Certifiable Bust?

We've got to go after this and everything we got. They're going to come with everything they got. I'll start off by saying I'm bored. I'm broke and I'm back. The Andy Pulling Show on ESPN 630 starts right now. Yeah, it looks like the Celtics are back for how long we don't know, but they do have some life as they head back to Boston for game five tomorrow night. It only once in baseball has a team come back from 03 to win a series that was the Boston Red Sox. Could the Boston Celtics be the first NBA team to do it? 150 times. A team has fallen behind 03 in a best of seven series. 150 times they have lost the series, but there is still some life for the Celtics. We will get to that. Tony's got a show coming up at 11 o'clock. We've got Orioles preview at 10 30. We'll talk to Jeff Arnold, one of their broadcasters and also DC spirit. Having a nice season. Got a big game this weekend and we'll talk to Sam Stobb, one of their star defenders as they look to do what they did a couple of years ago and win the National Women Soccer League Championship again, but they got a ways to go and a big game coming up at Audi Field over the weekend. We'll talk all about that. I did want to start though with this and what it means to you and me is basically nothing, but sometimes you just like to stop and gaze at the rich. When you're talking rich, you're talking the richest. Lauren Sanchez, who is about to marry Jeff Bezos. I asked this the other day of John Matthews, who is the news director of WMAL. We work in the same newsroom as we get ready for what we do during the day. I said, what do you think the prenup would be? I don't know. I have no idea. My daughter is actually a family lawyer. I could probably get a better idea from her, but the New York Post is reporting that Lauren Sanchez is prenup would be about a million dollars for every year married. That's a lot of money, but that ain't Jeff Bezos money. The amount of money that Jeff Bezos is reportedly worth about 139 billion dollars. Now, the first wife, Mackenzie Scott, who he had been married to for 26 years, and they did not have a prenup because when they got married, he wasn't the big deal that he became as the chairman of Amazon. She got away with a $38 billion settlement consisting of 19.7 million shares of Amazon stock. Not that we ever have to hold a benefit for Lauren Sanchez. She reportedly shares a son with former NFL Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez and a son and a daughter with her ex-husband, Hollywood talent agent, Patrick Whitesell. She's got support for her kids for sure, and she's got support for herself. If she decides to sell the engagement ring, she gets some money out of that too. That's a 20-carat ring, according to reports estimated at $2.5 million. Again, I'm not in this business, but that seemed low for a prenup. If you're a $2.5 million for every year married, let's say he makes it five years, he writes your check for $5 million. That hardly hits him in the wallet hard, right? When you're worth that kind of money, but again, that's the way things work in the world. All right, to the game last night, and if you turned it off at the half, like I foolishly did, you missed the explosion by the Celtics in the third quarter. They got six at the half and they outscored Miami by 15 in the third quarter to pretty much put it away. They outscored him 38-23 as they got the games they needed from their big guns, particularly Jason Tatum played 42 minutes, 33 points. He was 14 of 22 from the field. He also had 11 rebounds, seven assists, two blocks and a steal. That was huge for them. Jaylen Brown, although he wasn't spectacular, gave them secondary scoring, seven of 16 with 17 points. Al Horford and Marcus Smart, who have been offensively disappearing over those first three games in the series, at least gave them something, combining for 23 points, Horford with 12 and Smart with 11. As for Miami, they got the Jimmy Butler game that they needed. He had 29 points, but he had to put up 21 shots. Did not shoot very well from the field. He only made one three. He doesn't shoot a lot of threes anyway, but made one. Really didn't have any secondary scoring that they needed. Kevin Love, he starts, but he only plays limited minutes. They start him in the game and he had six points in his time on the floor. They're going to need some more contributions from the other players. I mean, look, the other night when they blew the Celtics off the floor, Jimmy Butler had 16 points. That tells you what they can do as a team. I think the big takeaway for me, though, is Joe Missoula, no matter what happens in Game 5 tomorrow night, is safe, because he just signed that contract extension during the season and was looking during this series anyway, like, oh, boy, the players had completely tuned him out. Well, here they were. They're down six at the half in an elimination game, and Miami has already had the rehearsal to give out the championship trophy for the East. They got the hats and the t-shirts ready to go. I don't know if they do champagne celebrations in the NBA. Maybe not, but they're ready to go and celebrate and get it on to the finals and play Denver. And here's the Celtics down six, and they found it within themselves to come out with great energy in the third quarter and put that game away. Now, the question is, what happens from here? I think if they win tomorrow night at home, yeah, it gets real interesting going back to Miami for Game 6. But, you know, to beat a team four straight times, we just saw that Denver beating the Lakers, and although Boston does seem to have the better talent than Miami, do they have it in their reserves to hit the gas pedal as hard as they did last night three more times to win this series? This was analysis last night from the TNT crew, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O'Neal, and Charles Bartley. The intensity level was up. There were smiles on that side. There was a vibe on that side we haven't seen in this series yet. Yeah, I agree 100%. But also, I'm not one to microwave every game and say, oh, they're back or Miami is there. I agree with you. I think that that was a better sign tonight for Paul. Because I think the one thing that, you know, when at the beginning, the show you asked me, I said, I just have a belief in brown and tating that they're going to get, they're not going to just fold over and get swept because they're all the winning is dual and the last five to six years in basketball. So they're going to get that. To me, I think this was an easier game than Game 5, because of Game 5 now because, and this is my reasoning. When you go back home now, you're not going home to Chastation. You're going, being Chastas, you're getting pat on the back. And so now you can feel like, oh, well, we didn't get swept. All right. And then all of a sudden you can relax and not feel the urgency that your season is over if you lose again. So they have to get rid of that feeling, stay out of the places to get pat on the back to realize your season's over though, if you lose next game. And I disagree with that. I think Game 5 is going to be a cave walk for the Celtics. I think they're going to have so much energy because when not getting swept, it's not a cup. It's not, it's not, they don't get a cookie. But now they're going to go back home. That place is going to be loud and incredible. I think they're going to kill Miami next game. And they're going to come back down here. And I'm going to tell you something else. Game 6 in Miami, going to be Game 7 for Miami. I said the same thing. Then you just say, I said the same thing about Charlie, we come to see you. I was going to, oh, Henry, little Henry, we come to see you. I thought I was. The Celtics, hey, listen, give him credit. Jason Tatum stepped up. You know, Shaq Minh said, yo man, when you're the star, you got to step back. They say, Hey, Jason, Tatum, first of all, he went four games in before he scored a basket in the fourth quarter. That can't happen to a superstar in any playoff series. But I'm telling you, they got no chance. Said it's a cakewalk. I said, it's a cakewalk. Yes. I remember I said that when I called my book, I was, whatever I can bet, give it to me, but you said it was a cakewalk before the season start before the series started. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm telling you though, when you pick a series, you assume a team's going to play good. I didn't realize it was going to take the Celtics four games to play. Now, that was the sector team we've seen pretty much all year. I have zero. I do what happened in a game one, two, and three. Especially game three. That's why I'm saying that the Celtics play well. However, Miami is saying 16 turnovers, not us. Eight from 32 from three, not us. Miami is going to be ready. Going to be focused. Celtics going to have to continue to play away and Tatum and Browns will have to step up. I know they're home and all that, but little Ad issues are a little up and down. If he plays like he plays, plays tonight. You got to write this emotion off this game tonight. If you're the Celtics, I mean, they play Brown Browns got to pick it up. I mean, Tatum played great tonight, but Brown is to me, the guy got to pick it up. It can't be a tonight was a one punch. It's got to be a one two punch. Miami is not going to go eight for 32. I know they are going to go eight for 32. They're not. I agree with Jack at this point because the same way it's a human nature of like going in the same thing that Miami had. They're out here practicing for the trophy presentations before the game. They're out there. They have a whole ceremony. They've been people in to give out the Easter Conference Championship trophy. You're aware of all of this going on. And you can relax. Both antennas will be up in game five. If these teams both play good, the Celtics have more talent. Now that's a key thing. You know, if you can get both teams playing well for three more games. If they're both playing at a high level, then you like the Celtics chances. The problem is you're looking at winning four straight games and Miami seems to be well aware of this. Some of the comments in the post game. I don't understand Jimmy Butler. They blew the Celtics off the floor the other night and Butler didn't speak to the media. It was fine. $25,000. So I guess he didn't want to pay a check of 50 grand. So he talked after a loss last night and he said about game five coming up tomorrow. If anything, it will build momentum for us knowing we have to play with a lot more energy. We've got to play like our backs are against the wall, but I think all year long we've been better when we've had to do things the hard way. Well, that's for sure because they went in as a play in team, lost that game to Atlanta. Had to go on the road to win again. And here they are on the cusp of the NBA Finals, but it has not happened yet. And they could have done the closeout last night, but they did not quite get that done. Eric Spolstra, coach of the Heat said, at some point this is a great competition. You know, sometimes it can get skewed because of whatever the 3-0, but the great respect we have for Boston, what we are capable of, what they are capable of, a dynamic offensive team that takes extraordinary efforts and commits to get the job done. Our guys really want this. A lot of what we've done this year has been the hard way. We've got to figure out ways to win. Even if teams are playing well and we are not in a perfect flow and they got us tonight and you give them credit for that. So they're ready to move on. Caleb Martin, who has had big games in this series, really didn't give them a whole lot last night. What did Caleb Martin give him? He played 35 minutes. It's 16 points last night. But he said it's disappointing. That would have been a perfect world, perfect situation, meaning they had won last night. But as we know, everybody else knows we don't typically get things done the easy way. So they're all on this theme. We've done it the hard way. Now we're going to have to go on the road to win this game. Or, as Barkley says, this Finkter really tightens up for game number six, right, as they go back to Miami. So like I said, this is right up our alley. This is the way it goes for guys like us again. I think it's only going to prepare us for the long run. This could be good for us. Okay. Yeah. Maybe they get overconfident if they sweep Boston and they go into playing Denver. They will be at Denver with a situation where they feel pretty good about themselves. Now they realize they can be beat. They were beat last night and we'll see what happens from there. We're supposed to hear from Ron Rivera today and some of the players as the commanders continue their off season workouts. First day yesterday and this is just another sign that Chase Young is on his way out of here. That not only did they completely blow it in 2020 by not taking Justin Herbert, but it looks like they will have whiffed on the number two pick of the draft. Chase Young has given them seven or eight games at the end of his rookie year. Good enough to make him rookie defensive player of the year. Didn't give him much at all in the first half of the 2021 season before he got hurt and missed all but three games of last season. And now they have not picked up his 50-year option. Maybe that's gotten his nose out of joint, but if this is a show me year, he's not showing anything right away. Yes, you can say it's voluntary. They don't have to be there and they stood behind this when Chase Young skipped the off season workouts entirely after that rookie year. But this is a bit of a statement by not showing up. Montez Sweatt also going into the last year of his deal. He did not show up at the workouts yesterday. So we'll see what happens today whether they show up. Charles Leno also missed the session. He may be on his way out of here because they made a couple of picks in the draft that if they work out, I think they'll make cap cut with Leno. But there aren't that many off season workouts. It's not like they're added every day in the off season. And they are referred to as OTAs that they are voluntary workouts. They run June 6th to 8th. That would be mini camp would run June 6th to 8th. And then they pretty much shut down until they get to training camp at the end of July. So you're only talking about just a couple of weeks here, a few weeks of this and he's not showing up. So I think that's just another sign that Chase Young has sailed. That number two pick of the entire draft has not worked out. We'll spend some more time in the 10 o'clock hour on what Roger Goodell said yesterday about the sale of the commanders. But the main takeaway seems to be, yeah, there's some issues here. We're a little concerned about the number of partners. We're a little concerned about the amount of debt which exceeds the league limit of $1.1 billion. But as Goodell said yesterday, I think we'll get to a place where it will be approved. The Finance Committee just had their first meeting Monday on the matter. We really got the documents just last week. So they're going to continue to go through this. They're going to continue to vet the limited partners and check the bank accounts and all the different things. But the reality is they can't wait to get Snyder out the door. And this is causing them to bend a little bit. But the other part of this is that they have to realize that the number of people that can come up with the kind of cash they're talking about to put down the 30% required to make the deal go through is huge. I mean, it's close to $2 billion in cash. People just don't have that. And I believe, I'm fully confident, that the Harris Group has the money. And if you're on an NFL team, you're going to continue to make money. It's not like you're in danger of folding. Mike Florio keeps talking about, well, it handicaps you in signing certain free agents because you can't give as much cash up front. Okay, they can work through that. You got to recognize what we as a fan base have been through for the last 24 years. We've had a horrible person running this franchise and someone completely inept. These are men. These are very, very successful businessmen. Given the opportunity, they're going to figure it out. So all the hand ringing that's going on, it's just that. And I would expect by August they're going to have a deal. The next owners meetings aren't supposed to take place until October. That would mean that there would not be approval of ownership for the team until October. No, you just can't imagine a season opening with Dan Snyder as owner. Just is not going to happen. All right, and we'll hear from Kedel what he said about that yesterday coming up in the 10 o'clock hour. But next, thoughts on the Magic Johnson retirement mulling. Is it actually going to happen? Reggie Miller, talk to Dan Patrick about it and Tony and Mike Wade in on on on on PTI. Well, hear their comments as we continue. It's the Andy Poland show ESPN 6 30. The Andy Poland show on ESPN 6 30, the sports capital. We got Tony at 11 10 30 Orioles preview and speaking of the Orioles, you want to play hooky with ESPN 6 30? Enter for your chance for two tickets to watch the Orioles take on the Guardians next Wednesday, May 31st turn into tune into the Bram Weinstein show. You're on ESPN 6 30 or go to ESPN 6 30 DC dot com or ESPN 6 30 the app through Friday and listen for the key word. Once you've heard it text to the show at 1 8 3 3 3 3 7 7 6 3 0. That's 1 8 3 3 3 3 7 7 6 6 3 0. Come out and watch the game with us. 5 first pitch at Camden Yards and I will be there. We did this last year with the Cubs. Lot of fun, lot of fun to go to the game with listeners. So I'll be out there. I imagine Bran will be there as well. He's sure isn't going to be on. He's got the day off because of the game. So we hope to see out there. All right. As for LeBron as for how the world revolves around LeBron. It's interesting that the Denver Nuggets sweep a series sweep a series against. You know, a marquee franchise, the marquee player in the league. And they're in the NBA finals for the first time in their history. And all anybody wants to talk about is LeBron. Maybe retiring, maybe not retiring. He said I've got a lot of think, a lot to think about. He didn't deny the thought that he might retire. So yesterday on PTI Tony and Mike kicked around that thought Tony. Do you think LeBron could really retire? Now. No, I think he could. I don't think he will. I mean, I think you look at this season and say I was 38 years old and I was good enough that it's not going to go overnight. You know, I mean, look, it's a hard thing to figure out when to go because what you don't want is there to be a consensus of opinion that you stayed too long. Not everybody is Tom Brady and can win a championship at 43. LeBron is probably the greatest 38 year old basketball player of all time. But you look at Brady and in the years after winning the championship this past year, he didn't look all that great. A couple of games he did, but not consistently. So I can understand why LeBron is nervous about this and wants to make the right call. I had always thought, Mike, that he wanted to stay in the league long enough to play with his son. But recently he said, he said, look, that was my dream. But if my kid doesn't want that, I'll do what my kid wants. I'll get out of the way. So, you know, it's a hard call as to when, look, I think about it every day myself. You don't want to stay too long, but I can't even imagine that he would retire this year. I can't eat it, Tony. It's interesting about the Bronnie Park because maybe LeBron's finding out what all us dads find out. That when he says a teenager, he wants nothing to do with you anyway, at least for a while. So maybe LeBron's finding that out, but teasing aside, no, I can't see him retiring, but I understand why he felt this way last night. Like I did all I could. I played all but four seconds. We got swept even though that happened. And he knows the other team is better. And so maybe the Lakers can get there or maybe not. Maybe there's another place, you know, I've mentioned speaking of floating Cleveland and winding up there as a possibility. Maybe he can go somewhere else and be there. Maybe as he just feels like it's time. I've done this for so long. By the way, Kareem in 38 didn't Kareem wasn't Kareem like runner up for MVP or MVP of the finals or something 38 years old. So he in Kareem, it's a short list. It's just the two of them. LeBron's great. You're right, Tony. He's doing the 10 best players in the game. No, he's not. I think we have some time and he feels better. Charles Burke, he always tells us this, once you have some months and you feel better, you say, hey, I'm all right. Let's go. Let's tee it up again. And so I think there's something to think about, Mike, this is September, he'll be okay. There's something to think about. The people he came in with, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh and now Carmelo Anthony, they're all going now. Yeah, they're all going now. That's why you think about this. That's why great athletes have this dialogue with themselves and eventually it becomes public because they want to be there. They want to leave at the right time. You've always said Elway left at the perfect time. Not everybody does. Well, and we'll see if this is the perfect time. I don't think it is. I don't think he wants to go out that way. Elway left with back-to-back Super Bowl championships. That is the way to go out. Peyton Manning left with the Super Bowl championship, not necessarily on his arm. The defense of the Broncos was just great against Carolina. Von Millen was the MVP of that Super Bowl. But still, that's the way to go. That's the way to go is you go out on top. LeBron is not going to go that way. Maybe it does depend on how Bronnie feels after his freshman year at USC. Is he ready for the NBA? If he's not ready for the NBA, does LeBron Wade another year to possibly play with him? It's a nice dream to be able to play in the NBA with your son, but nobody's been able to do it and maybe not even the great LeBron James be able to do this. But the Lakers are trying to get their arms around this because their entire, at least short-term future revolves around LeBron. What's he going to do? If he stays, then they've got to build a team around him. I'll get to a report about that in just a second. But this is Rob Polinka, who's the president of basketball operations for the Lakers. And he's the one that made the trades that got this team as far as it did this year. But he said about the LeBron retirement idea. I look forward to those conversations when the time is right, but I will say this, LeBron has given as much to the game of basketball as anyone who's ever played. And when you do that, you earn a right to decide whether you're going to give more. I think sometimes we put athletes, entertainers on a pedestal, but they're humans just like us. They have inflection points in their career, and our job as a Laker is to support any player on our team if they reach a career inflection point and really providing nothing but support for him. Obviously, our hope would be that his career continues, but we want to again give him the time, meaning, okay, let's not get too hasty about this. LeBron takes weeks off, you know, think about this. A D'Angelo Russell, and he ain't coming back. Boy, he gave him nothing in Game 4. He said it'll be crazy to see him away from the game, especially when I feel like he has a lot more in the tank, which he obviously does. Troy Brown Jr., who was here with the Wizards, first round pick, he says, I feel that's human nature to be his age and to be playing at the level he's playing at it, putting his body through so much work. I mean, I don't blame him for feeling that way personally for me. I feel like it's because of his love of the game that he will continue to play. Darben Hamm, the coach of the Lakers, he's, you know, trying to say to the other players, well, you know, whether he's here or not, you know, we can still be good. Hamm said, make no mistake about it. This is not a one-shot deal. We're going to be around. We're going to be a problem to be dealt with. I guarantee it. Okay. Well, you can guarantee what you want, but if you don't have LeBron, things are going to be a lot different for you. Now, this was a report yesterday from the Athletic, and it's pretty clear you need another superstar for LeBron to make another run title. You know, he and Anthony Davis, when they're clicking, they can do it, but he's going to need some help. He's going to need another shooter. And the latest from the Athletic is that the Hawks are considering trading Trey Young. And if you trade Trey Young to the Lakers, then maybe that pacifies LeBron and he comes back. Young is a client of Clutch, which is the agency that represents both LeBron and Trey Young and Anthony Davis. And while Young is Atlanta's franchise player, they would, in fact, consider making a deal. I mean, you've also heard Kyrie Irving coming to join him in Los Angeles. I don't know if that's going to happen, but there is going to have to be something done for LeBron to say, I think, because I think he's maybe using this as leverage. There will have to be something done where he says, OK, that's good. I'm coming back to play. Reggie Miller was on yesterday with Dan Patrick, his thoughts on the possible LeBron retirement. It takes away from their shine, because that's all the talk in that series. And after Game 4 was a LeBron may retire, which he is not. He had he was an assist away from a triple double. He is owed 45 next season and 50 the following year. He's not walking away from that. But here's the talk and I get it. The greatest player of his generation, but he's not going anywhere, people. So relax. Do they have to make roster moves? Obviously, it's the Lakers. They know what he's doing. They made a major one during all star weekend that got him to this place in the conference finals. But he's not going anywhere Theodore, in my opinion. But there's there's something attached to this red. Right. I think the emotions of being swept. And he came out and said this is the best team I faced while in a Laker uniform. Yeah. OK. These are emotions coming up. It's difficult when you when you are part of a final four situation, you are one step away. And this is a guy in LeBron James who's been to the finals, what 10 11 times. And he's part of the final four. You're one of four teams getting ready to play for the ultimate prize. And they had an unbelievable comeback in game one, but came up short, led most of the game in game two until Jamal Murray got hot. You had two chances to capture home court events. You lose both of them. And then Denver just put it on him in game three. And you had a chance to win game four. But again, up 15 LeBron has 30 in the first half. But they just didn't have enough. Those are emotions surfacing. And that's when you hear I got to think about things. And then now Twitter goes crazy. Oh my goodness. LeBron is retiring. He's not retiring. He's just pondering. How about that? He's pondering. Moving forward. He's not thinking about retirement. He's just pondering his basketball career. But if you're thinking about retiring, then retire, that's the saying. But he's not going to. OK, but that's why I'm thinking there's more. I understand in the moment. We just got swept. People are going to attach this to my legacy that Michael never got swept. I mean, he knows what's happening here. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Michael did get swept by Boston. Oh, but that was that was they played a five game series and they lost those three guys. He never been swept in a best of seven series. But the Great Larry Bird was swept in a best of seven against the Bucks. I know, but nobody nobody brings those things up. Right. Magic Johnson. It happened twice in the best of seven series in the NBA finals. Yeah, in the NBA finals, magic was swept twice. So stop sitting in. Oh my goodness, LeBron. He got to sweat. It happens to the greatest of great. And it's emphasized the deeper you go in the playoffs when you're in the Western Conference finals. You realize it more than if it happens in the first round and LeBron goes deep into the playoffs every year. And he's made the NBA finals 11 times. He gets there. He doesn't always win. And he's lost a bunch of them. But, you know, getting swept and LeBron, you pay more attention to that. You know, that's that's what Patrick's saying. We don't talk about that. Well, we talk about this. And that probably had something to do with the retirement talk. So we'll see where that one goes. Just a thought here on the Nats last night as they lost to the Padres seven to four. I don't know if you've read it or heard me talk about it yesterday, but Barry's Verluga wrote a column in the post with the thought that maybe Juan Soto, who really felt comfortable playing here and really hasn't been very good for the Padres since they traded for him at the deadline last year, that he might consider coming back here when he becomes a free agent not after this season, but after next season. That would be assuming that there's new ownership in place because I don't think the the learners are going to pay him what could be. And if he gets, you know, real hot and hasn't great year this year and next year that the price tag is going to be over 500 million. Barry was beating the drum when Soto was here last year to give him the 500 million, but they didn't. They offered for something and he turned that down. So that's why they traded him. But it does fear that he likes to hit at Nats Park because last night riding his slump, he busted out of it, had a couple of singles and then in the seventh inning hit a home run as the Padres beat the Nationals seven to four. Now, I'm not suggesting in any way that you give a lot of hope to what Barry wrote that I guess it could happen and you'd be getting a superstar at the age of 26 and, you know, assuming that he's just going through an adjustment in San Diego by the time he does hit free agency, he's going to have numbers that are more typical of his career as he's, you know, hovering around 300 with power and all that. But, you know, just kind of funny to me that he does what Barry had suggested stepping into Nats Park feels right at home. And, you know, when he was here, he said all the right things about staying, that that was what he wanted to do. And also this, I don't know what to read into this and I think it's probably because he delivered a World Series. But remember Bryce Harper when he came back here, especially for the first time, he got booed. Now, the learners didn't want him back. They made him an offer which they thought he wasn't going to accept, which he didn't. And it was still an offer that wasn't insulting. They made him an offer of $300 million. Now, they made this like during the season, they called him in from batting practice. I mean, it's very awkward. The way this was done. But it was pretty clear they knew Soto was going to be great and was going to be cheap and that they could unload Harper, let him walk and then have money to sign a picture like Patrick Corbin, which they did and it all worked out. By the way, I think today is the fourth anniversary of the 19 and 31. I think that's right. 19 and 31 was where they were four years ago before they turned it around and won the World Series with Soto obviously being a big part of that. And Bryce Harper booed for walking away from an offer that the Nationals knew he wasn't going to accept. And now Soto comes back and you know, they made him a big offer, the biggest offer ever over $400 million to stay here. And he walked away and they cheered him and they cheered him for the World Series wasn't his first appearance back here, but much more of a buildup here. They gave him a standing ovation last night. I thought that was interesting standing ovation. He was always very well liked. He was always a very good player with the fans and delivered, you know, his his bases clearing. Well, he got caught in the rundown, but the bases clearing double was turned out to be beat the Milwaukee Brewers and got them to got them to move on in the playoffs. I mean, he's he's he's loved here. And if he if he would decide to come back here, we'll see where this team is in terms of ownership in two years. You know, the one thing that we've seen with Ted Leon says, if in fact he buys the team, Ted likes to hang on to stars. Look at what he look at what his model was with Alex Ovechkin and that worked out very well. This is the model he's used with Bradley Beale and so far that hasn't worked out so well. But I would think he might look at one Soto and also you got to remember this about the television aspect of sports these days. The television ratings, particularly local television ratings are big. And if Ted were to buy this team, it would be one of the big reasons would be that he would want the programming for NBC Sports Washington, which he owns. And when you have a team on your on your network, you want someone who brings in the ratings. Well, Juan Soto, if he performs like he did as a national in his second go round, if in fact that happens, that would be big. And that would be even more worthwhile for him, not just on the field, but the product off the field as a television star. And I just, you know, look at what he did last night and I go, damn, you know, maybe Barry's on to something there that maybe, maybe when he does play at Nat's Park, he's a different kind of guy and may want to come back here. Now, you know, you still have the Boris factor and Boris isn't going to take anything below market value. So there's a lot to that. But I just found that to be somewhat, somewhat ironic in the day that Barry writes that piece. He delivers the way he did and got a standing ovation from the fans who still love him despite the fact he turned up his nose at the biggest deal in the history of baseball. All right, let's get to what was said yesterday by the commissioner regarding the sale of the commanders. And these were the first public comments from Roger Goodell. I believe since the sale was announced that they had an agreement in principle. And it was an exclusive deal that there's no anybody else that can jump in. I mean, if you want to, if you want to believe this nonsense that's going on with Brian Davis and the lawsuit that he's filing against the Bank of America for how the sale was handled, good luck to you. But that's, that's just mischugena. That's, that's not going to happen. This deal looks like it's going to go through. There would be no reason to believe it wouldn't. And especially since the other owners can't wait to get Dan Snyder out the door. So this was the first question about that yesterday to Commissioner Roger Goodell about whether or not he expects this deal to be approved. I think we'll get it to a place where it'll be approved. The committee really just said their first in person meeting yesterday. On the matter, we really got the documents last week. So we're we're hard at work as a staff looking at that as we do every transaction. There's a lot of due diligence as well as compliance issues. All of that's happening. Working full speed will be in contact with the finance committee. And when they're prepared to make a recommendation, we'll alert the media, the media as well as the membership. And we'll move ahead and have a meeting at the appropriate time. This is a story from Mark Maskey and Nikki Jubali in the post. This paragraph, the owners believe Dan Snyder is eager to see his deal with Harris finalized and approved so he can leave the NFL and receive the financial benefits of the sale. People said, thus, it will not hinder or greatly delay the process. We have the limer deliberations related to indemnification and the NFL's investigation being conducted by attorney Mary Joe White. I'll get to more specifics on that. But I think this line is key here. So he can leave the NFL and receive the financial benefits of the sale. And I think this goes to the reporting that he's he's in some financial trouble here. He's like reportedly $2 billion in debt. So he needs this deal to happen. I believe to pay off some creditors. I believe that that's that's playing into this. And that's working in everybody's favor because they can't wait to get this from a giggy out the door. Now, one of the problems in this deal is that you have to put up 30% in cash, which in a $6 billion deal, you're talking about $1.8 billion. That's not money that even billionaires have lying around. That's not available cash for them. And they're worried about leverage. They're worried about too many partners involved. They have to vet all the partners. And this is a question that was asked by John Kime yesterday about, well, with this situation with the incredible ramping up of the value of teams where you just had a few years ago, the Carolina Panthers sell for 2.1, 2.2 to David Tepper. And last year, only a year ago, you had Denver going for four something. And now you're talking about over $6 billion. Could you possibly change the rules to make it a little bit easier for deals like this to go through? How important is it to get a deal done before the season begins? And then also along with this deal, because franchises keep going up in value, is there any appetite at all for maybe altering some of the guidelines for buying a franchise? Well, let me take it in reverse order. As far as ownership policy, that's a pretty consistent discussion amongst our finance committee and the broader membership. That's something we continually review and look to see if there are modifications that we would make. I think it's important for the ownership to be engaged in that. But it's not the only thought process that going pointed to your question is not how we get greater value. It's how do we create stability in our league amongst the 32 teams? That's the most important aspect of our ownership policies. I think your first question was, do timing. Listen, when the deal gets concluded by the purchaser and the owner, we get to work. We'll work as quickly as we can. We'll do the thorough job that we need to do in the committee, and we'll make a recommendation and we'll prove it when it's ready. Stability. That's not the most important thing to the other owners. It's price. It's what their investment is worth. Make no mistake about that. Stability of the league. Stability is helped by getting Dan Snyder out the door. That's important in this. That's all about why they're bending the rules to make this happen. Also, there probably isn't another viable deal on the table. Bezos not getting involved in this. He's probably waiting for Seattle to go up and Astellipulos. He made some noise, but I don't think his deal was really that solid. Otherwise, if he had the cash, they might have approved him. I think they also like the fact that this group is local. That's helpful too. That you have people with understanding about what this franchise can be when it's well run. It hasn't been in almost a quarter of a century. I think that's a factor here. They have local interest in the fan base and getting it back to what it was or at least close to what it was back in the 80s when they were a really good team. Even when they had some down years, people still cared. You couldn't get a ticket to games even when they would have a 500 season. That's how big it was around here. Now, forget about it. As far as the indemnification, this is what would be basically legal protection. Again, Snyder, if the other owners want to come after him or if he wants to come after them after the deal is done. This is from the story in the post. A person estimated a resolution with Snyder on indemnification is 95% done. It does not appear that deliberations over whites investigation and report will halt the sale. I'll get to what he said about Mary Jo White here. This is the question about White and why she's been investigating him since February of last year. Here we are almost a year and a half later and we have no report. Some of it is because, as has been reported by the post, Snyder has refused to be interviewed by Mary Jo White. So that would be a key part of the investigation. You would think, I guess she doesn't have subpoena power to make him do that. So that's what's holding things up. This was Giddell's response to why this is taking so damn long. Mary Jo White is an expert. She's being incredibly thorough. When she's concluded the investigation, she'll let me know. We have pledged to make sure we tell our ownership and we've pledged to make sure that the findings are made public. So we will do that. There's also some concern from some of the former employees of the Washington commanders. If there's anything that could be in place or if there's any response from the NFL to protect them from any retaliation from Dan Snyder when this report comes out, even if he's a owner or not. Yeah, as I say, we're in the midst of reviewing all the documents. A number of those issues will be discussed in the context of this and we'll address that. This is what the post has on that. It's not known to what extent, if at all, the Harris group might indemnify Snyder against legal liability and costs as part of the sale agreement. Since February, multiple people with direct knowledge of the league's inner workings have said Snyder was seeking such indemnification from a buyer or from the league and other owners. The commander said that such depictions were inaccurate. The owners not only want to avoid indemnifying Snyder, they want Snyder to indemnify them in a manner consistent with the other franchise sales. A person familiar with the process says. Now, the league has said that they're going to release the Mary Jo White report that it's coming out, whether Snyder is the owner of the team or not. But as this indemnification process is being discussed, and again, you have a source telling the post, it's 95% done, that is going to be a very key factor in how all of this plays out. But the reality is, we're probably going to have an approval sometime in August after the other owners are vetted after they work out a few details like the debt limit. They're talking about, you know, they're over the $1.1 billion debt limit, but the league is printing cash. And these guys, as Harris has said, are worth a combined $100 billion. The chance that a team is going to, they're not going to fold for one, be they're not going to run into financial trouble. These are very smart businessmen. Dan Snyder is not a smart businessman. He was a he was a hustler who got in at the right time with the right backers at a time when the league had different rules about buying teams. And they've learned from him. They've they've learned from watching this guy who at $34 wearing $2,000 suits look like he knew what the hell he was doing and cloned. And clearly he's proven over the last 24 years. He don't know what the hell he's doing. Last thing from Giddell, not related to the sale. Well, I guess somewhat related to the sale. What about the stadium? Now in the prospectus that ESPN got a hold of that Josh Harris put out to try and attract other investors, he said that Virginia is willing to kick in a billion and a half for a new stadium. Virginia lawmakers are saying, no, no, that ain't going to happen. We're not taking a billion and a half of taxpayer money to build a stadium in Virginia. And I don't think anybody wants it to be built there. They want it on the RFK site. This is Giddell on his thoughts on building in Washington, D.C. Listen, I've had the conversation with the mayor. I've had conversations with others in the Washington, D.C. region. As you probably know, I grew up from Washington, D.C. going over to RFK Stadium. So I understand the passion of the fans in Washington. I think that's something that new ownership is going to have to address. It is not something we're requiring in the context of the transaction. But I know that the new ownership will be focused on it just from the limited conversations I've had with him. Okay, so that's, I would think that would be the case that Harris and Mitch Rails would like to build in D.C. The question is, can the deal get done? Now I'm told by a source that it's going to happen, that it's going to be approved where the federal land, because that's what RFK is, it's federal land. It will be sold to the district, and that the stadium will be built on that land. And there's a lot of land around there. It's not just where the stadium is, but there's a lot of land behind that. And that will be where I get the shops, and we'll get the hotels and whatever else goes along. And that's really what the look that we had when we were going there back in the 80s, it's going to be totally different. It's going to be very modern. They may even build a practice facility there. It may be similar to what they have with JURY World. And there's also, as part of the proposal, I'm told, a plan for low-cost housing around there. So that will pacify some of the people on the city council who would be opposed to that. And also, what Giddell doesn't mention is the league wants it in D.C. Yeah, the league has, you know, influence. They want Congress to be near Congress, to be near the Senate. This is a monstrous corporation, and you want to be in Washington, D.C. You don't want to be way out there in Virginia. And I think that if you look at the cities where you have teams, yeah, you could say the Giants and the Jets play in New Jersey. But that's very easily accessible, and there's no way you could build that in Manhattan. It has to be built there. Cowboys, they're not in downtown Dallas. But again, that doesn't support that. Chicago, while the soldier field is downtown, there is talk of moving it out to the suburbs. Whether that actually happens or not, we'll have to see. But I think for the league, and this was something may not seem like a big deal in retrospect, but this was something that Jack Kent Cook talked about in building a new stadium. And why, although I think he rushed to do this, he said that you could still get the blimp shot on Monday night and see the monuments in the background when they shot above FedEx field. I watched a lot of night games from FedEx. I can't remember seeing the monuments. That was a sight when, back in the 80s, when you would say, and they were on Monday night football a lot. I think there were a few Sunday night games back in those days. Like they did half the season or something like that. But there are no Thursday night games or anything. But Sunday night they were on because they were good. And they were playing the Giants, they were playing the Cowboys, they were playing the Eagles. These were games that people wanted to see across the country. And the blimp shot of the monuments was big. People wanted to see that, and you got that great feel, and it was good for the league. It was good for the city. It was good for the team. I mean, it was really something that was important. Doesn't seem like much now, but now that it's gone, you don't really have the same sense of what it was like when it was here. So I would think that the RFK site would be absolutely perfect. And I would not be surprised if it gets done, but it's not going to get done in a hurry. They'll be at FedEx probably beyond the lease in 2027. They may be there for another two or three years. I have to say. Again, we're waiting to find out what's happening from the coach himself, Ron Rivera on how he feels about Chase Young and Montez Sweat. Skipping the voluntary workouts yesterday. Yes, they are voluntary. But this is a statement from a guy who needs a big year to get paid. Whether he gets paid here or paid someplace else, Chase Young has to have a monster year to get the kind of money that he probably thinks he should get. Montez Sweat, also not there, both of them going into the final year of their deals. Charles Leno also missing a session. Maybe he's seeing the handwriting on the wall that they drafted offensive linemen, and he may be a cap cut. But the Chase Young thing, you know, we're getting closer and closer to that bus label. I mean, you would say, well, he was offensive rookie of the year, and he looked pretty good in the three games he played at the end of last year. Yeah, but he was the number two pick of the draft. I mean, in order for that to be worthy of number two, you got to get him into like Reggie White discussion. And he's, you know, and from all the things you read between the lines, they're just not happy with him. You know, he's got caught up in the celebrity of it, made commercials, you know, went on the family feud. You know, I think that they're looking at this like, do we really invest in a guy who had a knee injury, which kept him out well over a year, who has not been as much of a participant as we would like in the off-season workouts. And frankly, before he got hurt in his second year, he wasn't doing things we wanted him to do. He was doing his own thing as he and Montez Sweat were chirping before the start of the season, how they were going to set the sack record duo, sack record between the two of them, like most ever for a duo, and it didn't come close. And I think we're getting closer and closer to the end of the Chase Young era. And as you look back, the number of top five picks who have washed out here from Desmond Howard at the end of Gibbs 1, to Heath Schuler, to Michael Westbrook, and now to the number two pick. None of those guys were taken to. I think Westbrook went 4, and I think Desmond Howard went 4, and Heath Schuler went 3. It's the number two, and we're getting closer and closer to absolute bust territory with Chase Young. We'll see. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe you'll have a huge year. He'll sign a new contract and everything will be hunky-dory, but it's not hunky-dory right now.