- 18 hours ago
Today is Stefon Diggs' first practice with the Commanders - can he help Jayden Daniels have a bounce-back season? Jon Gruden had some comments on that, and The Junks break it all down as they Hit the Skins today!
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00:00It is 7-0-1 in 59 seconds.
00:03I think it's time to hit the skins.
00:04It is hitting skins time.
00:07Training camp coverage is brought to you by Paul Henry's Window Installation.
00:12PaulHenrysWindows.com.
00:13You're clear.
00:14Home improvement choice.
00:16We all know this by now.
00:18Stephon Diggs is home on Wednesday.
00:22Diggs agreed to a one-year deal with the Washington Commanders.
00:26Diggs will take the field for the first time with the Commanders.
00:29First Friday morning, yesterday, the Commanders welcomed Diggs home at their Ashburn facilities.
00:36As we all know, Diggs is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland.
00:39He went to the University of Maryland, and he's made it known that he wanted to play for the Commanders.
00:47Now he's in.
00:48First practice today, Cakesy.
00:49Yep, it's likely that he will meet with the media sometime after Friday's practice.
00:54Diggs told Josina Anderson on Wednesday that he was, quote, blessed to have this opportunity
00:59and humbled to be back where it all began.
01:03So Steph Diggs should be taking the field at practice today out in Ashburn.
01:09Today is August 7th.
01:11It is another sold-out training camp practice.
01:14Yep.
01:14Military Appreciation Day.
01:16It's open to the public.
01:18The gates opened at 7 or will open at 7.30.
01:22Practice starts at 8.30 a.m.
01:25So a lot of anticipation for Stephon Diggs on the field.
01:30Matt, let's think about driving by today.
01:32Now practice will be over by the time I get there, but just drive by and just park and just
01:37kind of walk around.
01:39I think you should.
01:40Do you think the PR staff would let me do that, Matt?
01:42I think they probably would.
01:43I don't know what's going to be going on there once you show up.
01:47Fans, I think, will be pretty much gone.
01:49Yeah.
01:49Unless they're doing autograph sessions.
01:51I see.
01:51You're trying to get in there after all the madness and soons, getting a behind-the-scenes tour.
01:56I don't know your relationship with the staff.
01:58It's like that.
01:59I think it's pretty good.
01:59If you have a relationship like that, then I think if you gave them a heads-up.
02:03Yeah.
02:03I wouldn't go if you didn't give them a heads-up and they okayed it.
02:06Oh, no, no.
02:07I definitely would have to get the okay from them.
02:11You know what I mean?
02:12I wouldn't just show up and then just say, hey, I'm Bish.
02:15No, no.
02:15I wouldn't do that.
02:16I promise you I wouldn't do that.
02:17Bish box is here.
02:18I would definitely clear it with PR, but that would be pretty cool, right?
02:21Just hang out a little bit.
02:22Just kind of hang out.
02:23Just walk around.
02:24Talk to them.
02:24Yeah, see if they're doing any of the pressers.
02:25Ask a question during the pressers.
02:27Right.
02:27Their press room is about as big as this room.
02:30Oh, it's tiny.
02:31Oh, they've got to expand it.
02:32I think they're working on it, but they've got to get a much bigger media room.
02:38Have there been any indications that the training facility is going to move into D.C.
02:44when they move down there for RFK?
02:47Or are they going to keep their training facility out in Ashburn and just expand it?
02:51It's a great question.
02:52I don't know.
02:52I mean, that building is so old.
02:54It needs a big, giant wrecking ball.
02:56They've done some stuff to it, but I think you're right.
03:01I mean, it's not state-of-the-art like a lot of these other ones.
03:04I'm sure you saw this.
03:06I think it was revealed last week.
03:08Did you see the drone footage of the brand-new Notre Dame facility for the football team?
03:15Well, didn't they spend $100 million on it?
03:17$100 million.
03:19Yeah, it's crazy.
03:20I mean, it is the most amazing-looking football facility that you've ever seen in your life.
03:25Yeah, they could thank NBC for that.
03:27I mean, what a recruiting tool and advantage that is for kids.
03:30Now, they also want a big sack of money to go to Notre Dame or wherever they go.
03:35But having a building like that on campus is something that can attract kids.
03:41And like a pro team, obviously, that's worth multiple billions of dollars,
03:46they need to upgrade their facilities.
03:48And I'm sure that's in the works.
03:50They've had to do that for years.
03:52Yes.
03:52And they just haven't.
03:53Yep.
03:53So, Steph Diggs should be out on the field.
03:57He will meet the media after practice, according to reports.
04:01So, we know the commanders revamped their coaching staff.
04:05They bring in David Blau to be the OC and Durante Jones to be the defensive coordinator,
04:10both in their first years in those gigs.
04:13But the commanders are not done hiring for the coaching staff.
04:18According to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, Washington is hiring Nick Charlton as an offensive assistant.
04:26He was most recently a pass game specialist with the Browns.
04:29Prior to Cleveland, he was a college offensive coordinator under Jim Mora at UConn
04:34and a college head coach at Maine.
04:37So, welcome Nick Charlton onto the offensive staff for your Washington Command.
04:4337 years old, and like you said, coached at Maine, coached at UConn, Cleveland Browns, offensive assistant.
04:51There's so much money in sports.
04:53It's amazing to see pictures of basketball staffs, football staffs from back in the day.
05:01They were so much smaller.
05:02Yeah, of course.
05:03They didn't have 10 offensive coaches like they have now.
05:07Well, I mean, it's crazy when you watch an NBA game when they call a timeout
05:13and the coaches now all move to the center of the court first to huddle with their assistant coaches.
05:19There's four or five of them, but there's another four or five behind them in the bench.
05:24And then, like, if we were to look at what the staff was of teams, even when we were growing
05:31up,
05:31you don't have to go back to the 50s or 60s.
05:3380s.
05:33He didn't have quarterback's coach, assistant quarterback's coach, consultant.
05:39It's ridiculous how big these staffs are.
05:42And in college hoops, you would have, you know, a head coach and maybe three assistants.
05:48Now, like you said, I don't know, some schools have 10 or more.
05:52Maybe some big schools have 10 or 12, as opposed to back in the 80s and 90s when, you know,
05:58during a timeout, you'd have the head coach and a couple assistants meeting.
06:02Is Jeremy Reeves going to have a bigger role on the defense this year?
06:06He's mostly been a special teams ace rather than getting consistent starting opportunities on defense.
06:13But Commander's defensive coordinator Durante Jones' new system may finally give Reeves a path towards changing that.
06:19As the defense has worked through what has been a complicated installation of new schemes,
06:24Reeves' intelligence and ability to communicate have really made him stand out.
06:29Here's the quote from head coach Dan Quinn.
06:31His communication skills are elite as a ball player, as a teammate on the field and off.
06:37He sets incredible standards for effort and speed.
06:40That is head coach Dan Quinn.
06:43And this is a great quote for your head coach to say about you.
06:46We could use a hell of a lot more of Jeremy Reeves.
06:50Like, if you had him and you could just clone him on your roster, he's a great player to be
06:54on the field, in the locker room.
06:56So maybe you're going to see more of Reeves, not only on special teams, but defensive snaps as well.
07:01I think you started to see that last year.
07:03I think he was a good contributor for this team.
07:07But the guy who they brought in, who's supposed to make a difference at safety, is Nick Cross from DeMatha.
07:14Correct.
07:16And I've seen pretty good reviews of him flying all over the field in training camp.
07:21Definitely an upgrade.
07:22I mean, the secondary is still a little bit of a question, especially with Amos out.
07:26I'm not sure when he's going to be back.
07:28But it's definitely an upgrade with Nick Cross.
07:31100%.
07:32Yep.
07:32But if they can just get to the quarterback a little quicker than, because they couldn't last year,
07:37if they can just get to the quarterback, that'll help the secondary out big time.
07:40Did any of you guys get duped by the Washington Commanders social media department?
07:45What they did last night on the Commanders social media?
07:48I didn't see it, so I'm going to say no.
07:51They sent out a post from the team's official X account of a two-hour-plus video claiming it was
07:58none other than Spider-Man brand new day.
08:02So that was on their social media feed.
08:04Actually, it was just a prank, because once you click on it, it's basically two-plus hours of footage of
08:12Jaden Daniels not even playing football.
08:16It's of him running through the tunnel.
08:19It's of him on the sideline, maybe throwing the ball during warm-ups.
08:22There's no actual game footage of him, but it's two-plus hours of Jaden Daniels basically just coming out of
08:30the tunnel, going through the paces, talking to coaches, and it's two-plus hours long.
08:35And they put that on their social media.
08:37Did they get good social media buzz?
08:39I'm going to check it out.
08:40How many likes did they get?
08:42Did they get a lot of comments?
08:43We'll have to check and see how many likes they got.
08:45There we go.
08:46Spider-Man brand new day, looks like 184 comments, 805,000 is the view count.
08:55Eric Bickle watched all two hours on the beach.
08:58I think that's pretty good, because I'm looking at the rest of their videos, and they're in the 30,000
09:04to 40,000 range.
09:06This one got 830,000 views.
09:09That's a big pop.
09:10You guys, it's like a viral thing.
09:13It's like everyone's put doing it.
09:15It's not like everyone's doing it.
09:18It's not just the commanders.
09:19It's like four or five days ago.
09:20I think like the Chargers did it.
09:22Oh, I had no idea.
09:24Someone on the internet put out.
09:25So the commanders just glomming on.
09:27Yeah, yeah.
09:28It's a corporation and team, everything.
09:29Nothing's original.
09:30It's a nice bucket challenge, basically.
09:32Okay.
09:33Someone put it out there and then had like two hours of like the Rick roll after the opening credit.
09:39Okay, again, this is new to me.
09:41Then like the Chargers did it.
09:42I had no clue how up-to-date I am on viral trends.
09:49So that was a wacky bit that the commanders' social media did last night.
09:55All right, we have some audio here of John Gruden talking about what he expects in year three from Jaden
10:03Daniels.
10:03Let's talk about Jaden Daniels.
10:05Everybody knows about his rookie season, 3,600.
10:09Everybody knows about his rookie season, 3,600 yards.
10:13He set a rookie record with 890 yards rushing.
10:16Rookie record for 69% complete.
10:19Last year, he got hurt.
10:21He hurt his hamstring.
10:23He hurt his elbow.
10:24He hurt his knee.
10:25He got beat up.
10:26I get the feeling he had a real bad taste in his mouth.
10:30You think Jaden Daniels likes sitting on the sidelines down there watching his team get their butt kicked?
10:35No, I think he's got a chip on his shoulder.
10:38I think he's going to come out firing, man, in 2026.
10:42He makes everybody better.
10:44His leadership, his energy, his style of play, man.
10:48He's accurate short.
10:49He's accurate deep.
10:51He can just make it happen when there's nothing there.
10:53He scrambles a lot.
10:5513% of his drop back passes as a rookie, he took off and ran.
11:00Last year, he took off and ran 15% of the time.
11:03I hope he starts transitioning into a Steve Young kind of player.
11:08Win in the pocket.
11:09Win in the pocket.
11:11Win in the what, Jake?
11:12Pocket.
11:13And then if there's nothing there, we resort to scrambling.
11:16But we've got to take, I think, the ball out of his hands as a runner a little bit,
11:21and we've got to start getting him to really make plays in the pocket.
11:26So he seems pretty bullish.
11:27He thinks he's going to come out firing, have a big year three, silence a lot of the detractors.
11:33Now Gruden's always positive about players.
11:35He's generally positive.
11:36Yeah.
11:37But he seems bullish about Jaden Daniels' prospects in year three.
11:41I think we all kind of agree with that.
11:44Well, I actually put this up as our Junkies Poll of the Day.
11:47I want to hear from people, too, online and on the phones.
11:511-800-636-1067.
11:53The Poll of the Day is you just heard what Gruden says.
11:55He believes he's coming back with a vengeance.
11:57Are you extremely confident that he's going to do that?
12:01Somewhat confident or not confident at all?
12:03That's what you can vote at Junk's Radio.
12:05Our Poll of the Day brought to you by Surfside Lemonade and Vodka
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12:21I personally would vote on somewhat confident, not extremely confident,
12:26and it's two reasons.
12:27One, the injuries.
12:28And two, he didn't play as well as he did in year one in year two.
12:35Now, I know it was a smaller sample size, and he didn't finish a ton of games,
12:39and he only played in seven games, but they were losing those games when he started.
12:43His completion percentage was significantly down.
12:46I understand there were factors like Terry McLaurin not being in there all the time,
12:52and, you know, it's tough when you're in and out of the lineup to kind of get a rhythm,
12:57but he wasn't the same player.
12:59So, I am somewhat confident that he returns to the rookie season.
13:03I want to hear from people.
13:051-800-636-1067.
13:07Are you extremely confident that he comes back with a vengeance
13:10and he returns to his form of 2024 somewhat confident or not confident at all?
13:17I'm extremely confident post the Diggs signing.
13:20If you had asked me before Diggs signed to upgrade the offense,
13:24I would have been somewhat confident.
13:25I think Diggs and Chig being added to his offense
13:29give him two weapons that he didn't have to throw the ball to last year
13:33and a healthy Terry.
13:34And Rashad White.
13:35And a healthy Terry.
13:36Like, Terry was never the same last year,
13:38kind of like Jaden wasn't 100% himself,
13:41you know, dealing with all the injuries before the elbow injury
13:44ultimately knocked him out toward the end of the season.
13:47So, I'm extremely confident.
13:49You're not worried about the injuries?
13:51Right now, I'm not worried about the injuries,
13:53especially because the offense has shifted to hopefully being able to protect him more,
13:57maybe less designed runs from him.
13:59He'll still run, but probably not to the same extent.
14:02Certainly not that he did as a rookie.
14:05Extremely confident.
14:08I think I'm somewhat confident.
14:09I'm leaning towards extremely confident because of what Cakes said.
14:13I like that.
14:14Because of the additions on offense.
14:16I don't think he's going to have an injury-plagued season.
14:19I just don't see that.
14:22They just had some really bad luck last year.
14:24So, I don't see him missing, you know, double-digit games.
14:27Could he be dinged up and miss a game or two?
14:29Sure.
14:30I mean, that happens with a lot of quarterbacks.
14:32But, you know what?
14:34I'll say extremely confident.
14:35I think that it's the additions of those pieces, like Diggs and Chig and Rashad White.
14:41I just don't think they're going to have to rely on him as heavy as they did in year one.
14:46Like I said, I can't go extremely confident for two factors.
14:50The fact that his play wasn't as good last year when he was on the field to the injuries.
14:55And then the other thing is, see, to me to say extremely confident, you have to have no doubt.
14:59No doubt that he's going to be back to 2024, and though I think he's different and he is set
15:05up for success with the addition of Diggs, Chig, and all the things that we've been talking about, C.J.
15:12Stroud's in my mind.
15:14C.J. Stroud, after his rookie season, people were like, this guy's a top five quarterback in the league.
15:19And now you wonder if he's really a long-term answer for the Houston Texans.
15:26They've decided to go with C.J. Stroud, but the last couple years have been duds relative to how he
15:32started.
15:33I don't think that's going to happen to Jaden Daniels, but it's hard to completely erase that where there are
15:40some guys who just peak as a rookie.
15:43I think the defense will help them a lot, too.
15:46I think that they're not going to be expected to go out there and score 30 points, so there's a
15:50little bit more pressure off the offense.
15:52I don't know.
15:52I'm just leaning towards a big year.
15:56I don't know how big.
15:57I can't predict how many touchdowns, how many yards.
16:00I just think he's going to have a similar year to year one because of all those additions.
16:031-800-636-1067.
16:06Do you agree with Gruden that Jaden Daniels is going to come back with a vengeance?
16:13Let's go to the phones.
16:15Dennis is in Ruston on line one.
16:17Let's go to Dennis real quick.
16:20All right, Dennis.
16:21Mr. Positive, Dennis.
16:22Hey, Dennis, how are you?
16:23You're on with the junks.
16:25Yeah, good morning, guys.
16:26Haven't spoken to you for a long, long time.
16:28So, anyway, I agree with Coach Gruden.
16:32I think that Jaden Daniels is going to try to come out and do real good this year.
16:36I think he's going to have a little bit of an attitude from last year, and I agree with you
16:40again.
16:41I think that last year there was a lot of bad luck, and with the new additions, I mean, how
16:46can the guy not come out and do real good?
16:49I just think our defense, along with what you guys just said, is going to help us out a hell
16:53of a lot, too.
16:54So, I agree with Coach Gruden.
16:57The thing that I have confidence in, Jaden, is he's a worker.
17:01Oh, he's a grinder.
17:02And he's got a passion for the game.
17:03So, I don't think it's going to be a situation where his work ethic bites him.
17:09What might bite him is what bit him last year.
17:11Hurt his hamstring.
17:12Hurt his elbow.
17:13Hurt his knee.
17:14So, you want him to stay injury-free.
17:161-800-636-1067.
17:19We'll take more calls.
17:20Do you agree with John Gruden that Jaden Daniels is going to come back with a vengeance in 2026?
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