from, well, this is just a full scale. We build everyone temporary expectations. Everyone calm down with, you know, we may be lucky to be a nine and eight, eight, nine type team. And then we'll hit it big on our second year. Everybody says that. Everybody tries to keep things, you know, on the down low, so to speak. But there's no, there's no doubt that, well, again, has learned a lot from his first then as a head coach in Atlanta. And then how he took some time. Really, I mean, we talked about, we talked to him about this when in some production meetings, when he was the DC in Dallas, about all the work that he had put in during the time off that he had between leaving Atlanta, become the DC in Dallas, and how he really like took himself apart metaphorically and put himself back together, analyze every part of his of his operation, both as a person and as a head coach. And he thought he would be better for it once he got his next job. Clearly, that paid off. Adam Peters has been someone who's been around some of the best in the business as far as the whole entire scouting process, the valuation process, the selection and development process. That's clearly paying off. And then, you know, then, of course, there's always that relationship part of it, which you never know how to help that's going to go. You think it's going to go good. You think it's going to be something where everyone's going to act like a professional and everyone's going to be, you know, good all out of themselves into the team type of mantra, but you don't know. And you know what, I'll tell you what, see, even now that success has started to rear its head, so to speak, now you find out even a little bit more about what you've built there, because it's always at the extremes where you find out or where you have some surprises and you find out just how strong your operation is. When stuff is going bad, that's when, you know, people fracture and start pointing fingers. When stuff is going good and things start to build, that's when everybody starts wanting more and more credit and wants to say, you know, hey, look, I did this. I know what's happened there. It's clearly been a collective effort. And they need to make sure everyone understands that and that they just keep pushing the way they've been pushing because, as you all know, as I know, I think as anyone who has studied NFL football knows, there isn't much better than winning in Washington, D.C. There isn't much better. It's been a long time. So I think they will do a good job of safeguarding that at all costs. And I'm just hoping that, you know, they continue to build and they continue to knock everything out of the park from A to Z, not just with Jaden, but with from A to Z because what that town deserves it, that fan base deserves it. They suffered a long, long time. And now they've kind of got their prints of the city, like in place, man. And it's, like I said, for me, from the outside looking in, that's pretty damn cool, man. It really is. ESPN's Lewis Riddick with this here is on the call this weekend for Florida at Tennessee on ESPN Saturday night. Lewis is a, as a guy, you know, watch so much football and as an evaluator, Jane Daniels has taken a leak by storm and it's been incredible here to watch as an evaluator, though, putting your objective glasses on. What does he not do well yet? Like, what, what if there's a weakness or something that is relatively not as strong? What are you seeing there? Maybe areas for improvement? To be honest with you, look, I mean, I think those things internally, you'd have to be there internally, uh, on the grind with him day to day to really say, Hey, you know what? I think you need to really work on this right now because from an external standpoint and from what I know from going down the baton Rouge and talking to the people down there and watching all this tape and look, there, there's always look, the guy's breaking records right now in terms of quarterback efficiency through the first quarter of the season doing things that no one's ever done. It's hard to pick out some things and go, well, damn, well, you're not doing that really good right now. I think his command at the line of scrimmage from what I can tell is second to none relative to where he's at in his career. I think his field vision, his decision making, accuracy, short intermediate deep. No, who throws a better deep ball than him in the NFL right now? I mean, really, who throws a better deep ball? Who throws better ball under pressure than him right now? I think he's clearly learned how to protect himself as a runner to where it doesn't look like, oh, missed 2023 where I thought, man, they're going to break him in half before the end of this game if he's not careful. So I think there's always going to be room for, can he operate even faster? Can he recognize things even quicker? Can he be more consistent with feet, hip rotation, arm placement, ball placement, changing speeds, you know, as far as how much he puts on it, how much he throws with cuts? Of course, there's always going to be all those things. And some of that isn't going to be, you know, recognizable to the naked eye. It's all going to be things that, unless you were with him every day, you won't know if he's doing a great or if he's not. But look, I have nothing bad to say about the guy. I was all in on him from the, from the time I started studying him. And I think right now, they just need to keep internally, you know, working in silence, keeping him on the straight and narrow, continue to work his crabs. They'll clip this needs to keep him on the path that he's on right now, man, because he's doing historic stuff already. He's making throws right now that there isn't a quarterback, not a single quarterback in the league who's who's throwing a prettier ball than him. And he's doing it under some, he makes some tough, tough contested throws where he's getting the absolute crap knocked out of him in the pocket. And he doesn't flinch. I'm not going to even try to pick out a bunch of things that he isn't doing well, because the things that he is doing well right now, just ride them, man, and hope that the coaching staff continues him on the path that he's on right now, which I'm sure they will. They know it just like you guys know it and every fan in Washington knows it. Yeah, pretty obvious. It doesn't take a scout, you know, when you run on the games or, or turn on the tape to see what he's doing. You mentioned the coaching staff. Cliff Kingsbury's been incredible. And I didn't see this coming. And I was not a huge fan of the hire and hindsight looking back now, it seems like a marriage made in heaven. We have also seen though, Lewis, and you know this better than we do. Kingsbury's offenses have gotten off to these amazing first half starts in Arizona and cooled off now. He didn't have Jaden Daniels at the controls in the past. But I guess I'm just curious for your thoughts on what he's been doing, because when they're getting receivers wide open, they are running. A lot of this is Daniels related in the run game with read option and whatnot. But I mean Kingsbury is completely reinventing his name in football right now. Yeah, me sure is. And look, I think just like we mentioned with Coach Quinn, you think you think Cliff hasn't kind of looked internally inside of himself and kind of deconstructed himself and put himself back together in terms of like what, how do I need to be better in terms of my preparation, my scheming, my strategizing, my execution on game day, my relationship with Jaden, you think you didn't learn a lot from what, you know, his relationship was like with Kyler, what worked, what didn't work. But it's not like he doesn't have enough in his bag, so to speak, as to how to attack NFL defenses, how to make sure that his quarterback has answers for whatever is being thrown at him, whether it be zone coverage, man coverage, five man pressure, six man pressures, simulated pressures, you think he hasn't, he has all that in his toolkit. And clearly his teaching methodology is one that's resonating with Jaden, and it's something that they've struck a court. Now, teams are going to find ways to push on those sore spots that make Jaden uncomfortable, that, you know, kind of like expose some of the things that maybe he's just not quite as good at as time goes on. That's what always happens as you gather more intel. Then it'll be on on Cliff to kind of readjust again, but the thing about, about coaches, just like players, is that not every player is ideal for you. It's not always going to be, and it doesn't necessarily mean that, well, now the diet has been cast, you know, you've already kind of like created your mold, you are who you are, you can't reinvent yourself, you can't get better. We've seen that that is a big, big mistake that fans, media personalities, shout GM's owners make is to think that people can't learn and adapt and improve. Same thing holds true for a Cliff Kingsbury. There's a lot of people who thought, well, this hiring is going to turn out to be worth a damn. Look at what he did in Arizona. Look at what he didn't do in Arizona. Look how it turned out between him and Kyle. We've got to be real careful to do those kind of things, man, when we're assessing people in general, and then we're, for short, when we're assessing people in such a team, such export as football. You can, you can wind up making yourself look like and sound like a fool when you do that, because we know how, how things are on such a razor's edge in football and how one place could be crapped for you and the next place could be heaven. Just look at what's happening with Sam Donald right now in, in Minnesota. When he left the jet and he's talking about him seeing ghosts out there, you know, when Adam Gates was coming to him, everyone's thinking, this guy's a colossal bust. He'll never be worth a damn. He'll never get another shot. He may be coming back clearly a year now. He may lead that team to the number one seed in the NFC for all we know, you know. So you got to be careful with that. And I think with Cliff, hey, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Just like we give him, you know, people gave Dan Quinn the benefit of the doubt. He learned from his first go around and now he's got that place humming. So with Cliff, man, you know, more power to him. I'm hoping he's able to keep it going because he's in a great situation right now. It's cool. Like he can go back to his roots of, let me coordinate and coach the quarterback. The thing that I probably know how to do best. And at the same time, what a great resource for him it is to have Dan Quinn there too. And say, hey, you know what, you could best believe in some of their private time where they're kind of just one on one. You think he's not picking Dan's brain about what happened to him in Atlanta and then how things benefited him when he went to Dallas and now that he's a head coach again, of course he is. So yeah, I'm sure you're no different than many other people who were like, who were very skeptical of it. But man, it's true. He's looking pretty good right now and hats off the cliff for doing so. Well, it's got to grab you here about the news of the day. I was pretty stunned. I don't know how you felt about it, but Robert Solly getting relieved of his duties there in New York sort of, you know, ripping the bandaid. What was your reaction to it? What are your thoughts? Yeah, like it's the head coach. The head coach bears the brunt of the blame when things aren't going well, just like he gets the credit most times when things are going right. And when you have a situation there where it just seemed like things were a little off, and things were getting a little sideways, you know, the communications between Steve and I'm taking a trip over to Europe, even though it's mandatory. Many camp, I had just planned already. They knew I had a plan. Like, it just seems like things were a little disjointed there to where if things started getting sideways, it was probably going to fall back on the head coach a lot, hell of a lot more than it was on the franchise quarterback first ballot hall, a favorite four time MVP guy who's pretty much pulling the damn strings up there. So we've seen this before. We've seen this kind of thing before where a franchise quarterback has a hell of a lot more power and influence over ownership and what direction a franchise takes than even the head coach, especially a quote unquote defensive head coach who was under fire coming into the season anyway about making sure you maximize the potential of a football team that everyone said all they needed was to get rid of Zach Wilton and get a quarterback and we're rolling. We're the number one seed in the NFC. We have a shutdown defense blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. They weren't going to get rid of Aaron Rodgers. They could have gotten rid of Nathaniel Hackett I guess, but they weren't going to get rid of him either as the OC because that Aaron's guy. So none of that shocked me. That's how things go. That's how things go in the NFL. Someone's always going to fall on the sword. It's more times than not going to be the head coach, although you could have made a case for it being any number of other things that are going wrong up there. And I think as the season plays itself out, Jeff Olbrick, the new head coach, isn't going to all of a sudden fix them. If they turn crap around up there, it ain't going to be because Jeff Olbrick just figured out how to get this running game going and how to get this offensive line being better than bottom quarter in the NFL and run block and pass block win rate. That ain't going to be because of anything Jeff Olbrick said, nothing at all. They're not going to protect the passer better because something Jeff Olbrick comes up with, nothing at all. The Jets have a lot of other stuff going on other than Robert Sallen not being the guy who can quote unquote provide a spark as which is one of the most annoying damn things I hear people tell it, but he's going to give them a spark. No, he's not. He's not going to give them a spark. The team in the, you know, the guys in the locker room will give them a spark by playing better, by protecting better, by Aaron making better passes. That's what they'll do. That's what will change it around. So nothing, nothing in the league shocked me about this. Look, I like Robert, know him, you know, have, have talked to him in a professional manner many different times. This is at the NFL, dude. It's not for long. As you all know, if you aren't winning at two and three last year through five games with 93 points scored. When Zach Wilson was their quarterback, two and three this year through five games with 93 points scored. And they've been the number one defensive team in the league since the day they hired Salah. There you go. EPA per play. Hey, Lewis, we could keep chatting, but we know you're busy. We'll listen to you on the call and watch it this weekend. Florida number eight, Tennessee. You'll see a stud quarterback in that game ESPN on Saturday night. Thank you for the time. We appreciate it. Of course, but you got it. Thank you. There's Lewis Riddick of ESPN on Grant and Danny here on the fan. Let's get our first feel on Commander's Ravens, as we're closing in on Sunday next on GND. Grant and Danny. Welcome in you back on the fan. Thanks much for making the show part of your day. We're taking you up to six 30 in and around the DMV on one oh six seven the fan. Of course, we're in Richmond AM nine 10 FM one oh five one until six today. You could take the show with you wherever you go on the Odyssey app and we are streaming live on our one oh six seven the fan YouTube page as well in high definition. I cleaned up the beard this weekend so that I could go over to the game. So I don't know if we're still in a good place with the the neck beard. Yeah, I did my Sunday morning. So now I got that, you know, that like the gruff are you the itchy phase? Are you out of that? No, it's right now. Yeah, hide of it. It's the worst. Yeah. There's not much good about it because you know every itch you do is another itch that's coming. I don't know if that's proven. I don't know if that's science, but I feel like if I scratch, I've now opened up the worm canister for more scratching. I heard something that I wanted to pass along to commanders fans because I think this is going to be music to their ears. I know it was certainly very exciting when I heard this. So I don't want to say which player this was over the last few weeks, but there was a player that got banged up in game and left the game with an injury and that player went back to the locker room at some point during the proceedings to be checked on that players dad got a text from general manager Adam Peters from what I was told the GM Adam Peters, not an assistant, not some random person on the training staff, literally Adam Peters fired off a text to this players father to say, Hey, I just want you to know your son's okay. Here's an update on his status. Here's what's going on in the training room right now. Here are some of the things we're doing and thinking are going to help him in the next couple of hours. Here's what it looks like kind of moving forward with this injury that he has suffered. And again, without getting into the specifics of the player or the injury, what I was told was that this is a guy who's been in some other places and that they were blown away by this, almost like a high school football players dad in the stands hearing from someone on the staff like little Jimmy's okay, right? But it spoke to me to what I have heard constantly since Peter showed up and certainly in this Peter's Quinn regime, which is that the way these guys treat players, their families, which is so important. One of the secret sauce under talked about things in professional sports Danny is how do you treat my family? My wife, my kids, my parents that my VIPs, right? But think about that for the GM of the team in the middle of the game to not only get the information, which is not abnormal, but then text the family member and say, Hey, your boy's all right. And here's what's going on. The player was basically just giddy with the treatment. The dad was floored. The family was kind of taken aback. And it just tells me they get it in so many ways. You think about those NFL PA. Hard not to think of those surveys rankings and surveys that get done. And I guess my point here long-winded Lee is this is going to be a place that people want to come, not just because maybe you've got the answer at quarterback in Daniels, who's the cool guy that everybody wants to talk about in the media and players are all going to want to play with. But if the word gets out that they treat their players really, really well, which has been one of the biggest developments and stories behind the scenes for me since this regime took over, I think you're going to see them soar up a lot of these NFL PA type conversations. This was Austin Echler on our show, by the way. He too had an injury. He had a concussion in the Cincinnati game. And I even asked him at that time, semi relatedly, your family was there. What's that like? Listen to what he said, unprompted about a similar situation. Yeah. So this is one thing I really appreciate about Washington out here. They do such a good job with just family and everything like that. So they were the ones contacting Dylan, our player director out here contacting my family, my mom, my wife, letting them know he's alert, hey, what's going on? Just keeping them up to date. And so really, really just great family oriented organization over here. And so they definitely did their job there and keeping my family up to date. For so long, they treated people poorly. Outside of the building and inside the building. They majored in it. Those days are over. Now, some people will roll their eyes and go, well, it doesn't make up, you know, third and seven stop or it doesn't complete a pass. And of course not. But it is an overhaul. It is a departure from the way that it used to be. Right? That's the, the, the, the adage that I've kind of gone to, especially when it comes to a league as competitive as this one, is either everything matters or it doesn't. In other words, this is not sexy. This is not advertising. This is not a billboard to get you to buy a sponsorship or sell more club level tickets or, you know, the partnership was stub hub to, to make sure that Philly fans have a place to sit. This is an internal thing. We're dealing with people really, really well, building bridges instead of burning them matters. It just does. You want to be a first class organization, then you have to behave like one all the time, even we're not going to get credit for it. There are probably another 100 of those instances where somebody did something that we will never hear about that you'll never see that nobody will ever know. And there was a choice, a small one. I could inconvenience a player slightly or I could do this unsung, boring, mundane, probably pain in the butt thing. And you start choosing the second one more and more and more and more. And all of a sudden you're a good place. Yeah. It takes a, it takes a lot to dig out from what was. I just think that I'll go back to how you treat people matters, but the type of people that run your building matter. And I don't just mean in football, although certainly in football too, at a subway or at a Chick-fil-A or at a radio station. It doesn't really matter. If you treat the people under you well, they'll treat the people under them well, right? What do they say about character? Character is how you treat someone who could do nothing for you, right? Isn't that what they say? I mean, I just think they're in a different place altogether in terms of the quality of human being or maybe just the understanding from the very top down. The difference between Dan Snyder and Mitch rails is night and day. And I don't know Harris or rails all that well. I have met both in passing. I've spent a couple of more minutes around Mitch rails. He's been in the press box a time or two, kind of walking through shaking hands. But they're just the whole tone of the entire business changes when the person at the top is somebody with decency and humility. And I think you see this, right? Adam Peters, going back to him, I told this story quickly in training camp. But while we're discussing just the way they're running things, there was a listener to the show that I bumped into in the parking lot as I was getting in my car leaving training camp. And they had a bunch of stuff that's helmet and some stuff signed. And they told me this story, well, there's son at this football, he got in a few signatures at training camp, and he put the ball down and somebody grabbed it, I guess. And so the son, little kid, you know, was crying and sad and like beside himself. And one of the security people at the training camp site saw this and asked what was going on, filled him in. He says, hang on, he comes back. He brings the kid over to meet Adam Peters, who's outside the building. And he goes and gets Terry McLaurin. And they sign some things and just spend a couple minutes with the kid. I'm not saying that that never happened with previous coaches or executives or whatever. But I just think they care about the little things. And enough of those little things added up, eventually the big things take care of themselves. Well, you and I both love great American restaurants, right? For a million reasons, mainly their Aussie roles and hospitality. The hospitality parts where I wanted to go with obviously the Aussie role. Yeah, obviously, the Aussie roles is going to get are going to get people in the door. Really good food. It's consistent. It works every time. Here's how would you describe Aussie roles if you only had a sentence? Like someone says, I've never had an Aussie role. What's an Aussie role, Danny? Bread service and a donut rented a CD motel. Aussie roles are their children. Okay. What the reason I bring it up is you've been everywhere. And this is just thing wrong with other restaurants. Okay. I love plenty of places. But if you go to a normal restaurant, to a lot of places, like you see your server, when you see your server, can I have another lemonade, another iced tea or whatever? When you're at a great American restaurant, anytime anybody walks by, whether they're it's they've got your table or not, my iced tea gets filled. My, can I take this for you? Gets done. Even if it's not your specific server. And the point is it's a maybe there's some their business philosophy to it to turn tables over quickly or who knows why I know this. It's just nice. It's nice. Don't have to be like, Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. When you have a second, can I get another iced tea from like across the room or whatever? It just gets done. It's nothing is beneath anybody. I've seen managers to get down on all fours and pick up the napkin that's, you know, that fell off the table and is kind of stuffed in the way back corner or grab the broom and sweep up. Nothing is beneath anybody. And that's the point is there's a culture element to it. The GM going, Hey, as a human being, I can imagine dad in the stands or dad watching on television with no update because they don't do side the underports anymore. It's basically, I talked to this guy earlier and he said that they're going to try to win back to you guys instead of this is what the injury update is. So nobody gives any information anymore. So I'm going to give it to the guy. I love that. He's Danny. I'm Grant. You're listening to the fan. There is a quarterback change taking place in the NFL could be an exciting day for an AFC team as they debut their young quarterback. We'll get into that next on the fan plus our double play. What's going on in our lives. Nothing to do with sports at the top of the hour at four o'clock. We've got caps tickets and 20 minutes from now at four. John Carlson joins the show. [BLANK_AUDIO] Grant and Danny on the fan. Top of the hour. 15 minutes out. John Carlson of the capitals. A long time pal of this year radio program going to be good to reunite with number 74 again. Been a minute before we could say, shoot your Carly. We do have caps tickets today, by the way. We're giving those out right at the top of the hour and 15 minutes. They're playing the Dallas stars on the 17th of the month. That is next Thursday night. We got your tickets right here on the fan, so you better be listening before we get to our double play. The New England Patriots are turning things over to Drake May. Congrats, buddy. He will make his long anticipated national football league debut. I should say his first start because he did come in and garbage time when they were getting blown out by the Jets. I think he threw eight passes and a nothing burger of a second half, but the 22 year old quarterback will make his first ever start for the Patriots. Excited to see what he looks like. That is a terrible team, Danny. That is a battle fence. That is a terrible offensive line. They're playing the Houston Texans. So go get them, Drake. Good luck, buddy. Nothing to see here. I kind of thought they would, you know, I would have played them earlier, but I thought at this point they'd maybe wait a week, but they're tired of waiting, I suppose. And even though Houston gets after the quarterback and they do some really good things defensively, they are throwing him to the wolves this weekend and seeing how he if he sinks or swim. Yeah, there's a great landing spot when you're terrible. You know what I mean? Like, other terrible teams are also we're going to give you fits, but the Texans are the fourth ranked defense in the NFL and they're number three against the past. But the Texans are good. They're the best team, certainly on the Patriots schedule, I would say. The rest of the way, unless you are a believer in the bills. There's six that getting sacks and the Patriots are one of the worst teams in the league in avoiding some of that ranking proves after this weekend, but then it's Jacksonville, Jets, Titans, Bears. Yeah, there's no good landing spot. So, you know, now it's kind of the time. I mean, the thing I always say, when it comes to sports and winning, losing, et cetera, regardless of what phase you're in, there's got to be a point to whatever you're doing. There's got to be an end game to it and playing bersett for a long time for a little bit. I got it, you know, as the kid gets ready, but playing him for eight, nine, 10, 11 weeks is a worthless, empty calories, make us feel a little bit better about ourselves, dive exercise. Now there's a point to it, right? And you waited, what was it now, week six, you waited six, seven, and really if you include preseason stuff, you waited a few months to kind of pull this lever to sort of reinvigorate, get some excitement going, get some juice going, and take kind of the attention off of how bad everything is. It's, yeah, it's bad, but we got a reason to be excited in its remake. If you're a Patriots fan to that point, why am I watching anymore? This is not worth my time. The Jacobi bersett led 10 point performances of offense every week are not worth me spending money to go to the stadium and not worth me not doing activities on a Sunday to get out of being in trouble with my wife, right? Give me a reason. And now you've got a reason, albeit, you know, gonna be a tough challenge this coming week, but good to see that. So now we got the four rookie quarterbacks. Well, Nick's is playing a lot better. A couple straight wins for the Broncos or two of their last three, I guess, and Nick's looked very, very good this past weekend. Caleb Williams by far had his best game. Yep. And it seems like Jayden Daniels has done okay. He's been fine from what I can gather. He's been fine here in the nation's capitol. It is time for your double play driven by your local Washington area, Honda dealer stopping for a great deal on the rugged and capable Honda pilot contact your local Washington area, Honda dealers today. Little bit of good news here, GP. They believe authorities believe that the Georgetown cuddler was finally caught and arrested. Now, let me just editorialize for a moment. That name belies how horrible a person this dude is. I'm gonna say that sounds like precious and adorable. Yeah, the other Georgetown cuddler. What he was doing, again, I'm not saying the person's name. It's all alleged. I don't know what the rules are. I'm just saying this, but the authorities believe that they got him. The guy. Is it weird that I have no idea about this? It is a little bit weird, but I'll happen to tell you all about it. Because again, this is kind of jarring. In Georgetown, Berleith, as far away, maybe his college park, Glover Park, where I used to live, this person, whoever was doing this, and it was like long over years and years and years, this person was doing this a lot. This all we know of what was reported. Who knows what wasn't reported? This crate, this scumbag, was preying on young women. He would basically follow them, observe for a long time, peeping time type stuff, break into homes, and number of times over and over and over again, women would wake up with this dude in their bed and they'd make some noise, scream, fight them off, whatever he'd run away. It happened so many times over the years. Wow. I don't know how I haven't heard of this. How long has this been going on? Since 2008, give or take? Oh my God. So over years and years and years. So first Netflix documentary next week, please. Thank you. That's number one. Number two, would he escalate? Like, was there a salt or was it just there? He wanted to touch them and lay in their bed, which is still, by the way, the worst thing that's ever happened. It's still beyond horrible. Again, curious. Is that like his Super Bowl was the snuggling? Their authorities believe that there are far more. I mean, again, it's all serious, right? So it's all way above the bar of seriousness. Okay. You could stop at he broke into my house and I woke up with a stranger laying next to me. That's good to put him away forever. So there's, you know, it goes up from there and it's all very bad, but he's, this verse is now accused of a few, at least, different incidents where it's as bad as it can be. I have watched enough of those true crime dogs to know that I don't pretend to be like an expert on this, but generally what happens is these creeps get to a point where that's not enough anymore. So like it, I'm getting chills, like thinking about how weird this guy is, by the way, but it starts where you're just looking through the window at someone. Then you go, I need to sit in the house. Then you go, I need to lay in the bed. Then you go, I need to cuddle them until they wake up and scream. And then there's another thing after that, we don't need to get any further along. But my point is generally you just keep pushing the ball down the field little by little because you're a weirdo. Cause this was, so this was happening and it wouldn't be like every week, right? It was just infrequent enough where the report gets filed. Everybody looks, nobody can find anyone. We can't figure it out. There's no connection between an individual victim. There's no like pattern, really, it was hard. It was hard to figure out and find this person. It took years and years and years until finally, enough DNA, the right investigation, the right techniques, the right things finally happened where a search warrant was executed. They forced this person to provide some sample of DNA. It matches. So they believe they got the guy. So they did not catch him in the act. No, they basically went knocked on his door and were like, Hey buddy, here we go. We're headed on down. Come on down town with us real quick, but fantastic news. Again, I you're saying 2008, 2008, and how all I guess, I'm sure it's different, but it might have been longer by the way, but that was the first reported super serious crime, I believe, was no way. What was the MO in terms of distance between, you know, time between events? There wasn't. Would he go like years for, for reports? Yeah. You know what I mean? So you don't know someone else could say, I kind of felt like someone was in my house or totally, that might have been a dream or whatever. 100% a lot of times, again, these young women would come home intoxicated or again, it doesn't mean anything other than their victims, but just how it happened. So sometimes it wasn't reported. I mean, who knows how long it's been going on. Sometimes it was like multiple on a weekend. Sometimes, you know, you'd see these sporadic reports and there was never a great rhyme or reason to it, but it took forever. And hopefully, knock on wood, it all goes according to plan that this son of a bitch is done with terrorizing people and in a pretty, you know, quiet, really nice part of DC. That's amazing. I do want to documentary done on Netflix, if we could get that done sometime by the end of the day, please. I don't know how long those take, but I'll give you about six hours to have it on my desk. Is that enough time? There's got to be some pound footage in there, you know, of the investigation and like, yeah. So this is something when you were like, college age or a little older that you were cognizant of. So it was definitely post college, obviously, because you know, the first hearings about it were sort of late aughts, I guess you'd call that. Like, I can't remember the exact year where this whatever phenomenon kind of started. But again, the nickname, it's a terrible nickname, because it sounds like, Oh, it's like Molly innocent, like what a weird little inconvenience. It's horrifying what this bastard was doing. So glad I got caught with you on the fan. More trivially big NFL news today, Robert, solid fired by the Jets in the AFC East. Aaron Rodgers is taking over as player coach. I'm kidding. Jeff Ulbrich is going to be the interim head coach, their defensive coordinator after Rodgers fired Sala. I'm kidding the Jets fired Sala and Drake May speaking of that division will make his first ever start. It sounds like for the Patriots this weekend, they take on the Houston Texans top six or top five ranked defense should be a tough test for the kid out of North Carolina. Also, we got tickets to the capitals. We'll give those way right at the top of the hour at four. John Carlson's joining us on our Beltway Blitz, right at four. And we've got our buddy Austin Eckler on the show today at five right here on the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] The Beltway Blitz coming up in just a moment on the NFL, the commanders and your capitals. VA conversation with defenseman John Carlson. We're excited about as promised right now, caller 10 at 800-636-1067. Congrats, you're winning a pair of tickets to see the caps next Thursday night against the Dallas Stars, the game's Thursday, October 17th, Capital One Arena. For tickets in the complete cap schedule, go to thefandc.com/events. They get started on Saturday night this weekend. Speaking of which, let's go blitzing. To talk about the Capitol's 16th year defenseman, John Carlson helps us kick off the Beltway Blitz. John, plenty of new faces, the first spending spree of an off season in years. Is there exciting times as you guys get ready to celebrate 50 years on Thursday night and begin the year on Saturday evening at Capital One Arena? Yeah, definitely a different type of year, you know, coming into this season than I've been accustomed to. I think I've, you know, ever since I've been here, we've kind of been a status quo team, maybe adding a guy or two here or there. But, you know, this is definitely the biggest turn, change over, turn around, whatever you want to call it. And yeah, I'm just real excited. I think we created a good foundation last year and I hope with these new additions that I really feel like we're going to make a huge difference in our success on the ice play like they can. I think we're going to be a good team this year. What do you think is going to be the biggest difference this coming year, John, versus maybe the last couple of years? I think we're, you know, we're just a little, I don't want to say inexperienced, but a little younger guys just kind of trying to find their footing, trying to find more enhanced roles. And I think guys did well with those roles, but obviously it's tough in this league to just come in as a young guy and all of a sudden be a first line center or second line center or a 30, 40 goal score. So I think now we got a little bit more of an infusion of like middle middle of the, you know, age gap kind of guys that have been been through it a little bit have had great years, has had, you know, years of success and kind of blending those with our young guys that are due for, you know, a big step forward as well. So I think that's kind of, and also, I think just starting out this way, I think the year last year kind of progressed in different ways than anyone kind of anticipated per se. And so this year is more, I would say normal from, you know, start to finish, hopefully. John, I won't make you go through all of the new faces. Frankly, we don't have enough time and give us thoughts, but you know, offensively, manji, apani and Pierre Luke Dubois, and adding a guy like Taylor Radish on the back end, Brandon Duhaim in the fourth line. That's exciting. But defensively, the guys you're going to be skating with at different points. Presumably Jacob Chikrin, a good bit of the time, Matt Roy and Martin Farivari, another line. What do you make of the two veteran defensemen that have come in here? I'm really excited about the group that's been built on the blue line. Oh, yeah. I think I think Chikrin is going to be a great addition. I think he's got some real flash to his game, some speed, some nifty hands, and he'll make a lot of great plays this year. And Matt Roy is just like, you know, you're the guy that you just wish you could be. Like he's just a great player all around. He can do everything really great. And one of those guys, like maybe you're not going to, you know, be on the highlight reel every single night. But when you when you're in the arena watching him, you're like, he hasn't made a bad play in 10 games, the exact that type of player and quality guys as well them too. And I think they're going to add to it. I think, you know, and then like the guys who set up front, I think you're going to see a different game, a different style of play. I think we got a lot more Swiss army knife this year that can kind of mold into different lines and different combinations that that'll score us a lot more goals, hopefully. John Carlson with the Sierra on GND. How about Jacob Rana coming back and making the team cool story, huh? Yeah, yeah, no, it's a crazy story. I'm proud of him. I know, you know, after the contract, talk to him and talk to him today. It's great to see you. You always root for a guy like that that you have so much connection to and feel like, you know, obviously I know very well. But you're just rooting for those kind of guys that get it back on the rails and are clearly still as talented as when they left and, you know, hungry to to prove people wrong. And I think that's where he is. He's a great kid. He brings, he brings a smile to the rink every single day. And I just love seeing him there. John Carlson of the capitals with us on Grant and Danny, they're getting ready to open their season Saturday night at Capitol One Arena. More urgently though, this week on Thursday, we're actually going to be out at Capitol One Arena for a really neat event that the team has put together. They're celebrating 50 years of caps hockey in the nation's capital. It's caps 50 fest. It starts on Thursday at 5 p.m. A lot of players past and president are going to be participating. There's events going on on stage and activations in the concourse. There's a third eye blind concert. It's going to be amazing. What do you make of the party that they capture throwing here in a couple of days? I think it's fantastic. I think that, you know, looking back on my career and how long I've been here and how long the team has been, it's pretty cool. And this event seems like the first class all the way around. I think it's, it'll be exciting. I think as fans, the, you know, the type of conversations that will happen, the interviews and whatnot will be fantastic. Hopefully some good jokes, some good stories from players past and present. And just, you know, seeing the Stanley Cup again, having a great concert and having a lot of, you know, kids' activities for the younger ones too. I think it'll be all the way around a fantastic event. You're good to ask about this because I'm doing some rough back in the napkin math here. Just under a third of all cap seasons included John Carlson, right? If you go to 15, this will be your 16th year. So you've seen a lot of change in a lot of different things. Just reflect on, you know, where this organization was when you first got here, where it is now, you can, you know, weave in something about Ovechkin trying to break the unbreakable record here with Gretzky. It's just kind of cool that this is a nice milestone moment and it's fun to look back. I definitely think it is. And then I kind of go back to like, maybe I was a young buck at the time. A few years then, everyone was like, "Oh my God, the caps are coming out with all this different, you know, stuff, you know, with 74 on its sweatshirts and it weren't just jerseys and stuff." I was like, no, the team was, you know, founded in 1974. That has nothing to do with me. But yeah, it's 50 years a long time. I think since I've been here, obviously, the ownership has been rock solid and committed to winning. And that's why you've seen such a great product on the ice. And the players that they've picked over the years, obviously, from management have been spectacular and brought a Stanley Cup to DC, which was fantastic. And yeah, I think just, it starts at the top and kind of trickles down. And we've had a lot of camaraderie, a lot of continuity over the years within the organization. And you see that with, like, events like this and who the guys that are coming back and how much it means to them, to be a part of something like this, to celebrate the organization and specifically Ovi, how much she's meant to, you know, not just the organization, but the greater DC area and how, you know, he made non hockey fans, you know, crazy for hockey and kids that just love the game now and are playing it at record highs. I think it's all the way around a fantastic time to celebrate 50 years of hockey in DC. Speaking of Ovi, he needs 42 goals, Carly. Are you going to get it this year? I always, I always try to pick a different number every time I get at this question. I usually try to go with like, you know, kind of one before, you know, maybe 41, 42, tie it up. I'm going to go with 43, I think. If anything I've learned from this guy to never count them out and certainly he's going to need a good start to get there. But I'm just like everyone else rooting for that to happen this year. John Carlson with us on G and D, you're also talking about your work in the community. What's so with the league that you started? I believe you got some youngsters playing hockey before they even get out on the ice now. Yeah, so it's John Carlson Street hockey league. It's just the, you know, right now it's just in DC, but we're going to be looking to move it into different places for kids that either have the hockey bug or learning hockey. I think it's a great way, like I did, living in New Jersey when there's not that many ranks available at any time and how close they are to people that just start outside. And I think it's a fantastic exercise. I think kids love it. My kids do it. It's fantastic for, you know, just grabbing a few buddies and making your own team kind of intermurely in terms of the commitment level, which in a world of crazy sports for young kids, it's nice to have something that's kind of freewheeling and fun for them. And I'm just excited to have another thing in the community to deal with the kids and have some fun and hopefully make some more hockey fans. John, I got to sneak one in here. Over your 16 years, it hadn't happened real often where the football team is any good. And they're off to a kind of a roaring start, which is really unusual for us. We kind of don't know what to do with our hands. What do you make of it? Well, yeah, it's, it's kind of ironic. I'm a, you guys know, I'm a patriot fan. So I've been through our whole relationship been really high on my team. And rooting for obviously, I've always rooted for the football team in Washington as well. So, yeah, it's fantastic start to the season. I think it looks like the division is not as strong, maybe as anticipated too. And what's not to love about the commanders right now. Yeah, it's good vibes. Good times in town as you guys start your season Saturday night at home against the doubles. John, we appreciate you, man. Thanks so much. It's great having you back on the show and looking forward to another fun and entertaining season of caps hockey. Thank you guys. It's nice to be back with you. Mike Jones of the athletic joins us right now on Grant and Danny to talk about the NFL Jones, and we got to start with Robert Salah fired today by the Jets. How much of a factor was Aaron Rodgers in the decision? Oh, probably like 99.975. You know, there was clearly not a good relationship there. Aaron Rodgers, we've taken little shots here and there. I mean, like when even a couple of weeks ago when he was, you know, challenging solid to hold players accountable, you know, and the way he was prepared and everything. This was because Aaron Rodgers was happy with Robert Salah. And basically the fact that Nathaniel Hackett survived and is still on the staff was completely because Rodgers in control running this organization. Why San Francisco two and three? Well, they've had a lot of injuries. That's, you know, a big thing about it. They have good depth and, you know, some areas, they're better than a lot of teams, even with some of their backups, but they still don't have their full arsenal of guys. And I think things are a little bit out of sync. You can tell Brock Purdy, you know, there are times when he just needs to get rid of the ball. It's almost like he's trying too hard to make something of nothing sometimes. And so I think that hurts him a little bit. I think they're going to wound up rounding into form, but that's the way things are for them right now. Drake May is going to start for the New England Patriots against the Houston Texans on Sunday. Reportedly, they've been waiting to bring the car out of the garage. And it seems like now is the time for New England. What do you make of the decision and the timing with Houston looming? Interesting. I don't know if I would do it this week with Houston, you know, coming up. I don't know that. But Jacoby resets the problem. Yeah, he's got limitations, but they're off of the line and they're good. They have a lot of deficiencies. Maybe they're hoping that the young fella can bring a spark and kind of elevate everybody. You hope that they're not throwing them out there too soon. But supposedly the word out of the New England is that he's picking things up faster. He's going better against the blitz. His footwork is good. But I mean, it's practice. So I imagine that it's going to be a rough time for him going out there for the first time, but I guess they're decided to do it. We're going to live with the growing pains and just continue to help the develop him on job training and be ready for him having most of a season under his ball for next year. I always think about this when we hear about the idea of like red-shirting quarterbacks as when you draft the high, it's almost impossible. I don't think they should have red-shirted him anyway, but he outperformed percent in the pre-season pretty substantially. He was their best quarterback and it wasn't close in August. So really, regardless of practice, like you've already seen that, you're putting the toothpaste back in the tomb tube and then the players know, right? I mean, so it is just hard to me. I don't know that this is the best week to play him. I probably would have done it differently and honestly played him against the dolphins last week, knowing that that was going to be a low scoring game you might be able to steal. But I just, I always think about this when we hear every offseason like, this guy should be sat for a year. Nobody is drafting a guy high and doing that. It's not happening. No, and if you are going to do that, you have to be really creative and tailor down your offense. Don't overload that young guy and position him for success. You don't have to throw the whole kitchen sink out there, but you know, if you are going to go with a young guy, be smart about it. So if that's what they wanted to do, we'll see what the offensive plan is for him and your right players. See it. And as long as he is getting the plays right in the huddle and knows where to go with the ball and can take care of the football, then okay. But like you said, this is a tough first opponent for him. I don't know if the decision-making is quite on point with this move right now at this time. Mike, thank you as always, man. Have a great week. All right, see you guys. We will see you do it. There he goes. Hit that local 53 sounder. Our guy Mitch Tischler joins us to talk about that local Foosball team. Grant, question for you before I ask the question of Mitch, you and me are going to play a game, right? And we go one, two, three, shoot. What's that game called? That's rock, paper, scissors. Mitch, what'd you call it rock, scissors, paper? Listen, you guys can call it rock, paper, scissors, all you want. It's rock, scissors, paper in my world. And I got to be honest, I was unaware of how ecstatic all of rock, scissors, paper, Twitter was to tell me I was wrong. Yeah, it's just it would be like saying the National League football and then being like, why are you guys saying it's weird that I have all three words. The National League football, it's the same thing. Listen, you have your sayings. I have mine. We can agree to disagree. I think it's a little different than National League football, but that's okay. You can feel that way. All right. Stick aside. Stick aside. We got a lot to get to. How long was the trip? How long is the trip from your home planet? Like how long did it take? Was there a hibernation? Did you sit in a pod? Come on. You said stick aside. I thought we were getting ready. That's the bait and switch. That's the bait and switch where I pretend there's no stick and then there's actually stick down just to deliver one more. That's like the super stick lead up right there. There are four one. Are they beating the way seriously? Give them one more. But no, no, come on. But seriously, scissors over. I'm joking around. Where do you recharge your Android parts? Now the question I have for you. This is actually a serious one. Are they going to beat the Ravens this weekend? We can play game or rock to just think we're going to find out. I don't know how to play that. You don't have to explain how it works. Yeah. What better way to start than now? Listen, I mean, this is a big step up in opponent for the for the commanders and, you know, we thought the Brown defense last week was going to be a big step up as well. And obviously, that didn't really end up being being the cases. They were going to move the ball. Listen, we just saw the Ravens play in overtime 41, 38 games against the Bengals. Pretty similar game that the commanders played against the Bengals, you know, a couple of weeks ago. I think you have two teams that are coming in here and, you know, are playing pretty similar football. They give up a lot of points on defense and but they score a lot of offense and put pressure on the other team. You know, I think the Ravens are a legitimate Super Bowl contender. And I think this will be a great witness test to figure out where the commanders rank and that's a pantheon of the National League football. If they win, what are we going to be saying on Monday? If they win, we're going to be saying that this team is a favorite for the Super Bowl and that Jaden Daniels is probably the leader for MVP, obviously, not offensive working here, MVP. And, you know, let's probably be rightfully so because it's been incredible watching what he's done so far this year. And it's for us, you know, we compare it to all the bad quarterbacks plays that we've seen in Washington over the past 20, 30 years. But his play right now is comparable or better than some of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. I mean, he's had a better season statistically than Patrick Rohan said. He's had a better season statistically than Josh Allen has. I think Lamar is the only guy that on paper has put up better numbers than Jaden. And it's tough to wrap our head around the fact that this is the type of player that we're talking about. But if he goes out and finds a way to get this team by Baltimore, I think that that's really going to be the conversation come Monday. Putting you on the spot here a little bit, trying to thread the needle, give me a player or two that hasn't done a ton yet, but you think is going to at some point. Maybe they have a five game stretch where they break out or something coming up here at some point. Yeah, I think Luca Capri is prime for a breakout spot. There was a deep throw that Jaden made against the Browns when he had pressure in his face that he tried to throw deep to Terry. And had he just kind of rotated his body a little to the left, he would have seen Luca Capri running wide open down the side of the field. But I think we're going to start seeing kind of the quote unquote number two receiver as much as that's been a discussion amongst media and fans with the team. I think we're going to start seeing some of these guys start to separate themselves a little bit. And I think kind of Noah Brown and Luca Capri are the two that I'm kind of keen, along the way the kids have done an incredible job so far. But I think Luca has a higher upside and I think you look at some of the, when he doesn't have the ball, what's Luca Capri doing? And I think you look at the Austin Echo Touchdown and the Capri blocking all the way down field, you know, holding those blocks for a long time. And the more stuff that you do away from the ball that shows up on film, the more the coaches are going to want to have you out there and give you opportunities. And I think Luca, Luca has a really good chance of breaking out here soon. Mitch Tischler of Monumental Sports. You know him as Mitch, rock, paper, scissors, Tischler. Thank you, buddy. We appreciate you. I look forward to a rousing game of RFP and the Raven's press box. Anytime. Dude, RSP is a great place. Any place anywhere. And Quinn style painted on a wall and see a buddy. Thanks, Mitch. There's Mitch on our Beltway Blitz. What is the hottest take you actually believe about the commanders? I think this could actually be a fun segment next. What are you willing to go on record and either predict or say about this team through five weeks right now? The hottest, most scalding take that you actually kind of believe 806361067. We will open up the phones on this next on Grant and Danny. The DMV football team has a bright future. It's time for you to plan for your future as well. The exclusive sponsor of this show is the law firm Kondori and Marad. They will help you update your last will and testament. Set up a trust for you and your family schedule a free consultation with their estate planning attorneys today. Cam lawyers.com. Tell them we sent you. That's K M lawyers dot com and 30 minutes Austin Echler is on the show with us right here at five o'clock on G and D. The question for you a couple of lines open. I think this should be fun. What is your hottest commanders take your boldest commanders proclamation after five weeks that you actually believe 806361067. I'm going to give you a couple of examples. Okay. Yeah. I want I have one like follow up tweak question. The first would be Cliff Kingsbury will be the most sought after head coaching candidate in the 2025 cycle. I think that's pretty bold, right? They could obviously take a big step back in the second half as his teams offensively normally do. He was a head coach very recently. It didn't go well, but I think you know guys like Brian Flores are going to get a job. There's a lot of assistance out there that are trending in the right direction right now. I think Cliff Kingsbury will be the most sought after head coaching candidate in the 2025 cycle. That's a good one. Another one I've got here. I said yesterday, I thought the commanders would win the NFC East. That's that's that works, by the way, still. Like that's bold. They're not favored to. The Eagles are still supposed to. A lot of people are waiting for the other shoe to drop. What about this? The commanders are good enough to make a deep playoff run. That's a hot take. That's crazy to say out loud. That's one of those things on October 8th that you say it with your chest. You look like a fool a couple of months from now. But the hottest take I can give you right here this moment, Danny, that I kind of believe deep down is that this team is very much good enough to and I could kind of see them stringing playoff wins together. So when I drop my hot take that I actually believe I'm not like going on record saying this is going to happen. This is this is almost like bold prediction type stuff where I'm going. This is well within the realm of possibilities is no one's talking about. That's all I'm thinking of. This is a I could see this happening. It's not crazy. And the caveat is on the back end, you kind of think it might. Yeah. See what I'm saying? I wouldn't predict it. I'm not putting money on it, but I kind of think it's so I got a couple of those. If you'd like to hear him here, go here we go. Number one. You're looking at a coach of the year finalist at Stan Quinn. His hat's going to be on backwards when he accepts right there. It'll be him. It'll be Kevin O'Connell couple other guys. When you inherit a hot garbage fire that won four games all last year, then you went ahead and tied that win total through five weeks. You're on the radar. You will be the darling of the league. He's a coach of the year finalist. That is my first hot take. Similarly, Jayden Daniels will be an MVP finalist. Jayden Daniels is going to finish in the conversation for MVP. I don't believe it when somebody else is going to just because that's how it goes, but he will be a finalist for the MVP. There'll be a top three finish right now. He's fifth. What's bold about that is you've got him getting closer to the top, not further away. Those are good. I'll give you one more. This one's a deeper cut. Tyler Beaudish right now should be the front runner for first team all-pro at center. I think he's been that good. Tyler Beaudish has been whooping but and taking names. No penalties, pressures are scarce. He's gotten everybody lined up correctly and helped Jayden Daniels, a young quarterback with a lot of protections and things. I think Beaudish is one of the best players through five games that rarely gets talked about on this team right now. You got one more before we hit the phones. 800-636-1067, we're getting to you now. This defense will finish just outside the top 10 in nearly every meaningful metric. No way. Yeah. Well, if that happens, not only are they winning the division, but they're there. Nobody's going to want to see them in January. They are marching up the ranking. So they won't be. They won't finish top 10 in things, but you're going to look up and go, did you notice that? Because their start was so bad that no one's going to think about it this way, but they're going to be in the in the low teens in a number of meaningful categories. Oh, when the skins come marching in. Oh, when the skins come marching in. That and I want to be in that number. There's another song about them that I'm trying to remember. It goes. Oh, there it is. Yep. Barbershop stuff. Fight for our commender. How many wins do they have right now? Four. How many losses do they have? One hit the damn music, Darris. Play it loud. Play it proud. All right. Let's go to the phones. 800-636-1067, Javell is in toll pepper on G&D. What's up, bro? Granddani, what's up, guys? How you doing? Good morning. Chilling, man. So I've been real quiet. I've been real quiet on the first five weeks. But my heart take is this. If we can go into Baltimore and when? And as I was telling Darris, we don't even have to win. If we're competitive and say Justin Tucker hit the 56-yard field goal with three seconds left or an overtime and we lose, I'll still take it because I'm a fun believer. It takes a solid month of the season, a quarter of the season to see what teams are due to the fact that a lot of teams don't play their starters. So I looked at the first three, four weeks for Bobby Wagner, Derompane, Jonathan Allen. I looked at that as their preseason. And we have seen the defense has gotten better week after week after week. And that is Dan Quinn. That's his thing is his defense. Totally. I think Cliff Kingsbury has done a great job with Jayden Daniels. But what we have seen in the first five weeks, you cannot underestimate that what we have seen with Jayden Daniels has never been seen before. It's never been seen before. It's amazing. He's the first rookie quarterback ever through five games to have a thousand passing 250 rushing. But to the question, Javelle, so your hot take that you believe right now, the boldest thing you're willing to say today is? Yes. If we go to Baltimore, we're not competitive. We are top three team and we are a Super Bowl contender. I'm a Super Bowl contender. And you know what's wild? If they beat the Ravens and they're five in one, Javelle's right. They'll be at worst one game behind the pace for the best record on the precipice of the number one seed in the conference. You don't get any awards for that. You don't get a piece of candy given to you for that through six games. But if you beat Baltimore, not even a great Ravens team, just a team that's the next one and a good one and you're seven point underdogs, they're going to have every bit as good a chance as anybody as of right now to play in a Super Bowl. Let's go to Duncan in Gainesville. I hope you're ready to make two trips to New Orleans this year because we're going in December. Yeah, to see the commanders in the Saints. Thanks to our buddy Christian Pendleton. I might have to get Christian on the horn to make sure we're lined up for our second. Do we have budget for the second trip? Let's make sure that he's keeping some of his ducks in a row just in case we got to go back for the second one. Let's go to Duncan in Gainesville. Hey, buddy. Hey, thanks for taking my call, you guys. My hot take is I think that the NFL is actually scared of playing the commanders. And just as we as a fan base have suffered for like a generation of it's so hard being a Washington fan, I think the rest of the NFL has taken us for granted. And now there's a lot of payback coming. I, for one, would like to see us drop a 63 to seven against the New England Patriots for what they did to Gibbs. I held on to that. I love that still thinking about a game against the Joe Gibbs led Redskins. My boys and I, we did, this is totally true. This is back when everybody cared. We did a sleepover at my pals house. We all chipped in. We got an omelet chef for that game. Okay, we all had a big watch party and we lost 63 to seven. We, and we just, the omelet chef just stood there for an hour after we'd all eaten every omelet we possibly could eat. Everyone was stuffed of omelets and he just had to be there for another hour. Well, we're all miserable when we got destroyed 63 to seven. We owe those sons of bitches. The secondary will be a top 10 unit the rest of the season. According to Jean on Twitter at grandage Paulson at funny Danny, you want to hit us up got another one here from Jeff who says Steelers commanders game in week 10 gets flexed. That's not bold enough. Jaden Daniels ends up the best quarterback in the NFC this year via Austin. What is your hottest commander's take that you kind of believe right now? Tom's in McLean on GND. How are you, Tom? All right. Hey, hey, how you doing, guys? Thanks for taking the call. I love your show. This is the hottest take on the commanders. Jaden Daniels will go down into history of Washington Redskins, commanders, the football team at the greatest draft pick ever period. Well, if he continues to play at the level that he is and he strings MVP awards together and they start getting to NFC championship games and Super Bowls, then you're on to something. By the way, Dan Orlovsky on television on ESPN yesterday, I mentioned this, but he said that Washington will make Super Bowls because of Jaden Daniels. And he did that already. Yeah, there was a plural like an S on the end of the world. Basically, the Mahomes effect is what he's suggesting where you got the guys tonight. You get to go to Super Bowls. The Burrow Bengals think that is basically what he was saying. A couple of calls ago, he said teams are scared of Washington. I don't know if they're scared of playing them as a entity altogether, but they're suddenly scared of this defense, this offense. If they're a defense, how could you not be? They are the number one scoring team in the NFL, 155 points. By the way, the Ravens are second, 147. Bring on Sunday, please. Andrew's in Alexandria. What's up, Andrew? Oh, my God, I'm so happy to get taken on. I've never gotten a phone call digging, but long story short, he's already filled up rookie of the year long as he doesn't, you know, screw up or get hurt. But I think he's really got a shot at, you know, no legend lasts forever. So the Jim Brown thing is the rookie MVP, I think is seriously in discussion if he keeps up. I mean, the man's good. And one last thing I want to say is my father was in the Redskins band for years all the way through the RFK ending, and he's very ill in the hospital right now. So to Frank secular, God bless you, sir. Thank you for your time. You know, we remember the Neil Oakowitz, Monte Coleman, Dave Butts, all those days. I think they're back, guys. I think they're back. We appreciate you for the call a first time caller. And I hope all as well, we should have up hopefully a big game on Sunday makes them feel a little bit better. Certainly the last month hasn't hurt with the locals going four and oh and blowing people out a couple of straight weeks. But he said he's already wrapped up rookie of the year. That's bold because there's so much football left three quarters of a season. Caleb Williams was great at 300 yards and a few touchdowns this weekend. You have a few of those all of a sudden you're passing numbers are going to move past Jadon's. And now we start doing the well, but Daniels, you got to add the rushing and it just becomes closer. Bo Nix. I don't think he's in the conversation, but he had his best game. Yeah, he played really, really well. And they've won two of their last three. Obviously Malik neighbors didn't play with concussion, but prior to that he was on pace for one catch fewer than the NFL record. But it wasn't crazy that Daniels would have to miss a game or something. I mean, you know, too much. Just rest starters for all of December, something like that. If they did that, then what do you do? Right? You got to start considering these things. You may have forgotten Danny. They didn't play in the fourth quarter. No, they didn't. And it would have been nice to accumulate some more stats. Did you go for the Heisman where you just keep playing Jadon Daniels in the fourth quarter? Or is he only playing three quarters against everybody else's four quarters? I mean, these are some of the problems that he may have. And it's the issues you run into. I think it was 52 that you had a rookie MVP in Jim Brown. Is that your sound right? Sounds yeah. I mean, I couldn't tell you one with the other, but yeah. Jim Brown, the only rookie to ever win MVP. And I believe it was 52 was early 50s. Let's go to Chris and Hyatt's fellow on Grant and Danny. What's up, Christopher? What's going on, gentlemen? I have a couple of hot takes. One, not so hot. This is like a jalapeno hot take, not so hot. But the gold pants, those are straight fire guys. But a little bit hotter take that I think is going to be tough for one grant or Danny to swallow this that the more wins, the less complaints we're going to get about the dumb stadium and the dumb name. And we're going to be stuck with them for a little bit longer than I think you guys like. Well, the stadium is already, they've basically said going to be the stadium until they open the new one in 2030. Are you saying you think it goes beyond that? Like they start even more than they already have. Josh Harris, Josh Harris can walk and chew gum. But I'm saying like, we're going to stop hearing people complain about the stupid stadium. When it sold out and Jayden Daniels is throwing 41 yard bombs to Terry McClellan every Sunday. So you know what's funny about that, Chris? And I have not asked many people, but my wife went to the game. Long time season ticket holder on Sunday. And I asked her what it, you know, how it was. And it was just rave reviews. Oh, we had so much fun. It was amazing. Our tailgate was the biggest it's been in years. They used to have 50 people in 2012. It's been down to like four of them sitting around and like, I'm not even doing a bit, by the way, it's the saddest thing ever when like four people are in little folding chairs, you know, eating bags of chips or whatever. Yeah, they might as well be camping. But they had a picture of like another dozens of 40 50 people at this tailgate they were doing. Should have blast her in the game. All they did was watch long home run passes and touchdowns and a lot of points. And the only thing she texted me during the whole game that was like a complaint was like, there was no paper towels in the women's bathroom or whatever the one little thing was. But my point is, I didn't hear one time about the stadium being terrible. I didn't hear that the ex the maybe Northwest stadium is just awesome. Like FedEx field was awful. We all know that FedEx field stunk, but this new stadium that they built this new ownership group built Northwest stadium is a really, really good stadium place. No wins there. What's your hottest commanders take that you kind of believe? Grant and Danny on the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] Austin Echler is on the show in 10 minutes at five o'clock here on Grant and Danny. You can stream us wherever you are on the Odyssey at pause and rewind the show. Listen around DC on one oh six seven enrichment on nine ten or one oh five one. Watch us on our one oh six seven the fan YouTube stream. Can't wait to talk to Echler. That segment has been just a blast and people love it. He's great. He's as good a regular as we've had on this show in our 10 years together. Fired up to talk to him at five right now. We're asking you what is your hottest commanders take that you actually believe as they are four and one Brad and DC. What do you got? Yeah, what's going on, Grant Danny? How y'all doing? Good buddy. Like the show. It's my favorite show on the radio. Thank you, sir. That means a lot. Thanks. Yeah, right. Yeah. He's gonna win the MVP and I know the call has said it before, but he's gonna win the MVP that necessitates us being really, really good and he's this special. He's so sad. He makes every throw. He's super accurate. He makes every throw where the throw is supposed to be. He's just so special and we are we should all be grateful to witness it. Well, so far it's just breathtaking. I don't think he'll win the MVP, but the fact that you can say it and mean it and it's a legitimate thing. He's fifth in sports books. Odds right now at some places. Fifth, top five in the league as an MVP candidate. I mean, that is astounding. And it's a real thing. I get it. It's a good call. Dave in Woodbridge. What's good? Hey guys, a little different spin. So mine is just released because I feel we have our next Bobby Bethar. It's what I've wanted for over 30 years. Somebody that knows how to judge talent and my little one beef and no one's mentioned it is. Hey, don't look now. We have a kicker. Yeah, especially if he never has to kick longer than 45, he'll be automatic. I still don't know if he's any good, but he makes every extra point from 33 and he makes all the field goals from around 40. There was a college game this past week. And by the way, happened to be tuning into where a kid kicked up 59 in order. I'm going it's even in college at this point where there is good, but that's a good one. But in terms of in terms of Peter's vis-a-vis better, Adam Bethard. Yeah, I mean, it's not just the best players. It's the right players. And I know that's so cliche, but you find guys that fit more important as so than the guy with the most talent. I always wanted a great talent evaluator. What I just needed was a general manager. I'll worry about how good they are later, but give me the correct structure. Like you could have hired a GM and it could have been the wrong hire and he wasn't very good, but at least she had a GM. Peter's built an incredible front office, such a good group with Newmark and Sosna and the guys that he put together in that front office. It's one of the best in the sport, one of the most beloved kind of from outsiders who know who's young and sharp and ascending. They really, really like what he built and the proofs in the pudding with the players that they brought in this off season. Luke and ward off. You're on Grant and Danny. What's going on? Hey, what's up guys? I love the show. Listen, I want to help Danny out with this name because I know he's still tealing back and forth. This name is a problem because it's a bold name. We never had anybody in the building who can command. We've always been an average or below average and we've been sucky ever since. So now that we have somebody to command it, it's hard to fit. I think this might win you over Danny. Let them finish. It just took this cold to win him over. Luke, you did it. I think it is and my bold prediction is not only are we going to beat the crap out of the raven. We're going to be number one in the east. And I think the risk that the commander's fans need to stop the impasse up, stop booking your hotel or these reserving it because we got somewhere to go come through both times. Hey, by the way, Luke. Thank you, buddy. Left hand up. Who are you? Oh, it's a shame he dropped off. That's what I've been able to respond to that. Whatever that is. So did he convince you that the commanders is actually a great name? No, he didn't. And I appreciate the effort though. We were doing all sorts of things to justify it in our minds. By the way, the battle is over. I'll tell you that right now. My force is ever treated. I don't know if the war is over, but you have lost the battle. Yeah. We got our high parts kicked and we are in full retreat. And I'll take it, by the way, commanders is here to stay. You win some football games. You beat people in primetime. You don't embarrass me. Call yourself whatever you want. The name thing is so weird though. Yeah. I tweeted something yesterday and I said the commanders. I don't remember what it was. Let's say it was a stat. That the commanders are four and one, whatever. And some guy goes, why are you selling so hard for the new name? I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, you're using commanders. I said, it's the name of the team. Dummy. Like, what do you want me to say, sir? Washington always use Washington. That's first of all, that sounds weird. Am I talking about the Huskies or the commanders? But also, I'm just using the team's name. When they name themselves, something else, I'll use that too. That's kind of where I'm at on it. But he's like, why are you using the name? Because that's what they are. Yeah. Why are you calling me by my name? Because that's my name. Yeah, very. The whole thing is strange. Yeah, the whole thing's dumb. Grant and Danny on the fan, Austin Echler joins us next live right here on the fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taking you up to six 30, it's Grant and Danny on the fan and it is time right now to welcome onto the show. Our buddy Austin Echler for our weekly Tuesday appointment. He joins us every Tuesday right at five o'clock to give us trusted insight from a trusted insider presented by IT cadre, where DC sports insiders share their exclusive perspective. Austin was back on Sunday against the Browns and he was big back. How about a 50 yard run, a 33 yard reception, some nice work on kick returns as well. Austin, welcome back to the show and welcome back to the playing field where you made a big impact, dude. What's going on, boys? Hey, that is my job. So that is, you know, something that I've been known for. I had to continue to hold the reputation, but it definitely felt good to be back out with the boys. At the risk of going all Chris Farley next to Paul McCartney, which might be too dated for reference for a young person like yourself. This is a terrible question I'm about to ask. I love watching you play football. Like, I love it. You to me are what like I've always wanted in a running back. And now you're here doing the thing and I don't even know what to do with my hands. That's all. Again, not a great question. What's your response to that? Well, look, I think I think there's been a reason that I've been playing this league for eight years now. And I, you know, apparently it's because I can be efficient, but not only that, but be exciting on the field as well. And so when you can put those two together, usually hang around a little bit longer. So I'm glad I can continue to share some of, you know, my work on the field with, with the city of, you know, the DMV area, I should say. So thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Amen. I will get into some of the specifics of your banner performance, but broadly, the team is four and one. The town is a buzz. We have not experienced this. This team was, has not had this record since '08. It's the second time since 1999. If you guys were able to beat Baltimore on Sunday, you'll be five and one. That has not happened here since 1996. How do you feel about the progress you guys have made and, and where you're at right now at the beginning of what a lot of us thought was going to be a rebuild of four Peters and Quinn? Yeah, I think an important message that Dan Quinn told us when we came into the building back in OTAs is we are not here to rebuild. Like, like that is not even in the vocabulary. Like we were hired, you know, there's a lot of us that are new to the program at that time. Like 60 of us, 30 of us have made it. But he mentioned, we are here and hired to win right now. Like we are here and hired to win games right now, because that is what the NFL demands. And that is what, you know, Adam and, and ownership has put together a team that they feel can win right now. And we didn't know how that was going to play out. You know, you kind of go through that, that culture change. You go through the chemistry change. There's a lot of new things you kind of are, you know, anticipating, but don't really know until you start getting into regular season. And we got a good group. You know, it's been, it's been coming together for us. We got a lot of veterans. It's been a journey that is not to be expected, but not unexpected as well, because we expect to win games, right? We don't expect, it's always, you know, win like we're winning, which is great when we can do that. But we definitely expect to win games. And so it's been, it's been what we wanted. And however, we can get a win, we're going to continue to do, do just that and keep scrapping it out. Austin, when Dan Quinn said that, I mean, what, what was the setting? Was it like the first meeting? And then also, I'm sure coaches say that even where they're rebuilding. Like, did you buy that right away? Rookie quarterback, 30 new faces, four-win team last year. What was your mindset on that? Look, I had been on a team last year where we had high hope for us to go to the playoffs, because we just made the playoffs the year before, and we came out and we won five games. And we had all the talent, we had, you know, everything we thought we needed, and it didn't happen. And so now I'm in a new environment where there's a lot of, there's a lot of veterans around that have won a lot of games, a lot of new coaches around a brotherly type environment where we're talking culture. Culture is being coached where it's, hey, I love working here. I love getting up in the morning and going into work and seeing the boys and competing together with this group of men. And so when you start to build that culture, you start to really buy into like, yeah, I think we got something special here. Like, we haven't played at that point yet, but when we were talking, like, when we have those conversations, but you can really feel like this was just a great place to come in and work, and it was really an environment that was inviting. And so when you have that type of environment and some players to go along with it and, you know, rookie quarterback that's been playing like he's been playing, it's a combination for a lot of good things. So I definitely believed it. You got to build it, though. It's not something that just happens. But I think we did just that during the off season. Brad Elson Ecker with us here on Grant and Danny was about to ask you about Brian Robinson. I know he was banged up last week with that knee, and then he ends up, you know, basically not playing much in the second half. Is that something you get a heads up on? I think obviously you don't plan on being up by, you know, 30 points, whatever the heck it was. This is the NFL that rarely happens. I guess, unless it's you guys beating the brakes off of people, but is that something that you were aware of beforehand, Austin, where hey, you and Jeremy might go a little bit more because Brian Robinson is kind of nursing this knee, or is that just kind of a flow thing? Yeah, you know, in the NFL, there's a lot of questions around injuries and things like that, and it really is a flow thing. Like, you don't know how someone's going to react, you know, how they're doing, how they're, you know, going through the game. Did it get worse? Is it still feeling fine? So you just prepare as you're, is if you're going to play the entirety of the game, and I know Jeremy's doing the same thing. He's been playing well too. I'm super proud of our, of our running back room, not only on the running back position, but Jeremy, I know how like four tackles on special teams. So I'm like, man, like our running back room, I'm so proud of the way we're playing and just attacking it. And so going back to the injuries, like it's part of the game, you know, especially in the running back room. And so for us, like I mentioned, we're all preparing like, you know, we're going to be starting the entirety of the game. So regardless of what happens if someone goes down or someone's playing well, we're all ready to go. Last week, one of the things that you wanted to bring up just as an aside to our normal conversation was how you thought it was pretty impressive, how physically you guys were walloping people on special teams. I can't tell you how many times I thought about that. I mean, there were some monster hits and coverage this weekend. Again, I mean, it is pretty wide on real now. How physical. I'm telling you, what? Yeah, I'm sure you guys, yeah, remember that. And if you're new listening, like, watch our kickoff teams, like they are absolutely relentless. And like, I tell them every time I'm watching the kickoff on special teams, me and I'm like, I am so glad that I do not have to go against our kickoff team. Because oh my goodness, they are flying down the field. And it's like, it's something I'm going to block these people. Because I mean, I haven't seen anyone really do a good job at it yet. So yeah, definitely one that, you know, usually I'm sitting down on the bench because I'm just relaxing. I'd stand up and I'm like, okay, I got to watch this action because it's about to be so excited because our kickoff team is all over the place. So definitely something to watch. The 50 hour run you ripped off was the longest here, I believe since 2020 at least. Walk me through that play. What worked out so well? Yeah, they've been, you know, just really downhill most of the game. And so, you know, we were trying to attack an edge on that play and did just that. And sure enough, they were downhill again. And when we attack an edge, if you come downhill, there's going to be some air. And sure enough, there was some air got out pretty free, got up on the safety, trying to get these legs going as fast as I can. I got safety one on one, make him miss. And then I'm running down the field. Everyone else is running down the field. This is something else that I thought was pretty cool about our team because I end up fumbling the ball, right? We always talk about the one that you can't see is the one that's going to cause the fumble because I'm looking inside. This guy's on my right on the outside and he punches it out. But my team is pursuing. And that's something that we've been coaching since training camp is everybody run to the ball. Like you never know what the play, when the play is going to be, when you need to be there to recover a fumble or to, you know, push someone in the end zone or make the play positive. So you have to treat every play like it's that play. And sure enough, OZ who was on the other side of the field, sprinting down the field, ended up jumping on the fumble with me and securing it. So it was a great run. Great block. I got to obviously don't put the damn ball on the ground. Austin come on. Make sure I secure that. I'll get that fixed this week. And just a great, great effort play for our entire football team on offense. Austin Ecker with this year on G&D. So Austin, again, just want your thoughts on this. I thought Cleveland's defense was pretty impressive early. Five of the first six players were either for zero gain or a bit negative. There's this one, J. Nana's the McLaren shot that kind of changed things up there. But I thought they were impressive. And yet you guys still put 24 points up on them in this first half. Did you feel that at first? Kind of there, as you said, they were downhill, looked like they were getting to the back foot a little bit. They were disruptive and they're pressing you guys. And there's a counter for that too. It's just, just a feeling you have watching it. Pretty amazing. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I got to give credit to them for, I think we have, unfortunately for us, like 11 negative plays, which is not good. But fortunate for us, we had a bunch of bigger plays, you know, that we haven't seen as many as we've had in that game in the past, right? We'd have a couple splash plays in here, but we were really chunking down the field in some of our other games. And this one, it was big chunk. And then we would, you know, try to get ourselves the end zone or end up kicking a field goal on a couple of those. Want to try to always obviously end up in the end zone. And so it's just a different way. It's a different way that we showed, hey, we can, we can have big plays if we need to have big plays, if that's the type of day that it's going to go. And I think Jaden is, you know, showing himself as, hey, he can, he can make it happen. Like the, you know, the one you spoke about, the one to Terry, there's definitely supposed to be a sack, you know, the out of the, you know, some luck and some athleticism, you know, the two defenders run into each other. And he, you know, gets out of it and bombs it down the field to Terry, you know, for whatever that was, 50 yarder, 50 yarder, something like that. And so being able to have just players that can stay alive on the play, even if it's starting to break down and make things happen is, is what you see good teams doing. You know, you think of the, especially the best quarterbacks, you know, like Pat Mahomes is obviously the best at it right now. And then, you know, Josh Allen is another one of those guys that, you know, starts to break down. And now we're saying we're going to start putting Jaden definitely in that conversation as he's been doing it now this last week and just with his legs for the entirety of the season. So it's, it's really exciting time for us to where we see, hey, okay, it's not all going well. Guess what? Hey, we have playmakers out here that can make plays and give us back in the game. Austin Echler, giving us trusted insight. He's our trusted insider presented by I T cadre here on Grant and Danny. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Austin right here at five o'clock with us exclusively on the fan on the fourth and two that set up the first points of the game for you guys. You come from motion from the left jet action. Were you supposed to go all the way around like a sweep? Because Cinek kind of gets knocked into the backfield, holds his block, but you L cut into, there's a little lane, but you make a couple guys miss. You end up getting like 10 yards on that play. Was the design that L cut right there? Was that ad lib? Well, the designs get the first down first. However, you get it, it doesn't matter. But, um, ideally, yeah, if we can, if we can set the edge right there, hopefully we can run around the edge. That didn't happen. We had a little bit of penetration. As we said, Hey, guys, we're coming downhill and it definitely showed up on that play. And fortunately, I was able to, you know, put on the brakes and get out of field immediately. And yeah, like you said, made a couple guys miss and then was one away. Ah, so close, so close. It seems like everyone was score. I could give up by the end zone, but I was one away. Um, the frickin shoestring tackle pulled me down. I like, yeah, like the four or five yard line, but set up B Rob to run it in for the next play. So gave him a little love on that one. But, um, yeah, it was, uh, it was definitely designed to go out. But like I said, Hey, get it. Do you ever make plays? And that's what we need from our guys? Hey, break down stuff. Not looking good. How can we stay alive? How can we make it work? And that's another example of that. That was a tremendous play. It was a great run by you. You guys, by the way, are now eight for eight on fourth down this year. And it almost seems like the third down play calling and execution. I don't want to say changes because of that or the cheat code that is Jaden. There was another play later where I feel like guys were watching him and he goes read option and you guys move the chains. Just what does that do for your offense when all of a sudden on a third and long, you might only need to get seven or eight because you know, DQ is going to keep you out there and nobody stops you on fourth down. Yeah, you know, it's, it's not just on me on fourth down, but our offense, you get a, it's going to guard us all over the place. You got to guard Jaden for the run. We got guys that can go deep. We got, you know, ours, us in the right and the right back position that have been having success on the ground too. So just guarding and playing good defense the entire game and the NFL is not necessarily easy when you have offense like ours where you have to defend it. Like it eventually something's going to break down somewhere as long as we continue to play at that high level. And so I mean on fourth down, obviously it's another down. It's the last down if you don't get it, but for us, it's okay. Let's execute. Let's continue to keep them spread them out, keep them on their toes. They have no idea where we can hit them from because we can hit from so many different angles. That's one of the beauties of our offense and why we've been having so much success is because it's not just one guy, right? There's several people all across the board that are, that are having success. And when you have that, it's, it's fun to watch as you can see and, you know, helps you, helps you build confidence in your coaching staff like, Hey, if it's fourth down, yeah, we're going, let's do it. And that's what you're seeing with, with DQ and, and Cliff, you know, making us, or putting us in positions to, to win on those fourth downs. Austin, my last one for you. Big game this week, man. This is, you guys are obviously playing really good football. Ravens have been there. That's a really good team. It's probably the game of the week in the NFL. Just talk about that. And what do you guys need to do to come out with a dub? Yeah, absolutely. You know, after like you said, you know, another great football team. So looking forward to this head to head matchup. It's going to be, it's going to be exciting, you know, just like all games are for us. And I think it's going to be a good test because, you know, the Ravens are well respected as far as what they've been able to do, kind of, you know, coming into the season with Lamar and, you know, the rest of their, you know, playmakers on offense and defense. And so it's going to be one of those tests where, Hey, we're head to head. We're on a roll. They're on a roll. I think they've won like three in a row now. So this is what the NFL is about. It's about, Hey, let's do good on good and see who can come out and, you know, win the battle. And if it's close, if it's close, if it's not, if it's not, it's about going out there, giving it out all we can and hoping for the best. And so just like coming into the season, no idea how it's going to play out. I have no idea how this is going to play out, but I do know, and I can promise you this, we're going to get everything we can to continue to put on a show and score some dang points on offense and give ourselves the best chance to win this game. Make sure you're following Austin on social does a really good job on Twitter and the other outlets on Austin Echler. I think you do a Jersey giveaways. I know you signed jerseys every week. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So look, I appreciate all the fan love out there. And so I know you guys don't always get to see that from us because we're kind of behind closed doors. And so that's the little thing I do on Instagram and Twitter is doing Jersey giveaway every single week. So if you want to join in, it's free. It's just a token of my appreciation. Well, we appreciate you, man. It's been great Avenue on the show every week. We're looking forward to this relationship this year and to you guys continuing to roll. We don't really know what to do with ourselves right now, but we're just going to keep yelling on Sunday. Hey, that's all we're going to ask for. Just keep cheering and just enjoy the moment, man. And let's, let's continue to push forward together. Austin on Grant, you're on the fan joining us every single Tuesday at five o'clock. He is presented by I T cadre. I T cadre is trusted insight, helping leaders of the nation's most important organizations understand complexity, align efforts and make the best data driven decisions to achieve success. I T cadre, your vision, our purpose next on G and D as we take you up to six 30 on the fan. We've talked a little bit about this matchup coming up with the Baltimore Ravens. We'll give you our first feel on the game right here on Grant and Danny. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Washington has found their Lamar Jackson. The play making with his feet is spectacular. And automatically, you're like, this team's going to contend for Super Bowls because of this young player. The passing, the timing of their past game has gone up. Their zone read-off into right now is crazy. You're getting like five yards of clip. And if that's a bad play, they run the ball well with Brian Robinson. He's connection with those receivers. He's unfazed, nothing, nothing faces this younger. >> That's Dan Orlovsky of ESPN. Welcome back, Grant and Danny on the fan. Hopefully you enjoyed Austin Echler. We also had Louis Riddick speaking of ESPN analysts like Dan Orlovsky. Stop by today. Riddick was on the show right at three o'clock. Ravens on Sunday, one o'clock came in Baltimore, nationally televised window at one o'clock. Romo announced the 18 and not because of who Washington's playing or because that was the last game left that they could get to. They literally had to fight NBC to keep the game because they want commanders Ravens that badly on CBS. >> Yeah, spread open at eight, seven, half depends on your book. It's down to six and a half where the commanders are heavy underdogs in this one. And this is the marquee matchup. The guy that is the two-time MVP Lamar Jackson, who is knocking on the door of trying to get by Pat Mahomes, which nobody really has done, to try to get to a Super Bowl for a team that's apparently really good. And then the new kid on the block that's trying to get there. And this is must-see television. This is the game of the week as far as I'm concerned, not just because I've invested interest in who wins or loses, but this is the most interesting game in football this weekend. >> So what's your first feel in this game? You've been much higher on Baltimore this year than I have. The Ravens come in. I mean, there's a case to be made. They could have beat the Chiefs. They could have beat the Raiders. There's a couple wins found. They easily could have probably should have lost to the Bengals. I don't know if you saw the- >> They should have lost. >> They had in overtime. They could easily right now after being two and two going into yesterday or Sunday. They could be two and four as we speak going into Washington. But they are getting their footing. They've won three straight. They played some decent teams, Cowboys, Bills, Bengals. And now this defense that just gave up a ton of yards and 38 plus points to the Bengals should have been 41 if the field goals made in overtime has to deal with the number one offense in the league in that kid, Jaden Daniels and Cliff Kingsbury. >> Yeah, it's strange, right? I mean, with the Ravens, what they've done over the last several years is they've been excellent against the run because it's always Baltimore and they've had great pass defense. They've always struggled to put that and I say always lately, they've struggled to pressure the quarterback over the last several seasons. Well, now that's not the case. They're getting destroyed through the air at this point. I mean, carved up in terms of passing yards allowed. Dak Prescott went for huge numbers against them. And a part of that was that furious comeback, but Joe Burrow just put up video game numbers against them. You can throw it on this team way more than you used to seeing and they're pretty good against the run. In fact, they're really good against the run. So it's an interesting test here for Washington. Now, you could argue they've been good against the run. They haven't been good against Washington's run. They haven't been good against a team that can run the ball like Washington can, right? With all due respect to the Chiefs, Raiders, Cowboys, Bills, Bengals, they don't have Washington's run game. Nobody does except for the team in their locker room, right? It has a rushing game that effective. So it'll be interesting. But if it plays out as it is on paper, this is a great test for Washington's offense because Baltimore is going to put up some points that that's Lamar Jackson. That's Derek Henry. This is a regular season. When guys are healthy, they'll do just fine against you. This is a, can you win this kind of game where the thing that you want to do and have done best kind of that easy button, the run game being ahead of the sticks that four, five, six on first down or something easy may be taken away from you to a degree. And you might have to go a different way against a good opponent on the road. Can you do that? I think the answer is yes, by the way, but it's an it's a great test. So well said. I mean, for me, I lick my lips and salivate over the possibility to get some real answers on what's going to happen when it's not 72 and sunny. And specifically in this kind of situation, like to me, it's about figuring out what scenarios can wash it and thrive in. And we're getting those answers little by little one by one here. But if the Ravens are to shut down the running game, let's say they do a really good job on the Jaden Daniels keeper stuff, which the Browns, by the way, started out doing beautifully on all of his read option keepers, all the stuff around the edge. His first three runs were all for negative yards. Do you remember? Yeah. I think he had four runs for like negative three. At one point ended up running for 88 yards, ripped off a 34 yard or a 23 yard or had some explosives. But those were more on scrambles. People was ready for every read option look. It seemed like right when it was faking, uh, look like an inside handoff or something from the gun. And he's blowing out to the right for what's been a free seven or eight. They were stacked up. They were there, played it perfect. Yeah. Now the Ravens practice against Lamar Jackson, you would think they'd be really well prepared based on that to deal with Jaden Daniels and that RPO stuff that Washington's going to use. But if they're able to shut down the run and Washington's got to beat them through the air, they should be able to. Again, they give up 280 yards per game 31st. They give up 7.5 yards per play 27th. They have been terrible in the secondary. You accentuated and documented this pretty well, but we have not seen Washington have to win a game that way. They ran the ball and did kind of whatever they wanted on the ground against Arizona. They did win the game more, I would say through the air against Cincinnati, but that was almost like the death by paper cut where Brian Robinson didn't have a big game, but Jaden Daniels scrambled. They got some big runs from Austin Echler. Jeremy Mc, I guess that was right before Mc Nichols took over, but Echler hit the 24 yarder for the touchdown. Like they got some explosives along the way in the McCorn deep shot, but for the most part, it's the close to line of scrimmage stuff, but they did it really well, but I'm not even talking. I'm saying just in terms of when they've been able to run the ball, I think the Bengals took it away some and they won and they scored a lot and they did have the downfield explosive stuff. They're on the football, but mostly this season they've been able to run it when they wanted to. That's why they're the number two rushing offense in the league. Yes. I want to see what it looks like if they can't run it and maybe we'll get to this week because you're playing a team that gives up 3.05 per carry best in the league and only 60.4 per game best in the league right now. Is Baltimore's run defense that good or is their opponent a factor there? I think it's both. So far, they've played the Bengals who want to throw the ball, the Bills who want to throw the ball, the Cowboys who cannot run the ball, the Chiefs, actually with Isaiah Pacheco in week one, that's a pretty good running team and the Raiders are actually a pretty physical running team. So I would say it's a mixed bag. They played some decent running. Yeah, they gave up 27 yards on the ground to the Raiders. I say that again, 27 yards on the ground for the game to the Raiders. But is it that this where and I'm not saying you don't respect Jay Daniels because he's throwing the ball all over the place, but you're playing Gardner men's shoe that will be and you go beat us. And by the way, he did him and Devonta Adams had a field day in the fourth quarter, but they might have done that. That to me is what I would try to do and see what happens. I can't give Washington both. So I am not letting you run the ball. If you want to stick with it, Cliff Kingsbury, God bless you. You're going to go 20 for 50 on the ground. But Daniels is going to have to win downfield and from the pocket. That's the other thing nobody's been able to do. And it's way easier said than done. Keep Jayden Daniels in the pocket. His numbers are unbelievable when he gets out of the pocket. Finds guys, he extends plays, he goes down the field. I don't know how you keep him in the pocket. I'm not smart enough to coordinate that for you. But if the Ravens are able to, maybe that's the answer against an offense that hasn't been stopped. So nine and a half sacks between OA and Calvin knowing, then you add in Marabuque, Kyle Hamilton is all over the field. This is a defense with talent, with good pieces. But the fact that they've been that bad against the past is rather stunning, I would say. We're used to seeing them with Humphrey and a bunch of the other guys in the secondary just play good coverage. But they're getting after the past for a little bit. So that's going to be another big test. Washington passed their most recent one. With flying colors, you'll recall Miles Garrett, defensive player of the year candidate with a big fat zilch on the score sheet. So early, bro, 392 and five. Yeah. I know they played an overtime, but still still, a lot of that's a regulation. 70 something a regulation. We watched Dak shred them. Now, they were playing from behind. Maybe you could, you know, carve it up that way is make an excuse in that regard. But they couldn't force an incompletion as the Cowboys came back in that game. So at first watching that game is we're all watching. We're in Cincinnati watching it that afternoon with Kea and Waseem, our guys, the law firm, K M lawyers.com. And we're going, okay, this is just because the Ravens were playing prevent. It's getting away from them, whatever. Well, now you get future data points and you go, that wasn't just because they're playing prevent. That's because their past defense has been got awful through several weeks. And that's been the case. That's held true. That's why they're not elite yet in my mind. There's a lot of track record here from me in Baltimore. I basically just trust them to be good. They feel names that aren't household names become them because that's what this program does. They win double digit games every year. They're just a really well run organization who lost a lot this past off season and haven't hit the ground running just yet. So this is a tough test. You can see, by the way, the fact that the line opened at eight or seven and a half depends on your book. And it's now still down to six and a half. There's a, okay, now you guys are stepping up a difficulty level right here. Whether whether you agree with that or not, that's the perception. That's kind of the pulse. I think Washington will be able to move the ball and will be able to score. I actually like this to end up being a bit of a shootout, to be honest with you. Both of these offenses are much better than the defenses. I'm pretty confident in saying I don't think the commander's defense will stop the Ravens offense. I hope for one of those Lamar Jackson turnover games where he inexplicably has like just two lost fault, you know, loses a fumble running gets hit in the pocket and gets a sack fumble. Maybe throws a pick and you get three turnovers and you go in like a 23 to 20 kind of game. But I think the Ravens are going to be able to move the football. You know what the total is in this game? I haven't seen you. I know 52 and a half over 50 means you're expecting a lot of points. There's only one other game this week over 50. It's an identical 52 and a half and it's Lions Cowboys. Yeah, nobody can stop anybody in that game either. So pretty clearly what the expectation is is both of these offenses are going to be very comfortable. And that's what I think is going to happen. Yeah. And it's by the way, it's not your conventional shootout. It's not great to show on turf against Manning's Colts either. You know what I mean? It's two teams that are averaging 200 yards rushing a week give or take doing this putting up points on the board. It's going to be fascinating, man. I mean, this is this is one of those where if Washington loses and is not competitive, it'll be a bummer, right? But you'll go, okay, everyone's got one. Everyone's got those, right? If nobody in this league save for Minnesota and Kansas City has gotten through a game where they haven't looked absolutely horrendous. Even the good teams, even teams that we know are good that with with deposits in the bank have had a that doesn't matter with you. Houston, who is nasty? One on the road to Minnesota looked like they'd never met each other. Got beat 34 seven. Everyone's had a what the hell's wrong with you kind of a game? That's all it's going to feel like it's not going to feel like that much of a setback if they drop this one. If they're competitive, win, lose your draw, I think it's going to go a long way to kind of continuing to validate when you're in this new space, right? You've moved further than you've been in some time here as this organization where there are legitimate good feelings that are well earned. If you lose on the road to a Super Bowl contender, which a lot of people still think Baltimore is in that building as they've kind of backed themselves into a corner needing to kind of get hit get some momentum going after kind of a lousy start. If you drop this one competitively, it's still another good drop in the bucket. So they are a Super Bowl contender, I would say, and they're also, in my opinion, not that good, but that is the league. I mean, I would say the same thing before last night about the Chiefs, honestly. That's good point. Unimpressive. The Lions have not had, you know, style points really until their last win. I'm just not sure that there are great teams right now. I think this is kind of the trend in what the league wants, and we're seeing it play out right now. What is your first feel though out there in listener land on Commanders Ravens at 800 636 1067 will open up the MGM National Harbor listener lines. They are big underdogs. That is telling, I would say there's this expectation for the first time that didn't exist against Cleveland externally. Maybe we felt it just because we've been around this town for a long time. But like the odds makers are actually saying this is the week where the commanders look very human. Are you buying that? Grant and Danny on the fan. [BLANK_AUDIO] And Danny on the fan taking you up to 630. Thank you for hanging out with us. Go get yourself your no punt offense t-shirt. The NPO. I love the design of the shirts. Basically it's just the word punt with a line right through it like a no smoking sign. In the nation's capitol, we're known for a couple of things. There's a lot of politics stuff that happens. Yeah, yeah, that's that one. We got some important buildings, monuments and such. Speed cameras. And Danny Ruier, we are known round these parts for not punting in football game. You know, is bored most of the time, Tresway. Tresway is a professional holder in high fiber. That's what he does. What do you do with the game today, Tres? High five hits, signature hand shakes with several special teams, guys, after kick offs, kick off our turns, because of our team scores and they got to return the kickoff. And then he holds for Austin cybert, Ibert Cybertron. Commanders, Ravens, Sunday, the question for you guys at 800-636-1067, MGM National Harbor, list on. There are a few lines open. What is your first feel? Mine is, I think it'll be high scoring. I think both both offenses will be able to move the ball consistently. And I think it will be a very close game. I really do like Washington plus points. I think this is a one possession football game. I could see it coming down to the fourth quarter. And if that's the case, Justin Tucker advantage over Austin cybert, more length in the leg, greatest kicker of all time, even though Tucker has missed some big kicks this year, he did hit the game winner and over time from deep and he sent the game to overtime with a long field goal. But in a close game, I would probably give the edge to Baltimore at home, but I think it's going to be tight. And just saying that as they're four and one playing a three and two Ravens team tells you the whole story, doesn't it? It tells you they've arrived. This is real. This is not some fluke. I got a similar feel, to be honest with you. I think I probably, if I had to pick it now, would, would say Washington to cover, maybe not to win. I mean, just, there's just too much data, too many deposits in the bank for me on the Ravens. I know they haven't played great this year, but I've seen them do so well so often and win these kinds of games, you know, just have a little bit more in the plan, have a little bit more to slow you down or stop you. Also, by the way, Baltimore always plays these kinds of, I don't know how to say this better, but then in Seattle, always seem to play weird games where there's, you know, plays that you've never seen, penalties you've never seen, call John Harbaugh is like a rule stipulation argument with somebody. 17 guys report eligible that didn't know. Yeah, I feel like there's always something unusual where, like, you're going to see Nansen wrote, like, Romo's going to squeal seven. I never seen that before. Jam golly. And it's going to be weird, right? I just feel like it's always weird up there. I'm glad that you get to watch Tony Romo this weekend. That's what I'm happy about. Volume will be down low. I mean, nobody dislikes Tony Romo on the call more than you do. It's a little bit much. He's not as good as he wants was. He is aggressively okay. He is campy and fun. He's kind of entertaining. It's not a distraction or a negative. It's just, he doesn't add a lot. But in Danny Ria's world, he ruins everything. It is a distracting negative. So it used to be it was worth the cost of admission where he's like, run to the left here, Jim, or they're going to try to get behind this guy. And he called the play out exactly as it was because it was the same as was on film when he was playing six minutes ago. Now the whole league has turned over. He doesn't know it the same way. So we can't do that anymore. And now it's here we go. Most important play I've ever seen. Yep. It's it is exhausting. It is the worst. So yeah, that's right, Matt. Let's go to Jack in Springfield on Grant and Danny first feel on the big match up on Sunday in Baltimore. Well, so it's going to be a big one without question. First of all, Grant, I got to get something covered for you. It's, uh, look, I know what you want to. Yep. And I know what you're not. And you're not an effing cop. Okay. Attaboy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I get one more? Please go, Jack. One more. Can I get a what Mrs. Marshall's trying to say is there's a 44th patient? First of all, what Mrs. Marshall's trying to say is there's a 44th patient. Okay. So good. That's the one. All right. Now you got to give me a little prompt. I've been calling you guys since 2003. You guys haven't been there that long, but I know you will be in the future. You got to tell my man, when I call, like I called earlier, he's got to bump me at least once because I got to get a little prompt. You know what I'm saying? I got to have some bragging rights. I agree with that. Let me get to my point. Just once that Ryan is that young Ryan is that the fellow? Yeah. He's still on the ropes, you know, Claire. He's just figured it all out together. All right. Well, and I love that. I love him and I love his, uh, casserole, my boy, casserole. But anyway, let me get back to this. I think this is, this is going to be the toughest game they might have all year. Here's why. We both know he's amazing. The offense is standing up. The defense is doing what they can. But now they get to try and catch that quarterback who, um, at his size is almost as fast as, as the commander's quarterback, right? So it's going to be a boat race as far as I'm concerned. And I, the offense, I think, is going to score probably because their D isn't that good. So the offense is going to score probably 24, 26 points that D has got to step up for the commanders. If they can pull that off, now here we go. A hot take. I think they might be in the entire conference championship. It's not outrageous again, though. It's just now becoming the norm start thinking this way. And I'm not telling anybody not to, but it's hilarious. It's just funny. Even after week two, we were all saying this team's not that good, but that was three games ago. And it's a lifetime ago has changed. That's the NFL. Think about the jets. They fire Robert solid this morning. They play the bills on Sunday. If they beat the bills, they'll be tied for first place. And the story is going to be come Tuesday or Wednesday in this league. Jeff Obrick is the man. Nathaniel Hackett was held back by some new energy in the building. Rogers is happy again. Look at him smiling as he throws this game winning touchdown. Everything changes so fast in this league. Three weeks, three weeks to go. The other way, I guess technically, but you keep Jaden Daniels healthy as long as that guy's showing up to the stadium with you, you're going to have a shot. We're two weeks in a day, I think, from right before that opening kickoff, when Cincinnati, the whole building was electric and everyone's jumping up and down and bouncing. And I had to scream right next to you. They're going to get mud stopped. And now we're like, they're probably the best team of league, probably the one who's two weeks in the day. Grant and Danny with you on the fan next on G and D. I want to take more calls from you guys at 800 636 1067 on your first fields against the Ravens. Also, we'll tell you who's getting booted off the island on commander's survivor. Your last chance to vote right now at Facebook dot com slash grant and Danny and some things we think we think coming out of week five in the NFL. We're G and D.