Hi everybody. I'm Mitch Goldich and welcome back to another episode of the mm QB Week in Review, our Friday podcast. I am joined by a couple of friends who will not be swapping jerseys at the end of this podcast. They are Jenny Ventis and Connor or Guys. How you doing, Hi, Mitch, Hey Mitch. We can do an air high five though, yeah, air high fives are acceptable. Boom, we all just did one over Zoom. That was nice. Um. So for those of you who are new, like we said, this is our Friday show where we typically go around and talk about our stories that have been published this week at the mm QB and then since quarantine and coronavirus and this whole summer. Boy, it feels like it's been a year and a half, but I'm told it's like four months since it's been so weird. It also turns into catch up time where we talk about what we've been doing to keep busy and some of our highlights of the week, both inside and outside of work. It started as books and movies, turned into jigsaw puzzle and legos and caterpillar larvae and all kinds of other things we've been doing. Um, so that's what we have. We we also we often have Albert Brier, but Albert is on vacation, so that means this is the strong Side podcast. If we're allowed to keep it going at that, that is what you guys nicknamed it the normal week side podcast Crew plus May. So I'm just gonna go with it because it's nice to feel included and it seems like a compliment. So we'll go the side pod today. Definitely a compliment. Appreciate it. Uh, Jenny, do you want to go first? You want to tell us what you've been what you've been up to this week? Sure? I have an update on my my puzzle saga. Um. I think I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I said that the puzzle was slowly tracking to me, it was taking weeks to arrive. It was a succulents puzzle that I ordered off of Instagram early in the Lockdown in just a moment of this looks fun a thousand pieces and I'm looking for activities to do in Lockdown. So that was about sixty days ago. So I get a pack a notification that the Succulents puzzle has arrived. So I go to my package room in my building and outcomes a puzzle package that didn't look like a puzzle. It didn't look like a square. It was essentially like a bag. And I was like, is this the puzzle or is this something else? Sure enough it was the puzzle. Um it had just been in a very thin cardboard box that had gotten smushed in transit and the outer it was in wrapping. Was it just you know, a bag? So I opened it up and yeah, it was a little little smashed, you know, it was kind of like a It was the shape of a fortune cookie. The box was essentially it was folded over on itself. But Mitch pointed out that the pieces would probably be fine, and they were, so I just dumped the pieces into a tupperware But all in all, the disappointing arrival of the puzzle, that is a relief that the pieces are fine. You hadn't told us that you left us hanging a little bit. You send us a picture over the gain. The picture is great, and fortune cookie is a good description because I don't even know how to describe it. But that was good. We'll have to put that on Instagram for people to see because it's it's a sad box. It's a sad box. Yeah, So have you started or you just you put all the pieces in a type of ware for another time. No. I actually concurrently received one of the other puzzles that I received during quarantine, and that one was just overall more appealing because it arrives in a non dented box and that one is doors of the World, you know, like front doors and colorful doors. So I'm currently working on that one puzzle next. What makes a door American? Well, I don't know. I think they were just photographed from different places around the world. I'm not sure, but I haven't noticed, you know, like the trend of colorful doors is more prominent in some cities than others. Right. Copenhagen was one city I visited with like a lot of colorful facades of homes or doors or the like. But these are pretty bright, Like there's pool blue and magenta and like jade. Lots of good colors. Makes for a good puzzle too, because then you just see the color and you match it with the door, and you put it in the right area and there it's making its way. Um, it's making its way east. Right. Um. If you watch a lot of h GTV, UM or any of the home improvement channels like I do. The pop comes from the door, now, I mean that is an essential pop factor. You know. Um, in my neighborhood, there's a lot of lime green and neon yellow. That's big now for for the pop factor for the door. Yeah, that's exactly what these are. Connor that does seem to be a growing trend, so maybe we'll see more of it are in our neighborhoods. I've been spending too much time in the city. I didn't realize that lime green doors are popping up across suburbia throughout the country. I was about to say, it's it's you know, it sounds unfair that the rest of the world has these great doors. My whole life, I didn't realize I was living in a country that didn't have fun doors. And now I'm hearing, Oh, actually, guess what, there are fun doors. This has been very eye opening for me, as as the segment of the podcast often is, I will add that, um, we have a fun door. UM from the fifties. Our front door is from the fifties and it has like three um like um, I don't know you would call them like twelve by twelve squares of glass in it on top of one another, um, all the way down to the bottom of the door. So it looks like something you'd see on like the Brady Bunch House. UM. And so we were going to get rid of it and throw it away. But then we decided during coronavirus, since I've just been going completely stir crazy, and we restored the door and we gave it like a poppy red paint job. We we got some like retro numbers from Lows and so you know, doors are big. Now I'm very into doors. Some psych that there's a door uzzle now I'm gonna have to I'm I'm excited for the completion of this. As proof of that, I can say we've been doing this podcast for three months and looking at each other over zoom. That was the first time Connor has ever put up one finger as if to say, hold on, I have something important to say next. And then he told us about his front door. So yes, your words and your actions make it very clear how excited you were to tell us about your door, about my front door. Super excited. All right, well, Connor, you're you're up next. Why don't you tell us what you've been up to all week. So, UM, we talked about, uh, maybe last week of the week before that one of my best friends had gifted us eighty caterpillar larvae UM that we were now all of a sudden entrusted with their lives. UM to bring them into their lives as butterflies. They're supposed to be sort of an educational um experience for a two year old, UM turned out to be you know, a lot of work on my wife and ice end. Uh. We uh, you know, you had to get them into individual little two ounces shot glass plastic shock glasses. You had to put the tissue, paper and the food in and get them all together. And so we thought, okay, the hard work is done. They're gonna start hatching and then we just pop them into this, um, this mesh sort of hamper that we got. Once they become butterflies, not so fast. UM. So all of a sudden, UM, the other night, we're sitting around and we said, oh my god, it's been two days since we've checked on the caterpillars, like just totally forgot about them. UM. And we we walked over and you know, some of them, the butterflies are are popping out. They're just ready to go, and so we we got them into the hamper and then we start reading the instructions and it says, okay, now these things are gonna be hanging from a thin slice of tissue paper in this two ounce little shock glass, and now what you have to do is gently remove them from the shock glass and then tape them. Scotch taped them to the sides of the mesh hamper, which if anybody has tried to tape something to mesh, it does not adhere at all. And so my wife and I were just about to go to bed and then realize this and spent like two hours taping these uh tissue papers with butterfly cocoons onto the side of the mesh hamper. That process, uh you know, took forever, very frustrating and arduous. But now this morning we had we've had our first letting go ceremony, our first graduation ceremony. So we let five of them go. Today they're ready to uh to go off into the wild. And they seemed like they didn't know any better. They knew us the entire time, so they were really comfortable, like crawling on our hands and our arms and getting really close to us because they, you know, they didn't perceive us as a threat, I guess, And yeah, they thought I was, you know, butterfly dad. So it felt good. I thought the hamper was a great idea, the mesh hamper. Yeah, yeah, that was a great place for them to mature and develop. Yeah. So right now it's just hanging outside. We've been um guarding it from There's like a lot of squirrels that now approach and they're just like looking at it because they seem to have like some menacing ideas about what to do. And so we just kind of continually opened the door and scare them away so that they don't they can't get into the hamper, but they would like to get into the hamper. So and you sent us a very educational video of the graduation ceremony where we learned a lot from your daughter, such as don't eat them and butterflies have wings. Yeah, she was on it from the very beginning. She said that her her immediate takeaway was butterflies aren't tasty. Uh, don't eat the butterflies, and the butterflies have wings. So I would say that it was the goal of my scientists friend to teach her about butterflies, and those are two Yeah, those are three hard and solid facts about butterflies. So what's the wind. No, we don't We don't know if they're tasty or not. We assume they're not. You don't eat them, is correct. We don't know if they are. Damn, we don't know if you are truly desperate. If if I were unnaked and afraid on the Discovery Channel and I was presented with a buffet of monarch butterflies, would I try one to save my life? I don't know if that would be a tough that would be a tough call. I don't know. Eating the caterpillars would be easier than when they're already butterflies, but probably less. Um, what's the word textually pleasing? Right? Maybe? Well that's the beauty of this podcast. We start talking, it's like, you know, sometimes we just never know where it's gonna go and uh and what topics we're gonna hit on. Now we're talking about eating caterpillars. Well, I guess the big news for me this week, which you guys can see, it's it's funny how this has been this podcast for me has been a way to mark the passage of time in our four months at home, and more of the podcast than I'd like has been focused on my personal grooming. Was Connor being obsessed with my beard, very interested in it, but it was obvious to both of you when we turned on the zoom. I got a haircut this week for the first time since I think February. I think I got home from the Super Bowl and got a haircut at week and then I hadn't since, and it was much needed. I used to have long hair. My hair was growing out like the way I kept it in college when I it was kind of like a curly mop kind of thing, and it went fine with the beard. And then once I got rid of the beard, I just decided it was time. And since I did it, I feel so much better. It's just like it was so hot outside and just not having that hair on me when I'm just like out in general, but also like running and everything. It's very nice. So it was a good experience. It's like, you know, I was watching all the people when haircuts first became a thing, and all you know, people who were like, it's my right to get a haircut and I'm an American, and how dare you shut down our barbershops? Like those people were like, come on, like get a grip. You can skip a haircut for a month and everyone's gonna be fine. So I was not one of those people, but I did. Once we you know, opened them back up in New York City. I checked it out and it looked clean and safe, and I've been in supermarkets, and I decided it was fine. So, you know, they had like thick plastic hanging from the ceiling in between separating the different chairs, and then like they usually put the cloth around you to so you don't get hair on your clothes, that was like a disposable plastic this time, and it felt very safe. I wore a mask the whole time, and then afterwards I immediately went home and showered and disaffected and everything, and I felt totally fine. So I feel good to have gotten a haircut. I think it was safe. I don't think I put myself in any more risk than I do going to the supermarket or anything like that, so I feel good. And my hair it's also very short. I uh, I intentionally went much shorter than I usually do so that if I have to go another few months without a haircut. I'll be fine. It looks great. It's great look for summer, and it's really transformation from a week or two ago with a beard in the in the mop. Yeah, like butterflies. You have blossomed, bitch. Oh thank you? Wow, that's perfect. All right. I think we should talk about some football, which which we do occasionally on this podcast. Um, So, which if you wants to start? I know Jenny you had a big story which I know you two already talked about on the week Side podcast yesterday. Connor, you had a couple of things this week, one on Monday about the Patrick Mahomes contract and then another this we're talking on Thursday, but it's going up Friday about Lamar Jackson and it was written for the Fantasy Football magazine, but is not entirely about fantasy. So Connor, do you want to pick one of those and you'll go first? Sure? Um yeah, let's uh, let's let's talk a little bit about Lamar Jackson because, UM, I'm interested to hear both of your takes on this. Um. I came out kind of swinging in the Fantasy Football issue. Um. Basically, my take was that Anybody who is sitting there and thinking kill Lamar Jackson, do it again is asking the wrong question. I think that Lamar Jackson proved to everybody in two thousand nineteen that he can do it whenever the conditions are suitable for a player like him to succeed. I think the bigger question is do the Ravens coaches now evolve as the NFL has um, you know, caught up to them, and you know, I think that there's UM. I think it's a fun way to frame this because there's been a trophy way that we've um attacked mobile quarterbacks, I think specifically since they've come into the NFL, and that's Cam Newton, Robert Griffin, Colin Kaepernick, you know, any of these guys that have had these really explosive phenomenal seasons. It seems like the first thing that everybody says is what's well, just wait until the NFL gets your tape on them and they'll figure it out. I completely disagree with that. If you go back to Robert Griffin and Kyle Shanahan or you know whatever, you know, Cam Newton and um, you know, any of the offensive coordinators that he's had in Carolina. The question should be what are they doing to continue to progress? Right, because you know, most good offensive coordinators get better every year along with their quarterback. But it seems like some of these guys, the theory has just been let's just trot out the same offense again because it was so hard to stop the year before. And so my challenge to the Ravens is, what are you guys gonna do now to get even better than you were before? Yeah? I like how you framed that, because you're totally right. Everyone always talks about how the tapes out there and they're gonna come up with a way to stop them. And you made the point they were willing to totally throw out the offensive playbook and reinvent themselves in twenty nineteen, and so you'd think that they'll be willing to do the same thing and not necessarily throw the whole thing out, but they can reinvent themselves again, and they've got all this time to cook up new stuff for and think about ways to fix it. And I know, Connor, you've written a ton about plays trickling up and innovation, and everyone knows that's happening from college. But I know you've written about like indoor football and arena leagues and random places across the country lower levels where all these coaches the smartest organizations, and the Ravens are certainly one of those, are looking all over the place and stealing. I was gonna say borrowing, but really stealing, and just uh, you know, they are a forward thinking organization that you'd think is gonna stay ahead of the curve. And if they were ahead of the curve in, they ought to be able to get far. They're ahead of the curve in. And so I like that idea of looking at them and uh, instead of making it passive, like how all they uh, you know, adapt when other people catch up to them. The thought of them being active and going out and saying, let's take this even farther and see what else we can do. Yeah, I thought. Um Seth Walder over at ESPN had a good stat today that I think he looked at pre snap motion over the last three years, and I think the Ravens were close to pre snap motion on almost half of their snaps, whereas the rest of the NFL was around like seventeen or eighteen percent. And it's ridiculous because you know, that's one of these little efficiencies. And I think Jenny knows this really well as well, having you know, studied the Ravens and and how they far they've been ahead of the curve. But it's stacking all these little things together. I think they found market the NFL market inefficiency, which was the tight end position. They stacked their offense full of these kind of versatile hybrid blockers. They were utilizing a lot of pre snap motion. I think they redefined play action by bringing in a lot of um, the old kind of Navy options style football. But it's hard. I mean, you know, it's hard to come up with new things. I've been recycling the same bits for ten years. So who am I to tell John Harbaugh to come up with something creative when I don't know, I haven't been creative since two thousand ten or eleven. So, So do you think this is the future of the NFL where we're going to see, like, within two or three years, pre snap motion on fifty of the blaze across the league? If everyone's saying, oh, it's working for them, we should do it too. They did it with a second year quarterback in his first year as a starter. So we can't use it as an excuse that our guys not ready. Is that going to be a thing that everyone just does, I don't know. I'm curious to hear Jenny's take on this too, but I think we will see that will become a norm. I think in two years where play action and pre snap motion, it will be weird. I think if teams aren't close to eight percent of the time just because there's no um downside to it, right, I mean technically, I guess play action does take the causes the play to a little bit longer to develops. Maybe you're less likely to do that if you have a bad offensive line. But all the rest of it, it's just coaching, right, It's it's rehearsal and other you know. Pre step motion helps you identify things, that helps you break down a defense, helps you put pieces where you want it to go. Um. So I think that there's no reason not to do it. And UM, it'll be interesting that the Ravens were so far ahead of the curve. Now what do they come up with next? That maybe people weren't having as much of an eye on I guess it will also be interesting to see how trends spread this year, if there's like a slower spread than normal. I mean, as you just said, a lot of things need a lot of rehearsal and practice and time to get timing down. Um. Maybe it's akin to the lockout year a little bit, but I think this is more extreme because at least in the lockout year, you know, you had groups of players working together for a longer time. You had some of that this year, but obviously the COVID continued spread gotten the way of that a little bit. It so does this year's lockdown if there is in fact football on time, Um, does that quell the spread a little bit of some of these innovations and the ability for teams to kind of morph their offense or I guess even defense from year one to two or last year to this year. But I think more so for offense because offense everyone has to work in concert. Everything is timed up. It's so important. Like you always see in training camps, they always say the defense is always ahead of the offense early in camp because it takes the offense a while to get on the same page. And so this year that will be exacerbated. Yeah, no, it's it's gonna be cool. It's gonna be fun to watch. I mean, I'm still skeptical about football in general. Um. And you know, maybe the Ravens have an edge again because teams are just scrambling just to barely like you said, I mean, get ready, just get to the starting line here. And you know, there wasn't maybe as much time to innovator come up with something interesting. But I don't know. I'm I just think that in this world where we look at fantasy football players in general, is just these people who are either performing up to their capabilities are not performing up to their capabilities. I think we need to ask better questions. Uh. And I think we need to place the demands not squarely on the person, you know. Um, and so that's what um, I hope anybody who picks up the fantasy football issue this year, UM, that's kind of their thought processes. You know, maybe I should stop tweeting horrible things at Lamar Jackson and uh, you know, and and maybe tweet some horrible things that you know, the offensive court there or somebody else who's job it was to scheme a open I don't know. Um No, I'm not advocating for your tweet horrible things at anybody, but but maybe just not Lamar Jackson or anybody, you know, because every every we're all trying our best out here. The other thing I will say, and you talked about, um, you know in the article you say Lamar Jackson has been he can do it. Um, you knows, just the thought that like regression is likely, and that's just a fact about anyone who has an amazing season. And I think a lot of people it's you know, I think it's just unfair the way everyone looks at anybody. And you know, we we constantly recalibrate our expectations based on what we've just seen. Um. But like, you know, let's be honest. Patrick Mahomess numbers regressed a ton from nineteen and part of that was he missed some time with with injuries. Uh, and also just his numbers weren't as good, and like part of it's, you know, how could they be? Uh that first season five thousand yards and fifty touchdown passes. And like, if Lamar Jackson doesn't run for as many yards next year, that's not a failure on his part. You know. He set the record for most rushing yards ever by a QB. So if anyone's assuming that while he ran for twelve hundred last year, he's gonna run for fifteen hundred this year. You know, it just doesn't work like that. And so I think part of it is also just, you know, our culture is so quick to label someone a failure or a fraud or a bust or whatever. And you know, Lamar Jackson could have a very good season and be the third, fourth, fifth best QB in fantasy and there would be a lot of people who said, well, I drafted him because I thought he was gonna be number one, and you know, he let us down. And it's like, you know, there's just there's a lot of room for him to have a very successful season, even if his numbers aren't as good as they were last season. And you know, there are just so many different factors to have a historical, like statistical outlier season like he did. Winning his m v P takes so many things going right, not just from him, but you're right, coaching an offensive line and scheme and opponents and all kinds of things. And so just the odds of him actually duplicating his numbers are slim, But that doesn't mean that it would be a bad season from him if he doesn't do exactly what he just did. The inspiration for this article was born in a Kansas City hotel room while watching the Ravens and Titans during the playoffs. I was having dinner and getting ready to cover the Chiefs game the next day, and I was sitting right near the hotel bar. Um just kinda I actually know exactly what I ordered. I ordered a hamburger, and I ordered some truffle fries and a nice glass of red wine. That was my dinner. But um, the bartender was loudly like orating to everybody at the bar um because the Titans had just scored to go up like seven nothing or something in that game. And he goes, once people figure out that you just have to punch Lamar Jackson in the mouth, this whole Ravens thing is gonna be over. And then I just said, really loudly to know it in particular, this guy is a huge idiot, and um, you know, but they lost, and so like, you know, he just kept getting louder and louder and like trying to reaffirm this point that was so incorrect. And it's like, so my my desire to all of you out there is to look at things from a broader perspective. Don't be that guy, even though it probably in the moment feels good to be that guy. Be the smart, be the thinking man's football fan. You know, Connor. One more by Sten for you, m this story you wrote. Is this the cover story of the magazine? Mitch? Great question, it is, so be sure to pick it up. You know it's on news stands. I saw one at two copies at Wegman's today, Um, and there were five copies that act me the week before, so plenty of plenty of stock on the news stand. How about that, Go out, wear your mask, go out to the newsstand in a mask, pick up this, pick up the magazine with Connor's cover story. Do it all right? Jenny? Like I said, I know you talked about this with Connor on the week Side podcast yesterday, but you had a big story that was published Wednesday evening, a Kobie line with Michael Rosenberg. Don't want to leave him out, Um, looking into Daniel Snyder and the Washington football team and his foundation. So for those who haven't read it, and I definitely recommend people go check this out on our site. But do you want to give us the basics and explain what you were looking into here. Yeah. So, in when the team was under a lot of pressure than about the name, there was the suit brought by a group of Native Americans trying to cancel the trademark, and that was going through the court system and it was really heating up in and so it was at that time that Daniel Snyder announced this foundation called the Original Americans Foundation, and he said it was to make a long term impact in Native American communities and to serve them, uh and hear the issues that really matter. The implication being the name issue doesn't matter to them. We're going to help them with all these other things, which in my experience was not true. He had gone to on some visits to Native American communities across the country and actually the MMQB was doing this at the same time, and so we had gone to communities and found people everywhere. It was a mixed range of opinions, right, but it was certainly not hard to find people that were personally affected, deeply offended by the mascot. And so he created this foundation. It started off giving a lot of money out to three point seven million In the first year, it was used for a variety of things. One common thing was playground builds, some some reservations or tribes received coats or food deliveries, um. You know, a range of different projects. Buildings for a flooded to replace a flooded senior center. Um. They invited some tribal leaders to games, busts, some children from some communities to games in the area. But what we noticed was that after that first year, every year since the contributions made by the foundation have stepped down. So it was one point six million the next year, then about six hundred thousand, and then about three hundred thousand, and operating costs still stayed high. So in the year that they gave three hundred thousand, they spent eight hundred thousand on operating costs, which included salaries for six employees and a travel budget. Um. And so the numbers told a story of a decline. But then we also reached out to Native American communities, and many of them had been ghosted by the foundation. They'd gotten funds for a couple of years and were either told we can't support your community anymore. One tribe is unique of Pueblo tribe in New Mexico was told that the foundations finances were not good and so they would have to discontinue their grants. Another leader from a tribe in Maine said he never heard back. He continued to apply for a grant and didn't hear anything. UM. Some tribes that had received funding reached out this spring um asking about testing different resources to help their tribes grapple with the COVID nineteen pandemic, and we're told that the Foundation could not help them. And we also noticed that the Foundation is not in good standing in the state of Virginia where it's established as a corporation and it is in danger of being automatically terminated on July thirty one. They're behind on a very nominal annual fee and a and or report. So clearly it shows the pattern that once the public pressure was off the team about the name, they just ramped down operations. And obviously, of course in the last month or two, we've seen that pressure ramp up, which is ultimately led them to the precipice of a name change. But I think it was important to look at the foundation because their main defense for keeping the name was we've given more to Native American communities than any other team, and we've we've taken an interest in the communities, and look how many Native Americans support us, So our mascot can't be that bad. But in actuality, the foundation is proven out by money and actions to have been more of a show than anything else. That's you just didn't what I was going to ask, which is I know they touted it a lot at the time when there was some added pushback against the name, But had they been touting their achievements in the community and these things that they were doing as strongly over the last few years, even as it was obvious that they were doing less right and that had also faded. You know, they hadn't trumpeted some of the initiatives that they'd had. You know, early on, there were some football camps and there were media there, anden they invited a group of students from the Zoomi of Peblo tribe and also read Masa High School, which has Redskins as a mascot um to a Cardinals game in Arizona, Washington against Arizona UM. So, you know, there were there were instances where they were in the media, but we hadn't heard a lot about them in the years since, and so I had remembered this foundation because when we did this article in the foundation was announced right before article came out, and so I hadn't thought about it in the years since, but I remembered when it was announced, and I remember that that as I was reporting the story, you know, the team was like, well, we have this foundation. Dan Center has been visiting communities, you know, and we included that in the story, and so it was it was definitely part of the narrative. And one tribal leader I spoke to said that Snyder brought one of the team's minority owners to a visit to their reservation. UM. So just sort of putting the pieces together, there are a lot of things that just point towards them using it as their shield for the name, including the fact that some of the money was given to schools with Redskins as a mascot. Three schools that have Redskins as a mascot received money. There were other schools UM that used other Native American imagery as mascots, and some of these schools are serving Native communities, and so I think the use of native imagery or the Redskins, while many disagree with it rightly, so it's it is different when it's the Native American community that is using their own imagery. Um. But two of the schools with Redskins as a mascot had seven percent and their student body were Native American. UM. So it just kind of paints a picture that the name was so important to or defending the name was driving all of these activities. Yeah, that was I thought. One of the most disturbing details in the whole story was that there's this other organization that basically travels around the country going to school board meetings. When a school with that name is thinking about changing their name, this organization shows up to argue that they should keep it. And the organization's website says we were able to travel this year thanks to a generous donor who they don't name. And I thought you did a good job in the story laying out you know, we can't tie it direct flee to Daniel Snyder, but there are a ton of indirect ties, and you know, you just sort of let the reader fill in, you know, fill in the blanks for themselves that you know, and we won't say it officially here you know, we can't say for sure that it's Daniel Snyder, but the connections between this group and the team are are there for anyone like you and Rosenberg who spend the time to connect some of these dots and and look for the trail. Yeah, that organization, Mitch, was really a strange one, and it came up in the course of our reporting. And I had not heard of the Native Native American Guardians Association. They go by the acronym NAGA. I had not heard of them until reporting this story, and then I started looking around. Michael and I both were kind of making calls around the country to different communities UM for a lot of different range of issues related to the story, and we kept hearing about NAGA, and we watched a few of the panels where they would go to school board meetings or or have their own panels where a school board was considering whether to retire or Redskins or similar mascot and UM some of the messaging was troubling. It was really trying to flip things on their heads and say that the people who wanted the mascot's gone were the racist ones. And UM. So hearing some of the messaging um, And as you mentioned, Mitch, there was no direct tie that we could find between the team and NAGA, and the team didn't comment on that. They didn't have a response. We also did not hear back from NAGA, though in Facebook post they have seemed, um too, pushed back against the idea that there there is a tie. But they're certainly indirect ties. You know. One of their leaders had been featured on team videos by Washington and also had attended their training camp. Another had written a book about how the Washington team got its got the Redskins name and certainly their mission aligned at a time when the Original Americans Foundation was kind of tailing off an activity, NAGA was rising and it it's sort shifted the approach, um, or it was this, it took the same issue, it took a different approach to the same issue. Let me rephrase that. So basically, NAGA was working in grassroots level where there where there was a push to change names and communities and going directly to those specific communities. So it's interesting, UM. Certainly the timing is interesting. Certainly of indirect ties are interesting, UM. And there was a lot of chatter about that as we recorded our story. Yeah, I thought you did a good job laying all that out. Can I ask a very Uh maybe this might be a nerdy inside baseball technical question, but I I'm just curious. You have done plenty of co byline pieces, and I know you've done stuff for the Bag with Greg Bishop after the super I'm not gonna ask you to compare Bishop and Rosenberg, but just now that's a I think I will ask you that. No, but just like the process of of taking on a story like this with a co pilot on the story, how did you guys break up? Who does what? Did one of you like write the first draft? Did you right sections together? Like? Did you guys work together on this? Yeah? It is always interesting doing a cobieline story, and this one was kind of a tight window. We were trying to turn it around pretty quickly once we made the discovery that the foundation's finances had been tailing off. Um. I think it really made sense to have two people on the story because there was a lot of outreach. We We quoted maybe I don't know eight eight or so different Native American tribes in the story, but we reached out to probably thirty of them, so we really had to split that up, um and we I that was more my focus, although Michael also reached out to several tribes. He reported a lot of the backstory of Gary Edwards and who's the leader of the foundation and what role he took in not only the Original Americans Foundation but also another organization he runs, the National Native American Law Enforcement Association. There are a lot of uh, a lot of overlap between those two and there were a lot of questions about his practices as a leader of that organization, which applied then to some questions that were raised about the how the Original Americans Foundation is run. So that was one way that we kind of divided that up and had slightly different focuses. And then we basically had a document that we kind of passed back and forth. Uh. He wrote something, sent it to me, I wrote something, sent it back, and we went back and forth until everyone was comfortable with it. Ultimately we put it in a Google doc and then um, that's where the final version lived. And then we had our editor, Jason Jason Schwartz was in the Google doc and for the final phase. So so Bishop of Rosenberg. Wow. Third option Jenny has Cobin lined hundreds of jets notebooks, and they're all equal that I would happily work with any of the three. I would happily work with you as well, Mitch. I've had good I enjoyed cope by lying because I think it's interesting. You can always learn something from the other person, right, Like you'll learn something from how they report. And it's also motivating because when the other person gets something, it's like fantastic for the story. But then you're like, I want to pull my weight. So like Rosenberg made a breakthrough and I was like, I need to make them. I need to make my breakthrough and whatever front I was working on so that I made a flurry of five calls and then you know, someone comes through, and so I think there is like a nice It's it's really enjoyable to work with someone in that regard because you keep each other on track and you keep pushing each other. You're working towards a shared shared goal, but you also want to make sure that you contribute enough to that goal, so you think it was better than if you had just done this yourself. It sounds like definitely, definitely the story was that's not surprising. I shouldn't I didn't mean to sound surprised you, but I know what you're saying. We had never worked on a story together before, so it's always a new experience, I guess reporting something, but it's it was definitely it had more information, It was deeper, more comprehensive than it would have been. Um if I had done it alone, certainly well. Shout out to Michael Rosenberg. Then shout out to Michael Rosie. All right, UM, do we have anything else I want to talk about? Or do we want to do our one good thing and then get out of here. Let's do a one good thing. I like one good thing. It's nice. This was Jenny's idea at first. And uh, I think originally this was like a one type thing, and then we liked it so much it just became a regular staple. So Connor, you're you're speaking up. Why don't you go first give us your your one good thing from this week? M hm Um, Well, I guess I kind of shot my my butterfly but butterfly thing at the beginning, but that's uh, that's okay. UM. I would say, um that my one good thing has been Um. I had a deadline this week for an upcoming magazine story. Which I'm very excited about. And you know, because of that, UM, you know, my wife isn't a Central employees. She's back at work, UM and so UM, you know, the but the the adventures in childcare and all that kind of stuff. I was lucky enough for one day I got to go back to my parents house and then they came up to UH, to Pennsylvania for another to New Jersey for another day. And you know, any time that you get to spend with your parents. We've spent a lot of time with our family during coronavirus. UM. But you know, just to um, you know, you slow everything down, and you know the little things that you take for granted. Being able to see your daughter, um, you know and your mom hang out together, or your daughter and your dad hang out together. UM. It has been really cool, you know. And I think if there's one thing that you know, we've all been you know, everyone's been affected by what's going on now. But I think the one thing like forcing us to slow down and to you know, really like on a visceral level, appreciate the things that we never even you know, took time to think about. You know, how cool this is to see the two of them together. Um, you know, I've really tried to get better at that throughout coronavirus. So to just see them, you know, my mom and daughter playing legos together, or um, you know, to have a tea party together was was something that was really cool. So I I definitely tried to take note of that this time. Nice, I appreciate you sharing that. That's yeah. I think that's a theme that's come up over and over again as we've done This is a lot of just appreciating time with family and getting to see people. And because we haven't been able to see people the way we usually do. I think you're totally right that when we do get those chances to it just it feels like it means a little bit more, you know what it is. Someone made a great analogy to me the other day. And this doesn't apply to everyone, you know. I know that everyone you know has has struggles and has challenges in their lives. But for a lot of us that were you know, fortunate enough to go into coronavirus, you know, being in a good life situation, it's almost like we were drinking soda for our entire lives and we forgot how good water is just cold water, you know what I mean? Just sitting down and remembering what the very elemental things of life, you know, how good in and you know sustained, you know, sustaining and important they are. And so I think that was a good piece of advice that I got during this time and something to try to remember. So also, don't drink soda. It's bad. I haven't had a soda in ten years. I've passed my ten year anniversary a few months ago. Yeah, I'm often. I used to drink a lot of dr pepper. Now does that? Does a Roman coke count? Like? Is that a soda? So that's a great question. Gin and tonic? Is that gin and tonic? Isn't I don't think tonic water count as much calories as anesoda does. Well, here's how I think about this, because I have had this uh conversation with people. I have had a couple of uh like jack and coax or whatever over these years, although not in a long time. Um, but like I think when the streak was young, I did a few times, but I don't count those is breaking the streak. My thinking is I have never, just in the last more than ten years now chosen a soda. Like if I'm thirsty, I don't drink a soda. If I need caffeine, I'll drink tea. But I don't do a soda. I'm never just like, let me have a soda. Let me drink a soda straight. If I have the occasional like jack and coke, which really that has been like many years. Really, once I got to the point in my life where I can drink whiskey or bourbon without having to put it in soda, stopped putting it in soda. Um. And that took until maybe my mid twenties. Um. But you know, so I I don't count those as drinking soda, like I just I haven't had a soda. Uh. And you're right, you know, if you want to get me on a technicality that eight years ago, maybe I did have a whiskey coke or something. That is true, and you know, I'll admit that I acknowledge it. But to me, that didn't break my streak. This is a journalism podcast, Mitch. We're trained to ask probing questions. I don't want you to take it as a threat. No, I didn't take it as a threat. And I've because I've had this conversation dozens of times with one of my brothers and with some other people, and so I have my defense already prepared and crafted. But the other thing is, you know what, I don't have to defend myself because it's something I do for me. And so as long as I feel good about myself and my streak, that's all the matters. Proud of you, Mitch, Thank you, Jenny. One good thing this week, Um, I was looking for to help my mom with some activities for my dad. He's used to he's retired, but he would still go into his office and you know, look at some of his old research and read some papers here and there. So he hasn't had that since he's been homebound this whole time. And so this is a person who's gone into his office his entire adult life, and it's kind of even though he's retired. Like I said, it was just part of his routine and it was somewhere to go, and so he's been a little thrown off. So we were trying to think of activities that could fill his day, and I thought about we used to love Calvin and Hobbes comics, and we had the books of them and so I said, where are those Calvin and Hobbs books? So my mom like dug him out. They were like on a bookshelf in my sister's room. Um, so I'm pretty excited to like hear how he likes diving back into them. I haven't read those books in like twenty years. And my sister said she remembered, and this is true. We used to like read them in the bathtubs sometimes when your kids and so the pages were all like wrinkled and rolled up in everything. Um, but you know, my mom said she dug them out. So I was thinking of ordering one for myself. I saw there were a couple options on Amazon. I couldn't remember which book I enjoyed the most, though, So if any of our listeners have made it this far in the pod and remember which of the Calvin and Hobbes anthologies is the best one if I wanted to order one, I would love suggestion. That would be huge. If one of our listeners comes through the clutch, I think, right, it's our It's are really are our real fans and are the ones who had such detailed responses on things. Um Connor, you have to talk about the one that you posted on the MQB instagram account today. Yeah, so I do apologize again eagle eared listeners here. Um I said on the week Side podcast earlier this week that um, in the one of the many vital episodes of Boy Meets World that Corey proposes to Topanga at their high school graduation, I got it flipped. That's my unconscious male bias. I think that's working in there, like you know, saying it was Topanga, and Topanga was always the clearheaded, uh smart character there. I don't know why I didn't assume that she was the one that that proposed to Cordy. But thank you so much too. We had two different listeners point that out, by the way, one that I posted on our MMQB instagram and a second one that sent it to us on Twitter saying how could you mess this up? And I'm embarrassed. But you know, it is an opportunity to go back and to start Boy meets World over again. So I'm very excited about that. It might be a big coronavirus project here for us. You know, I've never you've what, I've never seen an episode of that show, Oh my god, because I'm told the main character is is like a Phillies fan, right like you. Yeah. Yeah, my wife watched the show growing up, and she's told me and other people have told me, like, how can you and I don't. I don't know. I just miss it where it's Is it streaming somewhere? Maybe I'll have to Probably I would guess Disney Plus. Um, but we just got Disney Plus in time to watch Hamilton's This Week. Very good. Yeah, but that was to me, like that was the show where you learned about, um, the dangers of smoking pots or cigarettes or alcohol or like that was my like, you know, the show that teaches you everything. Even Corey's best friend joins a cult there for a hot second, so, um, you know, dangers of colts, you know all this stuff. So it's good. You know, it's good. Good to know. It's good, good refresher course. Even though you just spoiled the proposal scene. Maybe I'll check it out at some point, please do. Okay, So this segment is called one Good Thing. I gotta tell you I have a great thing. You guys are sharing nice things about family and relatives and time, while spend mine is just I am straight up bragging about an accomplishment. Of mine this week that I'm very excited about. Oh boy, I am surprised. I haven't brought this up on the podcast at all the last two months for what we've been keeping busy with at the beginning. But I decided in May I would subscribe to the New York Times crossword Puzzle. My brother does it every day, and he's been doing this for years and he talks about it a lot, and so I actually I did it on my birthday the first week in May, because I've been thinking for a while that I should, and I was like, oh, my birthday is like an easy day to remember. So on my birthday, I downloaded the app and did my first one. And I've been doing them and they're very fun, and the Monday puzzles are very easy, and then they get progressively harder through the week until you get to Sunday, and so you know, the goal is to try and finish them yourself, and it times you, and it keeps track of your stats and your record on each day of the week and your streaks. But then if you give up, you can check the puzzle, so it tells you which squares you have right and which one's wrong or if you totally give up, you can hit reveal and it reveals the whole puzzle and you lose your streak and whatever. And so I try and do it every day. Just I do the best that I can on my own, and then sometimes my if I'm stuck, my wife and I will do it together and try and figure it out. Sometimes, you know, if I'm really stuck all Google things, whatever, sometimes I'll just give up if I'm like there's too much and I'm not going to get it well. Anyway. This week, I successfully completed the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle all by myself, without looking anything up or cheating at all. I just sat down and powered my way through it and did the whole thing. And it felt incredible and I'm very proud of myself. And then I didn't even know this. I tweeted about it, and I was like half joking in my tweet. I forget what my words were exactly, but I was like, I can accomplish anything. I'm like beaming here. It was unlike my wife Sam could tell you, I like let out a yell. It was like sports have been missing for my life for four months. The when the icon came up that I had gotten everything right and was done. It was like, uh, it was like a sports moment my reaction to it. So I just I tweeted about it, and then I discovered crossword puzzle. Twitter is just this incredible faction of Twitter, these strangers, just the nicest people reaching out and congratulating me and like quote tweeting me and sharing the message like oh, everybody, you should get into puzzles. You can do it. And it was just like so then I like followed a couple of crossrood puzzle accounts and like the New York Times as an account where they like solve the puzzle together with a guest, like on live Twitter videos every day, and just these like delightful people I'm used to interacting with, like football fans on Twitter who are like angry and rude and like their Twitter their profile will like list the teams that they like and like make themselves sound hardcore, and these like Crossrood puzzle fans, their bios are like I like books, and I like tea, and I like crossword puzzles and like just these nice, friendly people who were so supportive and I'm ready to just like quit sports Twitter. I know that's a loss for Connor because he loves my Twitter account, but I'm ready to just give up sports and dive whole hardly into crossrood puzzle Twitter. It was just it was like when I discovered The Great British Baking Show for the first time. It's like, these are just delightful, wonderful people who I should spend more time with. Mitch. You can get rid of the beard, you cannot get rid of the Twitter. Okay, it's one or the other. I need something. I'm I'm hanging on by a thread here, so it's one of the I'm not gonna stop tweeting about sports, but I'm gonna start tweeting more about crossword puzzles. And I'm happy to give this community some shout out on this on this podcast too. I like it. Match, Congratulations, I'm fired very happy. You can tell this is Is this the most excited I've been in in a couple of months. It's possible, Mitch. I feel like you're a font of positive energy. I'm not. I'm not gonna lie so I I you know, there was there was the metal Bowl thing a couple of weeks ago. Crossword puzzle I think that you're doing a great job at teaching everybody to take joy in the little things, which we've talked about super important during these times, so that that actually means a lot. Connor, thank you very much. I'm I'm doing my best. It's you know, it's fun to be positive and and upbeating happy. That's just that's a good way to go through life. I think no doubt, all right, Connor, Jenny, this has been fun. Another successful episode of uh the MMQB Weekend Review podcast. I forgot the name for a second missing Albert who is on vacation, but he is on the podcast feed. He had a long interview with Sean McVeigh that he taped ahead of time and was posted on Wednesday from his vacation. You should subscribe to the mm QB NFL podcast. You're gonna get shows five days a week, including Connor and Jenny together on the week side podcast twice a week. Albert, you're gonna get the show from Garry Grambling, lots of guest appearances from Andy Benoy. You're gonna get this on Fridays, and we've got some fun I guests. Maybe next week we'll have a special guest who knows we'll see you. Never know what you're gonna get on the MMQB NFL pod US, so make sure you subscribe. Follow the mm QB on Twitter, followed on Instagram, where Connor has been posting a lot of fun stuff all summer, and make sure you visit our website and check out everything that's posted up there, and we will talk to you again real soon