Best Interviews on 106.7 The Fan/Team 980: March 23-27, 2026

I'm Spencer and I work at United Health Care.

Suspenser, why do you care?

I care because my daughter Adeline has special needs.

I am motivated by Adeline who inspires me every day.

I am driven to help families like mine navigate the healthcare system.

I'm so blessed to lead an amazing team at United Health Care focusing on the member experience and making that better.

I'm Spencer and I'm committed to care.

Testing season is right around the corner and this is when confidence really matters.

When kids take time to review key concepts and strengthen their skills before assessments, it can make all the difference.

IXL helps reinforce what they're learning right now so they walk into every test feeling prepared, capable and confident.

IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning.

Whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts, designed for students from pre-K through 12th grade,

IXL delivers personalized interactive practice that adapts to your child's level and pace.

It's an easy, effective way to support learning as the school year heads into its final stretch.

Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests, proven in all 50 states.

IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the US.

Make an impact on your child's learning.

Get IXL now and listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at IXLlearning.com slash audio.

Visit IXLlearning.com slash audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

Kevin Sheen here to tell you about when our HVAC system started acting up recently.

Foley Mechanical was the first call we made. Dan Foley came out himself and worked directly with my wife.

And let me tell you that's saying something. Foley's no corporate chain. He owns the business top to bottom. His crew is outstanding.

Their experts, especially with older homes and radiator heat, which is rare these days.

Foley Mechanical covers DC, Maryland and Virginia and proudly installs a Manna HVAC systems. Trust me, they know what they're doing.

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Welcome back, Chuck. He's coming to you live on 106 of the fan and the team 980. We're hoping to connect with Nick Cross, new commander's safety.

One of the many guys they signed on defense in Free Agency Cross signed to reported two year deal worth a maximum of $14 million.

It's got a good last name for junkies. Is it before and after? Is that the name of the game?

Missing link? Missing link? Yeah, that's the name of the game. Nick, Cross, Court, Nick, Cross, Shack.

There's a lot of different ways you could go with that. Good name. Solid name.

So, I want to bring that back. We're giving away Wizards tickets 9.45. Sure. Sure. Why not?

I haven't done it a long time. Do it. Sure. Well, hopefully he calls here any second now.

He had 97 solo tackles last year, physical safety, three sacs, 16 pressures, which was first among safeties.

And not only did he go to method, says here, booey native. Yeah, booey.

I'm doing good. Look at that. Excellent. So I did want to mention one thing that when I was at the game, I was with my buddy and our two daughters.

The Wiz OKC game. Yes. And we were in our little area there. And bartender definitely said, guess my age mid 40s.

He guessed your age. The female. Yes, guess my and my buddy's age. He said you guys look like what in their 40s.

Nice. And I. She is. She is. She is. She is what you were.

I was wearing a hat that strippers really into you too. She is working on for tip. My buddy isn't his 40s.

We just, you know, and I told her no, I took her on my head said no 56 and she's blown away. And she said, I'm not kidding.

And she said, it was it was a lovely black woman. And she said, it's the Riz. That's what she says. You got the Riz. Thank you.

Is this before or after you gave her $20?

Take care of it. I honestly, I honestly did. What did you do? My buddy tipped her and I tipped her.

I'm being dead honest with you. Valdez. I don't know the answer.

We should find this right now. Yeah. Aren't there apps where it just takes a picture of you and it guesses.

I just have a moment without you guys. It's like, why can't I just have a moment? She said, you open the door. I'll be honest.

I was dressed young for my age. Like what I wore was. Let me guess ready.

When I went to Wizards game, like, you know, seven or eight years ago, they gave me this Wizards warm up jacket.

It's very cool. But I rarely wear it. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's actually in my profile pic.

Shoot it. So I wore that. I actually wore this Cornell hat and I had jeans.

I mean, I was dressed like, I wasn't dressed like some old, you know, foggy.

And she said, I had the Riz. Do you know what else she said? Great skin. She said, you have great skin.

Great skin. Thank you. I don't know what to tell you. Mate, listen, she wasn't right in front of me.

She was like for me to Valdez. I mean, that's a good scale.

I see some blemishes on like, I have a H spots on my skin. Good skin.

But great skin. Again, you have to knock me down a notch.

I'm not. I'm glad you said that. Thank you. Props to you.

Great skin. You got the Riz mid 40s. Thank you.

It's a big day for you. Well, I know you don't have a two year or $14 million contract.

Look at our next guest. The math. The booey guy.

Yep. All right. Let's talk to Nick. Newest safety for the Washington commanders.

What's going on, Nick?

Nothing much, man. How you going?

What's actually the booey? Did you grow up in three of us grew up in point of Riz South, booey?

I'm going to run off a church road on right path.

I don't know. One more than you. One more community.

100% 100% great air. It's fancy over there. It's very nice.

A definitely a nice spot fancier than where we grew up.

Definitely is. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

What was your go to spot in booey when you were growing up?

What do you mean food wire? Yeah. Yeah.

Restaurant. Favorite restaurant. My mom. My mom. Get the kisser.

You guys weren't in the booey town center and going to like longhorn.

No, my mom. My mom. My mom throws down.

So you stay in the house and hate that stuff.

Did you guys ever go to Rips? I feel like everybody in the area had to have been to Rips at least once.

Rips with that. Rips. Okay. Right next to the Chick-fil-A. You don't remember the Chick-fil-A.

Right by the basic stadium.

Oh, no, no, I barely went over that side of you're barely over there.

Okay. I got you. I got you.

Hey, so Nick, my congrats, bro. You're coming home.

Congrats on signing with the commanders.

We all believe in most, you know, I'm sure most commander fans believe that you're going to make this a better secondary.

What was the whole process like, you know, leading up to your decision to finally sign the contract with them?

It was a long process, you know, you know, pre agencies is a process where it's it's really just supply and demand, you know, teams want, you know, only a select few teams want safety and are willing to pay for them.

So, you know, my agent called me.

I think it was like Wednesday morning. It was like a like, you know, Washington's interested, you know, they'll send it off from a little bit.

And, you know, once a day got going and we got things going and worked out, he was like, you know, yeah, like, yeah, he hadn't DC.

I was like, all right, like, you know, sounds good.

Was your, was, did you have a relationship with Durante at all?

And the fact that, you know, he's like a secondary guy.

Like, that's kind of his track record. Is that factor in it all?

I don't have, you know, it's a good thing. You know, I met with Durante, you know, early on that Wednesday morning.

You know, him, DQ and secondary coach, you know, he sat, we kind of sat down, you know, zoom in and talk a little bit.

You know, just got a feel for each other and everything. And, you know, it's a good thing when you have a deep on the corner. It was a secondary guy because, you know, he's going to draw a lot of stuff for the secondary.

So, you know, it's a, it's a good thing. You know, he's going to, he's going to put his time into the secondary and make sure that we're right and make sure that we're doing what's supposed to.

So, you know, it feels good to have a secondary minded defensive coordinator.

Now, you're known for being a guy that can really help out with the run. You kind of do everything, guy, though. That's that's how you physical.

That's how you think about yourself, right? Not just run support, like you could do a little of it all.

Yeah, I mean, I always feel, you know, the box safety label was kind of a little, um, most of the words.

It doesn't tell the full story. You know, yeah, I lined up down there and, you know, I have a great impact on a run, but I mean, you know, I tend to ball away too.

You know, all the years I played. I've taken the ball with me quarterback and, you know, made some pretty good plays in the past coverage and, you know, getting interceptions and whatnot.

So, I mean, you know, I think it's a little, um, misgivings to just say, oh, he's a box safety.

You know, I have the, the intersections and the ball production to say otherwise.

Now, so Washington went out and signed a bunch of guys and for agency, including yourself, right?

I'm Leo Chanel from Kansas City, Jason from New England, away from the chargers.

They went out and got a meek Robertson. Did you know any of these guys? The guys that you'll be playing with this year?

Uh, I don't, I don't, I know Jay. I know Jay, obviously. Yeah, Jay, right. He played college, college boy together.

Um, you know, uh, always played against each other when he was at Penn State.

So there's a little later there. Other than that, you know, it's a, you know, I just kind of was introduced to a me a couple of days ago.

So, right. It seemed like a real cool guy. Um, that Leo, when I came in to sign in for the two weeks ago.

So, so you were also a division rival with Chig over the last few years with you being an Indian him being in Tennessee.

Did you guys have any, any run ins on the field together? Now you guys going to be teammates again. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, we have a couple of runners and, you know, as always, you know, we always joke about it. I always tell him, you know, nothing.

And he got the, the better of all a lot of those matchups. Um, but you know, always good to compete against him.

He's a great, great tight end, extremely talented, extremely gifted. Um, someone who you definitely, definitely have to account for when, when going into Sunday.

Yeah. Uh, sorry. So what's the process going to be like for you to, uh, I don't know where you're living right now, where you're working out in the off season.

But what's going to be the process of, of finding somewhere to live, you're going to live in Ashburn, you're going to find something close to the, to the park.

Um, maybe with, maybe with family. Yeah, you know, by trust, try to find something, you know, close me in the days of, you know, coming to work, you know, yes, you know, coming home.

So it's a lot, you know, about an hour or 15 or 15 miles. I mean, it's, you know, coming to work, coming to, you know, help, you know, do what I can't help this team.

And go out there one football games. I saw that, I saw that matters to me. Um, so, you know, get somewhere close and, you know, be able to settle in and then get myself together.

What, what's been your, uh, just kind of like your impression of Jaden and Terry and some of the, those are the key offensive guys that they have here.

Um, you know, playing against them, that kind of thing. What's been your impression overall?

Um, I'm, I mean, I don't know Jaden. I mean, we went to open them together in high school. Um, but, you know, great quarterback, great arm.

Um, you know, very dynamic offense. Terry someone I've watched over the years. Um, super, super cool guy, you know, super fast, super, you know, great, great route runner.

Um, you know, we played them back my rookie or any, you know, kind of, he had a great catch in the game.

To put a position to win. Um, so, you know, ultimate competitor or someone I can't wait to work with.

And, you know, someone who's done it for a lot of years at a high level.

So, you know, I can't wait to pick his brain and see how he does it.

Talking to Nick Cross, new safety for the Washington commanders. I want to go back to last season with the Colts.

What was it like when Philip Rivers joins the team? What was kind of his aura and what was it like being around a guy who hadn't been playing football for a while.

But actually played pretty well for you guys.

It was, it was, it was pretty surreal. Um, you know, I, I kind of laughed because, you know, I remember watching Philip when I was like, you know, four and five years old.

Um, you know, I kind of jumped and said, like, you could be my dad.

Yeah, you know, you know, how he was, you know, he brought his cleats or his turf shoes and whatever he wore.

Um, and, you know, it was kind of like, you know, I was like, man, where'd you get those from? I haven't seen those in, you know, forever.

And I brought him up the trophy key. So it's kind of the thing that you want to practice.

And just kind of chuckle a little bit just, you know, seeing him and watching them move around and everything.

But, you know, great leader, you know, still had great anticipation, you know, extreme knowledge in the game.

So it was, it was great to see. I'm curious. What kind of player was Alec Pierce? He got a lot of money.

Apparently commanders went after him, but he decided to stay in India.

Oh, great, great player. I'm going to, you know, we came in together into into India.

Um, you know, extremely fast, you know, great, great hands, you know, 50, 50 balls are going to always, you know, come down with him.

Um, you know, can run all the routes and just a great guy having a lot of rooms, you know, just things the right way.

Joy to be around. Definitely enjoy my time playing away with AP.

All right, man. Well, it's, it's good to have you back, bro. Um, congratulations again.

Thanks for calling in and look for big things this year, buddy. Big turn around defensively.

Hopefully we'll meet face to face one day, man. We really appreciate it.

I don't know. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you, pal.

Thanks, Nick. Best of luck. All right. Sounds good. All right, buddy.

Hi, bro.

I knew in the district of Columbia.

Got Nat's baseball coming your way in about an hour. Nat's O's exhibition.

I'm Brian. I work at United Health Care.

So, Brian, why do you care?

I care because I don't want to leave anybody behind.

I oversee one of the biggest resource center in United Health Care.

I see people walked in in my office every day, just like my parents.

They have no idea about the health care. I feel like they're my uncles, aunties.

I treat these people like family. I'm Brian, and I'm committed to care.

Testing season is right around the corner.

And this is when confidence really matters.

When kids take time to review key concepts and strengthen their skills before assessments,

it can make all the difference. IXL helps reinforce what they're learning right now.

So they walk into every test feeling prepared, capable and confident.

IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning,

whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills,

or reviewing science concepts.

Designed for students from pre-K through 12th grade,

IXL delivers personalized interactive practice that adapts to your child's level and pace.

It's an easy, effective way to support learning as the school year heads into its final stretch.

Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests, proven in all 50 states.

IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the US.

Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now.

And listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today

at IXLLearning.com slash audio.

Visit IXLLearning.com slash audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

Kevin Sheen here to tell you about when our HVAC system started acting up recently.

Foley Mechanical was the first call we made.

Dan Foley came out himself and worked directly with my wife.

And let me tell you, that's saying something.

Foley's no corporate chain. He owns the business top to bottom. His crew is outstanding.

Their experts, especially with older homes and radiator heat, which is rare these days.

Foley Mechanical covers DC, Maryland, and Virginia and proudly installs a Mana HVAC systems.

Trust me, they know what they're doing.

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It's a mission game talk today, Brian.

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And for us, it's time to jump on the rude guest hotline and talk to our friend, Mr. Fred.

Smooth. Smooth. How are you dude?

Hey, what's up, fellas? JP, I want to give you some props for the read.

You know, on our shows with the team, we had his read and rainbow contest with commercials and reads.

And that was a pretty good one by you, JP.

I win it every time I go on the show. I appreciate it.

Every time I go on the show, I win it, JP.

They can't believe I could read.

Yeah, yeah, we, you know what, be minutes.

We didn't think they did much down there in Louise down in the teaching side.

Hey, Fred, we do this every day though.

Well, you don't.

Fred, let's, let's actually this question before we get into our stuff.

Did you have a problem with Jayden playing the flag football game?

I had no problem with him playing in the five football game.

What's wrong with him playing in the flag football game?

Like this thing about it, just because somebody get hurt playing tackle football,

don't mean they got to be in bubble wrap for the rest of their life and other things that they do.

No, no, no, he can get out there. He can have some fun. He can play.

He's nothing wrong with that.

Um, when you were playing, what kind of stuff did you do in the off seat?

Like, did you play hoops or like, because my thing is I know he played bad hoops.

I know guys are playing pickup basketball all the time.

Like these are young athletes, you know what I mean?

Oh, no, I did stuff.

Most of us do stuff that I'm sure I GM a team owner wouldn't want us to do everything from playing basketball

to riding four wheelers to boating to like just doing life scenes.

Like we're still human beings, even though we're with top notch athletes,

you're still human beings. You still got stuff that you love to do.

You still got stuff that you're going to continue to do after football.

And I always tell people, when you step out of your home,

it's danger all around you.

Like when you jump in your car, it's danger all the way around you.

So you can't dodge it.

Agreed, man. Agreed. Did you watch it?

Did you watch the flag football game?

Yes, I did.

And I want to give a team USA, they props.

They treat us football players like we ain't never played flag football a day in our life.

And that's the difference.

This is different between tackling a player and ripping up a flag.

Like that flag is all I hand coordination.

Yeah.

But tackling this kind of throwing your body into it.

And also these, these dudes are, this is what they do.

Right.

Right.

You get athletes together.

Like one thing about athletes, they like to challenge other athletes and stuff.

Like you get pro football players around a pro golfer.

They go try their damnness to beat their pro golfer.

No, they can't beat their pro golfer.

But they don't give it out.

They got, and that's what team USA did.

They failed this respect.

That's their sport.

Yeah.

Now, if you put something here in the NFL game,

they will not finish the game.

I promise you.

Yeah, like Logan Paul.

He wouldn't finish.

No, no.

And plus him being Logan Paul is people they're going to go after him just because of who he is.

Totally.

Um, like the people that were surprised that the US national flag football team,

that that's the best of our entire country.

At flag football, beating up on the NFL players at flag football.

I just don't understand how they were surprised.

Because they don't know how to separate.

That's such a different game, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know they don't know how to separate the two different things.

That's it.

Yeah, yeah.

When they hear football, that's how they think.

It's football.

It's a parody of football.

So we supposed to be good at it.

Oh, no, we are good at tackle American tackle football.

Right.

Yeah, right.

Um, so Fred, what do you think of all the free agency moves so far?

I mean, they've been very active, added a lot.

Um, really trying to overhaul that defense.

Well, you know what?

When I first looked at that list of names, I was like, hey, am I going to be a pronouncing

of these guys?

No way.

But when I look at it all, there's a group, man, I thought AP did a hell of a job.

He gets such a great job that we're going into the draft with no glare and weakness.

So that tells you everything you know.

Like I've heard GM's and teams say we going best player available before.

But this is really put us in a position to go best player available.

And he's also put us in a position that our first round drink, you know, the one thing I hate,

I hate being a part of a team that we need our first round, sticking around the third round.

Drop pick to contribute first to have a chance to win.

I don't see that this year.

I see a team that the first round pick and the third round pick, they become luxury picks.

They become picks that I'm picking this guy because he's truly the best player available.

I look at the edge.

Everybody want to talk about our past with us.

I think we sold that up.

Everybody want to talk about the linebackers.

I feel like we made some big plays at the linebacker.

I also feel like what people feel like is the weak room or the wire receiver group.

I don't look at them as a weak room.

I look at them as a well rounded room with something to prove.

And that's different.

And no team is going to look perfect on a sheet of paper before it sees no matter after the draft before the draft.

The thing about it is, how quick can the guys that we got now on this roster?

How quick can they become not individuals?

How quick can they become a team?

And that's going to be everything.

That's how they going to be measured.

Yeah, my whole thing is that we play in September.

We don't play right now.

You got the draft coming up.

And they're still probably going to sign some other guys later on.

That's those post June or cuts that are going to happen where you may see somebody that may fit building in somebody you got already.

So this team is going to change again before the season starts.

Yeah, and I think there were people need to be ready for it.

This is not the team that's going to walk into the season.

You have to be patient.

And I know the NFL does a great job of basically controlling the narrative all year long,

because the draft has become its own entity itself.

We just had to come by and there's a show in itself.

So I think people take every little inch of this season and they try to make it permanent.

But it's fluent.

It's still fluent to be there.

Totally agree.

Our friend Fred Smoot joining us right now via the rude guest hotline.

Fred, I wanted to ask you specifically about the corner they sign.

The young man from Detroit Robertson.

Yeah.

I'm sure you've watched some of him now.

What do you think of his game?

You know what?

I love it.

He reminds me of you know how you ring somebody.

Don't barely.

You hit that list.

Why why in there just just.

That's what he is.

Like he's so pesky.

Like he's just one of those dudes.

Like I watched him go one on one with Justin Jefferson.

And you want to talk about a fight of your life.

This dude was going broke for blow with one of the best.

If not the best.

Why receiver in the league.

And he's and he's built in a small package.

I've seen these players before.

I like I play with Antoine Winfield.

Antoine Winfield was five nine a hundred and ninety pounds.

But I promise you he was going to feel all hundred and ninety.

And he was going to make sure you felt it for four quarters.

And that's what we get.

We get the fighter.

I think what they did.

APB didn't think.

He said I want more than just football players.

I won't add a two.

And that's what he brings to it.

He brings a add a two to it.

And that's what you want that deep in the back.

Because he got a truth about a deep in the back.

We're going to get burnt.

The only difference in back that don't get burnt is the one that never plays in the game.

So we go we go get burnt.

So how fast can you snap back to reality?

How fast can you get back on course?

And how fast can you just keep fighting?

And I think that's what he is.

He's a fight.

I like him, man.

Yeah, it's not watching.

I think he's competitive.

And I think sometimes you get guys with a sake of run.

They look the part.

But they're not confident.

They have one bad play and they go on the rest of the game.

I watch that same game.

You talk about when he went against Justin Jefferson.

He won that matchup.

Straight up.

He won that matchup.

He got beat early and he didn't give him anything late.

And you watch him and other guy he comes up.

He hits people.

You know, he's not going shy away from things.

If I have a guy who's going to give me competition every day and play,

I can deal with that.

Yeah, because guess what?

It makes everybody else compete.

Because they know he ain't going to stop competing.

It's just like when you were out there playing.

They knew you had me to be on the swivel.

Because they knew it's ugly.

I catch it.

If you're slipping, I'm going to catch it.

You know what I go.

But you know when those players on the field be, Mitch,

you know to keep your eyes up.

Um, front up curious, dude.

You played DB in the NFL for a long time.

And you're totally right.

I always joked at one of my favorite like players.

Now they don't do this anymore.

But the locker room used to kind of be divided up by position group.

And I loved hanging out by the DBs.

Because they're the most irrational confident men on the planet.

You say irrational for it.

He said that.

No, no, no, no, no.

Irrational confidence.

Yeah.

Because their job is impossible.

Illusion was right.

Sure.

Like the job on the football field that those men take on is impossible.

So they have to have this outrageous confidence.

You get burned.

You get back out there.

Right?

That most, most definitely.

And it's like, it's, it's similar.

Uh, JP to a major league baseball and being in the battles box.

All right.

Think about this.

Failure in the battles box.

If you go three for ten or four for ten, you are an all star.

You're not even fifty percent.

I don't know for ten.

You're all the famous.

That's what I'm saying.

Like it's one of things where you got to be ready for failure to succeed.

Like I'm going to fail before I succeed.

All right.

And this is how bad we get is cornerbacks.

You can go out there and read it.

Mouse can beat me for a 90 yard touchdown.

I go right over there.

Not when I go back out here for the rest of this game.

I'm going to get treated bad.

So you have to have some mental stability.

You, you have to be a little bit edgy and a little bit ignorant.

And but you also got to be a competitor.

That's the number one thing for a cornerback.

If you willing to compete, you got to get a mouthful.

And the only way to get a mouthful is to keep on playing.

I love that.

You have to be comfortable with failure to succeed at that position.

It couldn't be more true.

So all that said, I'm curious, dude, because on this program last year,

I predicted a pro bowl season for Juan Martin.

And it didn't go that way.

Juan and Mikey had seasons they'd like to forget, probably.

What do you think happened last year with those young guys?

And how do you get them right?

I think they were just watching what the season was.

And then people got to understand, as the defensive back,

I'm at the mercy of my past rush.

The one thing we can do, we can stop the first round.

But when you run the second and third round on the same plate,

we're going to get beat.

We had a lot of extended plays last year with these guys.

And these wide receivers had chance to break routes off and running another route.

And now I got to check the second round and now I'm getting beat.

And once they start to happen, they start to snowball.

And then the one thing I found with Juan was he was involved in a lot of plays

down the field in the run game.

So that tells you everything you need to know.

If I'm safe, then I'm hitting people 30 yards down the field.

And I'm doing this four, five, six, seven, eight times.

Some wrong with the defensive front.

It ain't all about the defensive backs in this one.

And yes, Mike gave up a lot of yards, but he also made a lot of plays.

Also, it's like I said, it's one of those things where if the defensive front

is not intact, the rest of the defense real suffer.

It's nothing we can do in the back end to cover up the front end.

But guess what?

If the front end is good, they can cover up the back end.

I don't need the best athletes on the back end if I got a front.

Yep.

I'm with you there.

So as we get closer to draft season, I think it's pretty interesting.

To your earlier point, prior to March 15th, they had a desperate hole at Ed's

Russia.

I think the real financial commitment to Owe multiple years, that's a real long term

contract.

You could kind of pencil him in as one of your guys.

You add chase on.

You add a menahoe.

You should get towards Armstrong back healthy.

Resign wise.

Leo Chanel.

Chanel too.

Sure.

Like everything.

They've added a lot.

I think there's no longer a desperation to take a pass rusher at seven.

That said, I'm still cool if they do.

I'm curious if you think free agency has impacted what they should do with the

seventh overall pick.

I think it has.

I think it's just, I think it's made of the clear picture of, we don't know who

they're going to draft.

And I think that's a great thing, man, because you got to realize we are

basing.

I hate to say this with the mercy of the New York Jets.

All right.

The New York Jets are going to set the tone.

We know who the number one pick is in those.

But who do the Jets pick at number two?

Because if I'm them and I got Arby a recent there, I love his athletic prowess.

I love everything he brings to the table.

But what is he?

Is he a stand-up linebacker?

Is he an Ed's?

I've seen you rush the edge enough to give you a pick over David Bailey.

I can't say you a better linebacker than Sonny Stiles.

So are you drafting him on what he could be or what he eels?

Because when I'm drafting in the top 10, I want you to be who you are.

I want you to have some trait that I know that I'm getting from the door.

So I say the draft stars with the Jets.

I think David Bailey, if he is there seven, you have to pull the trigger on here.

There's a couple of freaks in this draft that you have to pull the trigger on.

If Jets, my love is still there seven.

You've got to pull the trigger on them.

Sonny Stiles, who I love, if he's dead seven, you've got to pull the trigger on them.

So if some guy's in here, you just cannot pass up there seven,

but then if some guy's, especially if you want to go positional,

Cardinal Tate, do you want to take him there seven?

Do people feel like that's overdrafted?

If Caleb Downs is there, do you want to pull the trigger on him

and bring another safety in the room?

Like I said, this is a luxury pick for us.

And it's a couple of dudes that fit the spotted seven,

but who are you overdrafting and who are you under drafting this the question?

It gets to the point though, like, what if you got a Sonny Stiles and a love there?

If I got Sonny Stiles and I got Jets, my love there,

I got to ask myself, which one could take my friend chas to a whole another level?

And if I'm pairing up Jets, I five with Jets, my love,

I'm telling you, you talking about 10 years of trying to figure out how to stop these guys.

So I would probably go Jets, my love there, but I really, really love Sonny Stiles.

Like, this guy was built to play football.

What do you think about Downs, though, how state safety?

I like Caleb Downs and my guy Logan Paulson.

He's very, very high on Caleb Downs.

I like Caleb. I think he does everything good,

but I don't think he great at no one thing.

So that go the thing when he comes to take up,

but I'm taking a safety in the top 10.

I'm thinking Sean Taylor.

Now, I know y'all watch this kid,

and he don't give up Sean Taylor to me.

And Sean Taylor was once in a lifetime type of safety,

but that's what I'm taking in the top 10.

I like Caleb.

If he's there and the other guys are gone,

I will spend that draft pick on him,

but he's not been my favorite.

I'll just say that.

Gotcha.

Who's your favorite of the receivers?

I don't know if you agree with this friend.

For me, from a roster construction standpoint,

and I mean, JSN just got 40 a year, right?

42.

From a roster construction standpoint,

drafting a receiver there would make the most sense

for the future, for now and the future.

But I just don't know that there's a guy

that demands you take him at seven.

Yeah, it's not a guy that demands you take him at seven,

but if you're going to take somebody at seven,

you have to be caught in their tape.

Yeah.

And I think that's who you're going to have to take in

because of his size, speed, everything that he brings

to the table, it makes him different than almost every

while receiving that we already got on the roster.

I think Jordan Tyson might have the most talent of them all,

but he's, you can't make the club in the tub.

He always hurts.

But I like Denzel Boston.

Denzel Boston from Washington.

You talking about a mixture of size, strength, speed,

and that's a guy that you could probably,

if you could sneak around and get another second round pick,

you might can get him in a second.

So if guys there, you got Chris Brazil,

that said Tennessee, who's long, strong in controlling.

That's one thing about Tennessee.

They always going to have to receive that could run.

Or you could just wait till like the third round

and go for a guy from another day like Melacopheals.

Now that size, that's a red zone target.

He'll be ready to play, could give him up the bus.

So if some guy that you don't have to get,

you can get a larger rock, the Indianity,

big guy, big catch radius,

you can get him from any animal.

So it's some guy that you can get.

And that's, you know what you got assets of JP?

How different is me drafting Melacopheals?

How different is that between him and Karnelta?

That's like, to me, the last few drafts

and the draft next year have these absolute stud receivers

no doubt, like no questions about it, right?

And I just don't know that this draft has it.

And I mean, you're right.

Melacopheals 64220.

Just huge.

He's a, he's a tick slower, I would say, than Tate.

Yeah.

But, but he's 64.

He's a ball.

Like, if they don't go,

I just think you're going to get an option

for a real blue chipper at seven.

Styles, love, downs, whoever you may like, a lot there.

Hell, what if Bailey Falls or Bane?

Like, I'm okay with just getting a stud

and then trying to get a receiver at 71 too.

I think, when you talk about pure past Russia,

I think Bailey is the best out of all these guys.

Like, he, you know, he gets off the ball with explosion.

Some people think he still, I don't think he's there still.

I think he can turn the corner with leverage, with lean,

and his spin moves.

Like, this kid can rush the path.

That's all he's ever done.

His whole life is rushed to pass.

So, yeah, I understand what you're coming from.

And I don't want to hear nothing about Bane,

Kangaroo, I've just seen Kangaroo fight too.

All right, they get down with it.

I'm with Bane.

Well, you are absolutely.

My thing with Bailey, people like,

he's just a past rusher.

That's good.

Like, he's the one dude of Reese Bane and Bailey.

You know exactly what he is.

That's good.

It's crazy.

Yeah, that's good.

Like, do I got to identify you?

Like, that's what I'm saying.

Like, I want, if I'm drafted you in the first round,

I need something that I have to identify with your game.

Something that you major in.

Like, I don't want to hear what you're mining in.

Tell me what you're majoring in.

Apparently, Bill Yates just tweeted this out.

LSU has their pro day right now.

And Mansor Delane just clocked back to back four, three, eights.

Mansor Delane went four, three, eight.

All right.

All right.

Listen, I like that kid.

He's long.

He can, he can make plays on the ball.

He's aggressive.

But it's some corners in his draft, JP.

And, uh, Jermon McCoy from Tennessee.

I think he couldn't be the best out of this group.

Like, I really do think he can be the best out of this group.

This guy gets the ball back.

And I know he did not play this year because he was injured.

But if you look at his film a year ago,

he could have been the first corner a year ago if he would have came up.

Fred, thank you for the time, man.

I appreciate it.

All right, brothers, man.

Keep reading.

That's our guy.

Fred Smooth for a crazy.

Give a follow at F-Smooth 21, Sean T.

When we come back.

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Suck a little Nats baseball. We got an exhibition game today against the O's.

Nobody go anywhere.

That's four weeks from Thursday night.

It will be here before we know it.

And Adam Schaefter will certainly be a part of ESPN's coverage on Draft Night 2026 from Pittsburgh.

A year before it comes here.

Yeah, the NFL Draft, if you've forgotten, will be here in DC in 2027.

Adam Schaefter joins me right now at Adam Schaefter on next.

You guys all know that.

You know, when you said what you said on the Pat McAfee show yesterday about Jeremiah Love,

you know when you are a guest in that sort of setting that a lot of people.

And I've talked a lot about this, you know, over the last few years.

I think I've even talked about it with you before that when you express an opinion,

many construe it to be because you're Adam Schaefter.

Many construe it to be a report, even when it isn't a report.

My question to you is, how do you deal with that one?

And then two, many times when you're sharing your opinion,

it's based on information that you have.

And sometimes it's based on just a hunch connecting the dots like fans would do.

Explain what yesterday was and how you deal with your appearances in that context

with fans who think you're reporting something.

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I really don't love doing extra radio shows.

Because everybody just takes what you say and they turn it into what they want to turn it into

to get clicks and aggregate things.

And so I'm sure I'm going to say something in the next 10 minutes.

It's going to wind up, you know, as some sort of mini report or whatever it may be.

It comes in the territory. It's part of the job.

I don't particularly care for that element of it.

I'd love to have a deal with radio stations or anybody without a map of the show.

Please don't post about it because that's where I think a lot of issues arise.

Like yesterday, I'm at that magazine show.

I'm like, yeah, we're talking.

I go, yeah, Tyson, he's going to be a one.

Now I'm not reporting that.

That's just my sense and the rate of the lay of the land today,

a month out of the draft.

All of a sudden headlines everywhere.

Shifter, Tyson will be a one.

I mean, I guess I did say that.

But I guess I'm not allowed to say that because when I say it, it turns into a report.

Right? Like there's no context.

Again, that's my belief.

I've spoken to people.

It doesn't mean he will be a one.

But that's what I believe today.

And there's still a lot to change between now and the draft.

As we show last year, we should go Sanders.

If I had to say today, yes, I guess maybe I should use that word.

I think I think Tyson, so be a one.

But we're talking and I get a little bit excited.

Oh, yeah, he's going to be a one.

And that's what happens.

So in regards to the Redskins or the commanders, excuse me.

We're talking.

You don't have to excuse yourself with that.

Yeah.

We're talking about Jeremiah.

And yesterday, you were showing like, why is she answering?

I go, I know why.

This is Jeremiah love.

And again, this is when we spell it out, connecting the dots.

Okay.

Jeremiah love in my mind.

It's going to be a top 10 pick.

I don't believe a month out.

Don't believe.

Don't think.

Not reporting.

Don't believe or think that I'll go for.

I'm skeptical.

I'll go five.

I don't think I'll go six.

I think Washington.

Nobody.

I, and let me be very clear.

I've never spoken to Washington about Jeremiah love.

Never once.

Okay.

For me, I smoke a lot of people out of Jeremiah love.

And the kind of player he is.

I also know that Washington has been in the running back market.

Ah.

Well, they've been in the running back market.

We've got a great player.

There's a real chance you may get past four or five and six.

It's a real, great player gets past four.

Wouldn't it make sense to take him at seven?

Thus, we land on where we landed.

Other time, that could be shown.

And I said what I said.

Which turns into whatever it turned into.

I don't even know what's out there.

I mean, I, I should have to explain the background in every situation

because sometimes they're more informed of opinions than others.

Now, they're never just thrown out there.

Never.

Okay.

But sometimes I've spoken to the actual team.

Sometimes I haven't.

Sometimes I've spoken to somebody in the know about it.

Sometimes I haven't.

Sometimes I've spoken to various people that know a lot about the drift.

Sometimes I haven't.

So every situation is different.

In this particular case, I'm connected to dots.

And by the way, my job over doing this for the last 36 years has been to connect dots in many cases.

And sometimes you're successful in connecting dots.

And sometimes you're not.

In dress season, you never know how it's going to go.

But I think that you could find a scenario where if Jeremiah loved solid to seven,

he would not get past the commanders.

That's all.

You know, so you basically answered the question and I appreciate that because that's kind of, you know,

from a seat like mine connecting the dots.

It's like Adam Schefter has a lot of information, but sometimes he's just opining.

But with some information, even though he's not reporting.

By the way, you expressed a little bit of frustration over the way your appearances in these situations

sort of get handled, but you've earned that.

Like that.

I mean, the opposite of nobody caring about it would mean that you haven't gotten so much right over the years.

And I like to think I have and I think that's why people lean on some of the things.

And sometimes they make more of it than it should.

And sometimes they make less of it.

And again, that's not my job.

I'm coming on to share what I believe think or know.

And there's a situation.

But again, in my world, I'm not allowed to share in a opinion.

Yes, you are.

Well, the problem is when I say, share in a opinion, it turns it through a new story.

I'm just telling you it does.

You know, you came on with me and Tom Lavera for like seven years on a weekly basis.

And it was all opinion typically, not necessarily, you know, you weren't coming on our show to report anything.

You've done that, you know, so successfully for ESPN and for, you know, on Twitter typically for so long.

But I don't, I think a lot of people can make the distinction at them between, you know, factual reporting.

And oh, by the way, he's riffing.

He's got a hunch.

He's got an opinion.

The problem with somebody like you because of what you've done is that when you share an opinion, there is a belief that it's based on at least some information.

And you said that usually there is some information that helps you connect the dots.

Now specific to Jeremiah Love, you said you've spoken to many people about love.

Do you think that the league in general believes that he's worthy of a top 10 pick or that this is just a draft that isn't super deep in top 10 talents?

Oh, I think he's a great player.

I think there are people that could make the argument that he might be the best player in the draft.

I mean, I think there are people who believe that.

Now again, the draft turns out in the seasons to come, but he's, by all accounts, a great talent, great character that kind of stuff you want to team.

Now we'll see how it shakes out, but there's usually not often not a premium in that position.

And so when that's the case, when that's the case of running back in slides, you say seven, not go one.

And that's how a player like that winds up in a place like Washington.

And again, by the way, he could wind up in Tennessee or New York or clean my sense is he won't, but he could.

I actually got somebody a dinner on yesterday.

They're out of it with me.

He's like, he's going to go four or five or six.

No, he's not.

I don't think so.

And so we've been dinner for a little wager.

We'll see who's right or not.

We've been dinner like, whatever.

We'll say, it's fun.

Right? That's what makes the draft compelling.

What do you think of what Washington's done so far in the offseason in free agency?

Well, I thought that they were very active and had to be active.

And that was their plan.

They went in determined to strengthen certain areas.

They did as good as they could in those areas.

And, you know, when you have caps based like they did and you can go spend money,

more often than not to work out favorably.

Talking to Adam Schefter, the lack of quarterbacks in this draft.

I mean, Mendoza at number one.

You know, this morning there was some conversation about some of the things that have been discussed about Thai Simpson.

Do you think that there's an actual debate among NFL teams as to whether or not Thai Simpson is comparable with Fernando Mendoza or not?

I don't know that yet.

I'm not far enough along.

We're a month out.

I'm coming out of free agency.

I'll be having a lot of conversations about those kinds of things in the next month.

So I don't feel entirely comfortable answering that today.

All right.

Talking to Adam.

And the last one, because I know you only had, you know, 10, 12 minutes this morning,

is do you view what many people around here view the upcoming season to be to be an important one for Dan Quinn?

Well, every season is important for coaches coming up and losing.

That's not an initial flash, right?

Like, if you don't win and you have the poor season, the way Washington did, there are not many coaches who get to endure back to back seasons, poor seasons, and live to tell about it.

It's just not how the league operates.

So, yeah, of course, it's important, but it's important because of everything that's gone across the league,

more so than it's a function of Dan Quinn in Washington.

It's just how the league works.

When you don't win, you get called into question.

When you get called into question, the owner's pay attention.

When you don't pay attention, obviously there are jobs on the line.

So yes, I view it as an important season, but not because of anything that's specific to him, other than it's just the way the league works.

Good to catch up.

Hope you're well.

Thanks for doing this as always.

I appreciate you.

Thank you, my friend.

All right, Adam Schefter, everybody.

I think in that he had 10 minutes for us this morning and made that sort of, he's very busy this time here.

I think he's busy every day in his phone all day long.

But what I really wanted to hear was him explain what went into the love stuff.

There's no doubt that he feels strongly based on information that the player's not going to go to Tennessee and probably not going to go to New York.

That leaves and then Cleveland after that.

That leaves him on the board at seven for a team that needs a running back.

That part of it is connecting the dots.

The first part of it, not so much.

So at least as we sit here, you know, almost a month before the draft and things change.

Obviously, but I think he believes Jeremiah Love will be on the board at seven for Washington to select from.

That would be interesting for sure.

If they had that, to me, it's all about who is still on the board because I still think there are past rushers.

David Bailey in particular and even Reese to a certain degree.

And I would go sunny styles at this point as well.

That if any one of those three are on the board at seven with love, I'm going one of those players before love.

I think I'd even take downs before love.

And in field Yates's latest mock, it goes Mendoza Bailey Reese styles downs five to the giants.

So both Tennessee in need of a running back, the giants in need of a running back, they both pass on love.

Like there will be teams in front of Washington with that need that may end up passing on that position

and leave him available to Washington at seven.

Yates also has Carnell Tate going right before.

That would be the scenario for me.

Bailey's gone, Reese's gone, styles is gone, downs is gone, and Tate's gone.

Then it comes down to what you think of Baines' short arms versus where do you have Jeremiah Love on your board.

And yeah, I think it was Pauli who said, if you could trade back and get the corner from LSU Delane, that would make a lot of sense too.

Sure. The trade back opportunities probably not as great in this draft because of the lack of quarterbacks than in other drafts.

By the way, the Ty Simpson Mendoza thing has gotten very interesting over the last 24 hours because of something that Dan Orlovsky said on ESPN yesterday.

Max, if you have that, go ahead and play it.

Do you have that?

It could fall anywhere in the first round.

You have looked at the tapes. What are you seeing?

I think Ty Simpson is QB1.

I think Ty Simpson is the best quarterback in this class.

I think when you look at the body of work and what was asked of these two quarterbacks, you have to start with the question, who needed to do more to carry their football team to play well?

Ty Simpson, and it's not close between those two quarterbacks.

So when it comes to moments of panic and big throws, real NFL throws, I think it's clearly Ty Simpson.

So it is, I mean, to be clear, this will get a lot of attention that you feel this way because you are at this point I think one of the most, one of the people whose opinions on this stuff matter the most.

And everyone has their opinion and it is, this is certainly going to be an unconventional one.

But you're comfortable saying if you had the choice between the two of them, you would take Ty right now.

I would much rather have, and I like Fernando Mendoza. This is not the slight Mendoza.

I would rather have Ty Simpson at the 15 to 20 range than for Fernando Mendoza at one.

Man, I mean, I'm glad we're not having these conversations anymore about that position.

But there's no way for me that Ty Simpson would go before Fernando Mendoza.

If I, if I were the fan of a team that were in desperate need of a quarterback and I had a choice, I mean nobody's going to have a choice because Mendoza is going number one.

But to me, Mendoza really looked the part.

His accuracy as a thrower was flawless.

Like he was the most accurate thrower for a guy in that first year starting in that position for a contending team that ends up winning the national championship.

I know a lot of people will look at that quarterback draw for the touchdown in the Miami National Championship game and say what a battle or what a competitor, no doubt.

But to me, it's some of those incredible high precision, accurate throws, back shoulder throws that he made to guys like Cooper and Sherat, et cetera.

Like he is outrageously accurate.

You can't really teach outrageously accurate. You can teach somebody to become more accurate.

But that's something that Shanahan always said. If you can't throw with anticipation naturally and throw accurately, naturally, you can coach it up to a certain point, but you can't coach it up to a lead.

He's a lead accurate from an accuracy standpoint.

Like to me, I liked Ty Simpson, certainly earlier in the year, rather than later in the year, and it wasn't all his fault, competition, injuries, et cetera.

But Mendoza, to me, actually legitimately looks the part.

I don't know about number one overall, but that's the nature of the position and what he gives a team that doesn't have one.

You can't wait for it if you're at number one on the board.

Yeah, that to me is not Simpson is a distant number two on the quarterback board. Isn't it nice though that we don't have to talk about that? Thank God.

Kevin, she and show the team 980 and the team 980.com.

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You got baseball starting all over the country. You got sweet 16 tonight. But if you know Brian and I.

Black football. We like football and helping us learn more about football is the great Stacey Dales joining us right now.

Stacey, how are you? Thank you for making time for us.

It's great to be with you JP and the legends himself of Bimic.

By the way, the chatter behind you sounds fantastic. I live in Chicago and the train.

My friends tell me was packed this morning for the cub home opener. Oh, I bet. I bet. Yeah, we're doing a.

We're doing our show remote from a bar in Virginia and folks are folks who get fired up. Beers are born.

Thank you. Sinaniganism. Sinanigan is going on for sure.

No day drink it from you guys. Come on. Knock the pepper. Yeah, we're off at two though. So we'll see what happens then.

There you go. So Stacey, I saw earlier in the week you were in South Bend for Notre Dame's pro day.

I don't think the commanders are really making it much of a secret how much they'd like to get Jeremiah love.

How impressed are you with the person because I know he spoke at length and then what are the folks around that Notre Dame program say about love?

Yeah, I don't think it's any secret. And I know Brian's probably pounding the table there too for this guy that every team would love to have Jeremiah love.

I mean, you know, speaking to Marcus Freeman, the head coach at Notre Dame, who, you know, you can say well, every head coach is going to beam about their players and, you know, do everything they can to help increase their stock.

You don't need. There's nothing you can say that will help Jeremiah love more. He's done it. He's done everything.

I think my biggest takeaway in my private conversations with personnel, just being at Notre Dame and talking to NFL personnel on the field.

His humility and his football recall, I was talking to one personnel member and they were talking about protections. They had a meeting with him on protection and they didn't even need to use the board.

Now, be met. You understand what that means, right? Like he was, he was verbalizing different protections without visualizing protections.

So his football like you, I think maybe the most underrated aspect of his game, but they have Marcus Freeman call him a unicorn to me.

I don't take that word lightly. And then I think what he does in terms of mismatch is going to be unparalleled at the next level.

You know, when I spoke with Freeman and even talking to Jeremiah, your hit ability as a receiver to be motioned out of the backfield and jump into, let's just say the slot or into open space, some dead space.

How can a linebacker descend this guy? You want to play physical with him? He can run through you. If you duck your head, he's going to jump over you.

So he isn't just a running back. He even told me in our interview, hey, I wouldn't mind playing Gunner. I wouldn't mind going to special teams, which Brian, I know you understand what that crossovers want.

Yeah, they don't let him do that.

Oh, he said the same thing, man. He said the same thing.

But like, who would you compare him to or do you think Bijon is the closest person to him because Bijon can line up and run him off from a slot as well?

And is he a little better than Bijon when it comes to route running?

That's a great question, Brian. Listen, he's bigger than you think. Jeremiah is a long, thick running back.

I had this conversation. I've had it with a couple people since the combine. You think about Christian McCaffrey, mentioned Bijon or Bijon, as he likes to be called.

Christian McCaffrey probably has the versatility skill set that you want with Jeremiah Love, but McCaffrey is so twitchy. He's like a track and field athlete.

So with that twitch element, that makes him a little bit different. The interesting comp you guys that I've gotten and potentiality of what you can do with him is your gifts.

I mean, Gibby is actually a little bit bigger than people realize, like on six feet, JP, you and I talk all the time and we're out of events together.

You got me by like a half inch. I lie and tell people I'm six feet. You're actually six feet.

Jameer Gibbs has that elusive feeling. Let's not forget that Jeremiah Love is a 4-3. He is really fast.

I think he was in the 4-3 if I'm not mistaken, if I wrote it down properly. No, 4-3-60 ran at the combine.

That's moving. That's freaking moving you guys. That's what Jameer Gibbs does.

And so now you're talking about rad homes going and getting Jameer and shocking the world. Well, it's not going to shock anybody that Jeremiah goes high.

It's just a matter of how the dominoes fall. It's going to be to me about how these defensive edgers fall because they're all a little bit different in daily,

bayonets and wreaths. They're all different skill sets. How do they fall? And I think the wild card in this thing is Carnell Tate, the wide receiver.

I've had him going, you know, talking to people, you know, anywhere on the 10 to 15 range, but all the way up to, you know, even six.

I think Cleveland's sitting there at six. You guys are at seven. The commanders are at seven. I think he's kind of a wild card in this.

And so it's Caleb Downs, the safety out of Ohio State. Yeah, absolutely. I have a, I have a comp and I'm curious where you guys land on this. I thought this during the season.

The last dude I saw able to maintain his speed, but also his fluidity. A lot of guys have to break down a little bit if they're going to try to juke somebody, right?

Love does it at full speed. The last guy, I, I have a Reggie Bush comp. I'm curious what you think having seen him work out in person and be. I'm curious what you think about a Reggie Bush comp for love.

I want to hear B first on this one. You know, I, Reggie had a little bit more that Barry Sanders in him, but, but, but, but I think you're right about the break.

He does not break down. He breaks down, but you don't see it. Right. Said like that. He doesn't, he doesn't look like he's slowing down. He has the ability to be able to run and keep his, like, look like his body's moving the same.

But he slows and he cuts on you in full speed, which I think hurts a lot of people trying to tackle it. Stay safe.

I like that breakdown of Reggie Bush. I just think that I would, I would answer it this way. I think the potential you have with Reggie Bush. I think that you, you haven't even greater whoever draft Jeremiah love.

You're going to, and this is goes back to your first point of Brian about the John.

We, the John Robinson is so special that they tailor the offense to him on day one, right? I think you're going to see that immediately with Jeremiah love.

And, and the things that he can do, it's going to transform you offensively. So like, for instance, let's just say the Washington commanders select or have the chance to select because I don't, I don't know if he's going past the Tennessee Titans at four.

Right. That'll be interesting to see what happens there.

But like, if I had him to this offense with Jaden Daniels and the potentiality with this, this continuing to develop offensive line.

And now you have, you have a couple new additions in your defensive back heel, right? You have a shot white Jerome Ford.

But you think about the change up with Rashad white that right there in terms of the differences in those two backs.

If you had Jeremiah love, and then what it will do for Terry McClaren.

This would be a game changer for Terry McClaren, who needs the help.

And if it's not, if it's not, you know, with six picks currently in this draft for the commanders.

I certainly hope that, you know, you target, maybe, maybe it isn't a Malachi fields opposite, you know, Terry McClaren.

Give him that number two receiver moving forward.

How did, how did fields look? Because Washington doesn't have a second rounder, but they have that pick at 71.

And I don't know the field's going to last that long. But I think Malachi fields the player that's really going to help somebody.

Yeah, I think he's sneaky crazy going to be pretty good like a guy standing beside him.

He is a power forward. And so when I think about receivers in the NFL right now.

You know, DK Metcalf is the biggest like physically wide receiver if you're standing beside him.

Malachi fields has the same stature, maybe not as wide and stout, but he is that big.

And so I'll be really interested to see where he lands in this thing because he's going to be.

Now every receiver is going to tell you I can run all the routes and do all the stuff and I'm good in the slot too.

But this is a boundary receiver. Make no mistake about it.

Talking with our friend Stacy Dale's here on the Roode guest hotline are you, you, the Roode makes the best HVAC equipment in the DMV.

You can give Stacy a follow at Stacy Dale, Stacy with the SDA at C.E.Y.

Dales check out all of her work on NFL network.

Stacy, it's interesting as we get, you know, we're now really a month out from the draft.

And there is this emerging storyline. Now Washington won't be impacted by this. They've got their quarterback.

But the Thai Simpson conversation continues to kind of grow buzz.

Do you think my guess is he's a first-rounder just because quarterback gets over drafted no matter what.

How high up do you think Thai Simpson could creep in this draft?

Yeah, it is interesting. And this is how it goes, right? This is exactly what you have to expect each year.

There's going to be a name that changes the dynamic.

You know, I actually have had two conversations JP this week with people regarding Thai Simpson and all of this hyperbole

surrounding now he and Mendoza. And the people that I've spoken to have not changed their grade on Thai Simpson.

These are evaluators. So they have him in the second round.

Okay. Now, what does that come down to?

It comes down to 15 game starting in his college career.

Remember, he played behind Bryce Young. He played behind Jalen Milro.

And really the front half of his tape last year was outstanding, like untouchable.

It was perfect. And then you saw some of the mechanical issues later in the season at Alabama.

That being said, he also played through a couple of injuries.

He is incredibly smart when it comes to the playbook in the short version you got of him last season.

Again, my conversations with evaluators, they have not moved off of their second round grades on him.

But like you said, JP, I mean, I know the jets have two picks in this draft.

And there are some questions at quarterback for them when you look at them.

And they're standing right now with the second pick currently in this 16th pick that they got from the Colt.

I don't know if they strike the court there because maybe, maybe, just maybe, they're sitting around saying,

hey, we see a little bit more potential in the 2027 draft when it comes to quarterbacks, which is true amongst the league.

A lot of teams that need quarterback player looking and targeting that 2027 draft class for quarterbacks.

It's going to be very interesting to see how his thoughts continues to ebb and flow as we approach the end of April.

I think the narrative changes with a lot of people that go and watch film that look former players redo a lot of media.

It changes with guys like that.

But the people that make the decisions, it hadn't changed with them.

And until it changes with them, I'm not going to move off of the second round or something like that too.

I don't care what the person on TV says.

I care what the people that are in those offices.

No doubt, no doubt.

And I would just say this too.

Like, you guys know, Mendoza, Fernando Mendoza for what it's worth.

Right?

Plated a couple different programs, obviously, just won the championship undefeated.

He had 36 games in his career.

He started 35 of them.

Right?

The experience over the multitude of years that he played.

And what does that do, right?

Brian, you could speak to this in all the years you played.

You probably played in a thousand different variations of whether it be a West Coast offense, whatever the run game was.

That experience is Brock Purti in San Francisco having played.

What was it?

Five years out of Iowa State that he was exposed to an array of offensive concepts and tendencies.

And now he can come into the NFL and say to Kyle Shannon, oh, I'm real comfortable with this.

Oh, yeah, I love this concept because I did this my junior year at Iowa State.

And that's the beauty of experience for quarterback specifically is they have that ability to test the waters in college with different concepts.

Now, I would say also about Mendoza.

He didn't play a hell of a lot under center.

So that will be an adjustment for him coming into the NFL.

Totally, totally.

Talking with our friend Stacey Dales here, you can give Stacey a follow at Stacey Dales.

It's S-T-A-C-E-Y.

Stacey, I'm curious, just, you know, reflecting on Washington two seasons ago, everything was a magical carpet ride.

Every break went their way.

Last year was kind of the opposite injuries at the top of the list.

Where do you think this commander's team is at granted, you know, we're a month before the draft,

but they've had a really active free agency cycle.

And they want to get back to the playoffs.

Really active, JP, especially on the defensive side.

I mean, the additions to the defensive front in Shazon and Adoffe Owe.

Obviously adding Nick Cross and Amique Robertson to the back end.

Leo Chanel, excuse me, from Kansas City.

So you've added a couple of Kansas City, or at least one Kansas City player,

who I think is a really good linebacker.

I just want more playmakers.

I know Chego Conquo, coming from Tennessee, is going to take over at the tight end spot.

But like, I just think Jaden Daniels with more playmaking opportunities on the perimeter, and again, out of the back field.

Like, you want to maximize this young quarterback when you can.

And if you have those playmakers, now his legs can get involved again as well.

I mean, 5 and 12 was definitely under achieving last year after what we saw in his rookie campaign.

And we'll certainly see how David Blow impacts the offense from an offensive coordinator standpoint.

Yeah, it's going to be, you know, they've really shaken things up here from the coaching staff.

And it's going to be curious to see kind of what ends up happening and how they reorganize it.

I'm curious, just lead wide.

What has been the biggest surprise for you through the free agency cycle or even some of these coaching changes?

Like, the giants could be a very different team all of a sudden.

It's just been another wild offseason in the NFL.

Yeah, as many coaching changes, I think it was a tie or record.

I want to say, I don't have the number in front of me, but there are so many new head coaches.

But I think what's interesting about it is a lot of them are old hats.

I'm going to be fascinated.

I'm not going to lie about what transpires in Pittsburgh with Mike McCarthy.

I actually had a dream about this recently, which means I think about football way too much.

We're going to quickly learn how much Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rogers actually liked because Aaron Rogers decision,

which he has not yet made, to come back for another year in the NFL,

to me largely hinges upon his relationship with Mike McCarthy.

And things soured a bit at the end, enter in Matt LaFlure to Green Bay,

and that a couple years later, Green Bay does away with Aaron Rogers.

So it could be a two-headed monster coming back for revenge in the NFL,

or does Aaron say, you know what?

I'm going to go do a little more high a wash, high a wash go, or whatever you say.

High a wash go.

High a wash go, Brian.

Get off into this dumb set.

Yeah, I mean, also, if I'm Pittsburgh, how long do you want to do this dance with Rogers?

I don't...

The Rogers of 10 years ago is one of the all-time great quarterbacks of the NFL.

The Rogers of now...

Is it annoying?

He's not the biggest Aaron Rogers guy.

But he's not close, talent-wise, to what he was.

So at some point, don't you want to move forward?

Yeah, you do.

You've added Michael Pittman to your roster.

You've got DK there.

And, you know, Darnell Washington and Pat Fryham with that tight end.

Pretty good running back in Jalen Warren.

And now that Will Howard's tearing down Mason Rudolph, currently, if Rogers doesn't come.

So if Rogers doesn't come back, I think Omar Khan is going to have to really figure out

what he's going to do at quarterback.

I don't see them drafting a quarterback, of course.

I think the Steelers pick at, like, 20 or 21.

Which Tysonson probably would be available there.

But I'm not quite sure, based upon what I've heard around the league.

That's the MO from Omar Khan and the Steelers.

Yeah, I would have some Kenny Pickett PTSD taking Tysonson's control on.

Do you have new hands?

His hands are fine, but it's another guy with just an extremely limited sample size.

Stacey, thank you so much.

Appreciate your raising.

Thank you.

You guys, behave today.

Great to be with you.

Thank you so much.

Enjoy your moment.

Our boss is here.

We have to.

That is great.

All right.

The great Stacey Dales.

You can give her a follow-up at Stacey Dales.

Really good information.

No secrets, man.

Jeremiah Love is a wanted man.

Yeah, he is.

The world needs love.

And the NFL is going to get some.

Nobody go anywhere.

It's that's opening day.

We're live.

It's spankies in Leavesburg.

You can watch the Nats game here.

Listen to it on the fan.

And Great and Danny are going to be hanging out all afternoon.

It's me, Mitch.

Finally.

Baseball is back.

MLB opening night is tonight.

Aaron Judge in the New York Yankees face.

Rafael Devers in San Francisco.

Giants Yankees Giants live on Netflix tonight.

8 p.m. Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific.

A little research on the nationals rotation.

Mm-hmm.

So I asked Cakes this earlier.

They're projected.

Number one starters, Cabe Cavali.

It's got three career wins.

Yes.

All right.

Makes sense.

Whatever.

He's just getting into the majors.

He's had injury issues.

Thor is 100 miles per hour.

Still some promise.

Then they've got Miles Nicholas.

I think that's how Savannah pronounced his name.

72 and 75 in his career.

Foster Griffin.

5 and 5.

Jake Irving.

22 and 30 total.

Zach Latel.

34 and 29.

105.

It is over a hundred.

150 minutes.

And then right.

Not quite.

Not quite.

25 career wins.

I'm going to have to do the exact math.

But that is your expected starting rotation for the Washington

Nationals.

All right.

Let's shift gears.

Talk some puck.

Joining us right now is the Capitol's head coach.

Spencer Carberry presented by the Centers for Advanced Orthopedics.

More physicians.

More locations.

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Coach Carberry.

I just saw an interesting stat.

It said last night was the first time since 2018 that the Capitol's

had three rookies get more than 15 minutes of ice time.

Really?

I didn't know that.

I think dating back to like 2018.

First time it's happened like seven years.

Six months.

Were you even aware that it was kind of a moment even for the season to

have that many young guys playing that many minutes?

I didn't know.

I didn't have no idea.

Right.

Leonard squeaked in at 1505.

I believe last night.

But that's over 15 minutes.

Let's start with Hudson.

What have you seen from him so far?

I think a lot of caps fans are impressed.

Yeah.

He's come in and done a really nice job.

Obviously has 19 years old coming in and playing.

Just first of all the position in the league is.

It's a lot like forward is difficult but to come in and play defense

in the national hockey league at that age adds another layer of

challenges.

And so he's done a really good job with that.

He's learning every game.

And he's shown to which caps fans.

If you've come out to any of the games that he played in at home.

He has a dynamic factor to his game offensively.

And so with the puck is skating his vision.

His lateral movement.

He can do some things that.

That gets you out of your seat.

Wow.

And you know you talk about his ability with the puck.

He's really good at getting the puck into the zone for a power play.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So think of your.

You know just like honestly like his brother the Quinn uses of the world.

And by no stretch am I trying to compare him to.

You know those guys and and where they're at in their career.

But the type of defenseman he is in the abilities that he has very similar to that.

So skating ability deception with his edges ability to.

To gain zone entries and find options like you made a great play the other night at home.

Finds boviliate back door through the scene like he's he's got all that.

Hey coach carbs in your opinion was the little skirmish between Cole and Jack Hughes last week over blown.

I just saw it as two young high level players competing temper slared for about five seconds.

And then it was just back to regular game action.

What did you take away from that?

Yeah exactly what you took exactly what you took.

They sort of get locked up.

I was trying to beat.

Cole wide and and Cole kind of plays him hard.

And competitive which I think sort of caught Jack off guard a little bit and wasn't really happy with the contact and how that.

So you just gave a little shot and then.

That was it.

So speaking of guys getting tangled up last night Pierre Luke Dubois was assessed a match penalty after his collision with Robert Thomas.

You want an interference call from your reaction on the bench which ultimately that did happen.

But Dubois gets tossed and I know that both you and he disagreed with that call.

I noticed you quoted that you watch the replay like 10 or 12 times to try to figure out exactly what was happened.

Take us through that exchange.

And I saw some people mentioning that maybe Dubois sits another game because that I would find that hard to believe.

But take us through that that exchange last night.

Yeah, first of all, I would find that hard to believe as well.

I'm just watching all the replays like I said last night is a really weird play really weird play because they had some zone time and you could see we were starting to get fatigued.

So Robert Thomas goes and sets a pick right he knows what he's doing.

He's a really, really smart great player in the lead.

He sets a pick to try to create some space for his linemate that had the puck.

So he's it's one of those like accidentally on purpose because you're not allowed to do that.

So he's doing it sort of, oh, hey, I'm just skating through this area.

Nothing going on here.

And so he runs into doobs and next thing you know they're locked up and I honestly think when I watch it again.

After the game after my post game comments, I think he was just trying to like while I'll just like go totally limp here with my body and won't brace for any type of contact because I don't want to get called for the interference penalty.

So he basically goes limp and then next thing you know he's he's locked up with Dubois and sort of they're going to the ice together.

So I didn't love the whole how the sequence went down.

I mean, obviously with the penalty and the way that they saw it, he initiates the contact.

So it it was an unfortunate that he gets hurt on it, but I don't see or don't think there'll be any anything more than last night.

So coach, we were talking about over earlier.

Nobody knows if this is his final season.

I wanted to ask you though about this season.

He leads your team in games played at 72 leads the team in goals of 26 leads the team in points with 53, I believe.

If I told you that before the season, would you've expected that? Did you expect somebody else to merge as a leading scorer?

And I guess probably nothing surprises you about Ovis play.

Yeah, I would I would have probably said that answer to you is if if you told me that at the beginning of the year, I would go nothing.

Would shock me when it comes to Alex Ovechkin in his career.

And so whether that's scoring 900 or getting to a thousand total goals or leading our team in in goals for the season, you just can never put a limit on what he's capable of doing.

And this year has been no different. He's had just an incredible career and he continues to do that for us and he's playing well.

Did you see the Ovis list of he was asked to name the best three forwards to defenseman and goalie that he believes are the best caps he's ever played with. His responses were

backstrum seven better off green and Carlson and hope he did any of those names surprise you or does that that kind of makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense that checks out. He's got one of the greatest Russian players of all time and federal even though I don't think it was a lengthy amount of time.

Yeah, I think federal was only here, mate, two, maybe three seasons max.

Gotcha. Yeah, that that checks out because I mean, he it's a tough one, right?

Because if you're talking about longevity and playing with somebody, you could absolutely put Kuzi in that as well.

But you're talking about Sergey Fedorov, who's one of the greatest Russian players and one of the greatest players in general to ever play.

So I could see how he goes down that road.

All right, I know you're not going to give us some sort of answer, but have there been conversations with Ovi about what he's thinking about for next year or is this something that's taboo between a coach and the player right now.

Yeah, the organization stance has been just to give all his space and not bombard him with, hey, what do you want to do this week?

It's always been sort of the thing when he knows what he wants to do.

We'll respect that decision and give him that time and when that time is he'll come and let us know.

It's pretty simple.

Thank you coach, we appreciate it.

Absolutely anytime.

That's right. That's good.

Coach Carberry presented by the Centers for Advanced Orthopedics, more physicians, more locations, more advanced care center on one thing.

You visit cfaorthor.com.

It does feel a little bit like the Aaron Rodgers situation last couple years where, you know, if you're the Steelers, you're waiting to hear from Aaron Rodgers and you're kind of held hostage.

That sounds terrible, but I don't know what word to use.

You just said it at his mercy, right?

I will say this is that having been at the facility this year in particular and finally getting OB in person and sitting with them and then watching him in person with the scrum of reporters.

It's quite stunning how uncomfortable he is with the media having been here 20 some years, whatever it is, like he just doesn't love it.

It's clear and loud as favorite thing to do.

Like he is not comfortable with it.

In my opinion, it's just my opinion and I could see him not wanting to just announce to everybody what he wants.

He just want to deal with it.

I kind of changed my tune.

I thought that he would come back and now I don't think necessarily he's going to come back, but he did talk about his love of being with the boys.

Once he walks away, you never get that back.

Right.

That's for sure.

I mean, even if it's a stupid co-ed soccer team, like he'd be in a high-play home, you'll never get it back.

Now he's to the point where like he's going to be into watching his kids play hockey.

Like he's already like he's a hockey dad.

It's not the same.

I know it's not the same, but like he's he's going to be living vicariously.

Yeah, he was kids as they get older.

He will be.

They get more accomplished.

That's what he's going to miss.

The guy at the locker room time, the travel time to go out for beers time.

But he's still producing.

Yeah.

27 goals.

I just I don't think he's coming back for another go around, but I'm sure I'm wrong.

I think it gets a point where I know it got this way with my son where you know he'd like his fit.

He's like the oldest guy in the locker room.

Right.

You know, you just he's been the old guy looking for a while.

I know.

Yeah.

It just gets worse and worse.

The thing about like, what guys do?

Max Scherzer keeps coming back.

Yep.

Yeah.

Changes teams.

Max is coming back.

I think Max, you'll have to drag him out.

Like, I think Max would come back to pitch 10 innings.

For the whole seat.

Like, I think he just likes Barbara.

What?

I think he just likes being around.

I'm Brian.

I work at United Health Care.

So, Brian, why do you care?

I care because I don't want to leave anybody behinds.

I oversee one of the biggest resource center in United Health Care.

I see people walked in in my office every day, just like my parents.

They have no idea about the health care.

I see people like them, my uncles, aunties.

I treat his people like family.

I'm Brian, and I'm committed to care.

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Accept Discover?

In a little place like this?

I don't think so, Jennifer.

Oh yeah, huh.

Discover's accepted where I like to shop.

Come on, baby.

Get with the times.

Right, so we shouldn't get the parachute pants?

These are making a comeback.

I think.

Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide.

Based on the February 2025 Nilsen report.