Grant and Danny

Jets Fire Head Coach Robert Saleh, How Many Teams Are Better Than WSH Right Now?

10.8.24 Hour 1

1:00- We open up today's show discussing the huge news of the day as the Jets fired head coach Robert Saleh after a 2-3 start.

20:40- As we move on to the Ravens game this weekend, how many teams do you think are actually better than the Commanders?

Broadcast on:: 08 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue, and guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the name of your price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law. Good Tuesday afternoon, and welcome in to Grant and Danny. It's October 8th, 2024. We are taking you all the way up to 630 tonight. Appreciate everybody listening to this show, as always. We've got a great one planned for you. ESPN analyst, Lewis Riddick, who's been very high on Jaden Daniels from Jump Street joins us in one hour at three. 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 IT cadre coming up in about three hours right here on G and D. 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 my 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 bots, 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 hang up side 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 paint 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. How about that, by the way, asked 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 McClellan 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 had 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 Cosmey. Cosmey 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, Franky Louvoo, Benjamin Saint-juiced, Quan Martin, Jeremy Chin, and then Austin Seibert. The kicker is still around. Seibert was perfect again. Wagner had a big game. Louvoo had two and a half sacks, may have been the best player on the field for Washington. Saint-juiced did nice job and coverage against Amari Cooper. So those guys should all be safe. But it's your vote. Not ours. Facebook.com/grantand. 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.com/grant and Danny. This person on offense had eight targets, but only two catches. A couple drops, a couple balls that absolutely 100% should have been caught. There weren't zackers. Yes. Okay. You're sending zackers 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 going to hold it against him because he did everything on the football field. If Robert Salah 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 there at home. But he got to work, study in 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 Salah 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 Salah 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 in not playing well, it's been a disaster mostly. Like Salah's defense is number one in the NFL right now. The offense is 27th. Salah fired. Rodgers is going to continue to start and probably try to bring in his buddy Devontae Adams. Yeah, easy to get rid of one than the other at this point, right? Just giving 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, I'll get to Aaron Rodgers 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 numbered as far as I was concerned. Well, it wasn't the first time either. Remember in mini camera that excused absence, excuse absence thing. Yeah. When Rodgers 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. 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'd continue to play like crap and he'd get fired. 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 has 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. Yep. 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 Salah, a little bit's on Aaron Rodgers, I don't know if it'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 run. Are we sure? Yes. Because I was sure before the year his numbers are awful. There are atrocious. Brian Boulder 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 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 blinging 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 the debris saw is getting stuffed. Listen, I haven't gone carried for Carrie, but remember those years where Washington starting running back was pretty pedestrian, then 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's 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 off at 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, that's why that's why 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 and adult and doing any adult and things. But that happens 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. This is one of those. It's worth a shot 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 e-values were too talented to be this bad, then yeah, get rid of the culture center 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, did the Packers look like they did the right thing right now? The way the Jordan love development is gone, siding with basically Gouda Kunst and 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 Jane 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 the more 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 off to a kind of their, you know, a middling start. Washington is off to a rowing start. This is the match up 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 1067, the fan YouTube page in addition to being live coast to coast on the Odyssey app and all over town on 1067. I'm doing that thing when I don't have an explanation. My wife asked me, why'd 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 five and O 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, going to be a heck of a show, Grant and Danny on the fan. 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 Merad, 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? And 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 or 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 industry 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 what's always that's 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 the city's 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 this 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 post season when it comes to it, right? Same with Baltimore, same with Kansas City. We all know this Kansas City is the weirdest five and O 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 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 could put him as high as second or third in the NFL right now. And without without question. 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? I want to say the Jets. They're 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. We're on council for two and 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. Yup. They have one loss where they just didn't show up were terrible. So other than that, they were really good. Yeah. So that one's close. I'd still beaten teams like the commander said. Again, now we're picking nets. These are top five teams here. Yeah. So I would say Houston because the way they beat Jacksonville two weeks ago, I'm kind of going, you deserve 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 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 team's also CD lamb and 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. 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 the commanders played them this weekend. You would expect to beat the commanders. Is that right? Yes. This is the scene lined up on 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 beat Baltimore. So I would agree with you on that one. You can throw the Chiefs and the Niners as mainstays in there. 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 of the race. Yeah, to the college point, you'd expect to be competitive, which is different than we're used to around here. The point to me is remember when the number of times they would 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 pass 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 race, 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 commander at this point because even the best team in the league, which is the Kansas City Chiefs, are playing very human at this point. Yeah. Yesterday, I think they got 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, but it's not like we're good. This isn't style points, Chiefs. This is, 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 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. 806361067. 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 will talk to him about the commanders four and 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, right? 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 enormously Green Bay chem roaring back so that 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 oh teams in the league, the only five and oh 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. 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 it shifted closer to 500, but three out of 12 teams with winning records. So I 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, where I thought we're going to be good. Yeah. And Detroit, that's that is as tough a schedule to start a season is 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 own. That's right. 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 in there 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 push 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 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. 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. Jubes and Gaithersburg. How many teams are better than Washington right now? I'm going to be a hypocrite in my statement. Put an analytical guys with the best of the best, but I test guys with the best of the best. I can't say the fight in because Sam Darnell, if you remember when he was with Carolina, he had a hot start and those ghosts just popped up on him. Now I'm feeling like that's 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 the full ranked champ, their current reigning champ, and with all the injuries on offense, they're still five and no, but that don't mean I don't think we can beat him. 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 value. 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 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 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 offense. You've packed the box and Jaden's going to pick you apart or Edward's coming at you on the screen. You drop seven and our winning game is unstoppable. So we may end up looking at a season where nobody's better than us. 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 Russia who Washington should have drafted quite frankly a couple of years ago. That guy has Jaden 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 could spin the wheel and have it just landed 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 G and D.