"I was never gone, really, I was just resigned like many of you to what we were, to what we had become," Kevin Sheehan said to open the show on a second-straight Victory Monday in Washington. "Times though, they are a changin'. Wow! What a bleeping game that was. A 35-33 win after falling behind 21-3 20 minutes into it. That thing looked so much like a loss midway through the second quarter that if you had even mentioned or whispered that they were gonna come back you woulda been drug-checked."
"Washington outscored Denver 32-3 over a roughly 25-minutes stretch of football that was as dominating a stretch that we've seen in a long time from this team. 32-3 over just under two quarters of football, essentially," Sheehan continued. "The defense took over again when it mattered the most. The offense became unstoppable. Of course, there was the major sweat over the last two minutes, which included that insane Hail Mary."
And then, "the refs swallowed the whistle, they kept the flag in their pocket and perhaps shouldn't have. I don't know, maybe they'll get some sort of word on whether or not it shouldn't have been but it's about time Washington gets a break. They shoulda gotten a call at the end of the Giants game last game this Sunday nighter at FedEx. And even if they had called what they shoulda called against [Benjamin] St-Juste it doesn't mean Denver woulda scored with another snap at the one yard line. Doesn't mean if they had gotten another snap and converted that they woulda won the game in overtime."
On Sunday, that was just the way the football cookie crumbled and Washington got the benefit this time and is 2-0.
"But what a game," Sheehan said. "What an early season statement that game was. Not just about resilience and grit and toughness. The statement being that they have a ton of playmakers on both sides of the ball. They have some really good players, they really do. That's the statement, for now, anyway.
"...But it's been obvious, they've been building towards this. They've been building a good roster, a talented roster now for two to three years."
What had been missing "more than anything else" the past few years was somebody good enough at quarterback, Sheehan continued. "And now, well, I don't want to overreact because it is still just two games and because last week wasn't great. But [Sunday] Sam Howell played well. He played at a level that they haven't had here for a few years. There's some nit-picking of his performance for sure... but last week I had home graded as a C, the grade this week which will be much better."
Sheehan went on to say that the "vibe" around the organization as "the stench" from the franchise's past steward has been removed and how that is leading many Washington football fans to feel positive thoughts – which they should feel – about where this football team could do this year. To listen to the full reaction and full take on the Commanders' statement win on the road – in Howell's first-ever NFL road game – listen on the audio player above.