Grant and Danny
The Way That This Commanders Regime Treats Families Is Much Different
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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 player's 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 player's 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 player's 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 a family member and say, hey, your boy's all right. You know, 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 and 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. Like they do such a good job with just family and everything like that. So they were the one contacting Dylan, our player director out here contacting my family, my mom, my wife, letting them know he's alert, hey, this is what's going on, just keeping them up to date. And so really, really just, you know, great, 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. And they majored in it. Those days are over. Now, some people will will roll their eyes and go, well, it doesn't make a, you know, third and seventh 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 with StubHub 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 when you're not going to get credit for it. There are probably another hundred 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 it, 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, their son had this football. He'd gotten 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 Maclaurin 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 something wrong with other restaurants. Okay. I love plenty of places. But if you go to a normal restaurant or to a lot of places, like you see your server when you see your server, can I have another lemonade another I see 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 I see 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. Sorry. When you have a second cry guy from another I see 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 cultural 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.