Transcript of Hour 1: Dan Wants To Guillotine The Shipping Container (feat. Matthew Berry)

This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugats podcast. The Dan Levatard Show is sponsored by Liquid IV. Don't let the grind drain you. Ditch the glitch with zero sugar and zero crash from Liquid IV. Tear, pour, live more. Go to liquidiv. Com and get 20% off your first order with code dan at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with code dan at liquidiv. Com. Com. It's the energy that just hits different. Balanced, steady, and smooth, thanks to L-theanine and caffeine. I keep a few of these packets with me wherever I go: gym, work, travel, because it's simple. Tear, pour, mix, and you're good.

The last couple of days Jeremy has been at the whiteboard, and he has been giving you two team tiebreakers in Major League Base in the National League because the Marlins were playing meaningful games the last week of the season. Two team tiebreakers, three team tiebreakers, four team tiebreakers, five team tiebreakers, six team tiebreakers. Let's go out to Jeremy right now and find out what the latest update is on Marlins Base. Jeremy, you have bored us with the permutations. You've done a lot of math. That's never good in audio. Where are we now? What is the latest update?

Thanks, Dan. It's over.

Okay, very good. Mike Ryan watched his first Marlins game of the season last night.

Yeah, first Marlins We lured you in. We lured you in with baseball talk. Look, you guys support me often. When I have passions, high-ly hockey and what have you, I wanted to be a team player and get a board. And boy, did those fish put on a show for me.

Yeah, they lost 1-0 against the Philly's. Not a very interesting game.

I mean, there were plenty of times where I'm like, whew, tying run at the dish. Yeah.

And then it wasn't- I thought that last at bat, though.

Deep fly ball to center. It could have been a go-ahead play right I was in. Then I just went on living my life watching NFL football.

Billy, you want to give us a eulogy, a truelegy? What do you want to give us for your beloved Marlins, the team you care about the most?

The Marlins have passed. They came into this season with not much hope and expectations and surprised many, serve their purpose. They got us from basketball-ish/hockey season to the NFL, had us smile, had us laugh, had everybody in Miami doing the fish one more time.

I don't feel like that's accurate. I don't feel like everybody in Miami was doing the fish.

I wanted to do the fish. I wanted to do the fish. I got to tell you, though, not the greatest hook for me to make my return to baseball here.

The rain delays stuck in this series. Yeah.

They didn't exactly cover themselves in glory. I would love to have gotten excited about the players that you guys telling me about, but nobody did anything.

There's still time. There's one series left. I mean, they're out of it, but they could spoil a Mets season. That's going to be fun. Sandy's pitching tonight.

I'm back to pretending I watch Mariner's baseball.

We're going to talk about that in a second, but there have been more weather delays in college football than there usually are the first month of the season, correct? This is an unusual thing. We've got two hurricanes off the Coast of Florida headed this way. We've got hurricane activity. This has been an unusual weather circumstance, and it's the new normal, right? Where a number of college football games are being delayed by weather. I have this wrong?

No, back in my day, this wasn't a thing. Back in my day, we would just brave the elements. Play through lightning. I don't understand that. I don't remember. Growing up, do you remember games being suspended for two hours? I was really confused. I would argue that the best weather Miami's had for any game this season was against USF, and that's the one with the weather delay. I don't understand it.

These are the lessons that learned from my dad playing baseball because his high school coach at Beach High, Skip Mart, used to say, Hey, when the lightning's there, just hold that metal bat higher. Show the lightning who's boss. That's right.

Classic Skip Mart.

We're all going to die.

We're going to be fine. We're all going to die. We're all going to die. Only one spaghetti model has it headed this way, man.

It's multiple hurricanes, though. I was learning last night while watching one of the few weather forecasts that's still allowed to exist. I'm watching it and they're explaining to me, I didn't know this before, that the two hurricanes can't actually combine to become a more giant hurricane. That's not the way that it works. A sharknado, a super hurricane. Well, I just saw there was a super typhoon last week or earlier this week.

Yeah, those are hurricanes, but just on the other side of the world.

Stay off the weather channel. We'll tell you when you got to worry, Dan. Don't worry. We'll tell you when to get some water.

We're good. Nice little run here for I've got plenty of distilled water in the car.

Don't put it out there.

By the way, I did look that up. You can consume distilled water. However, if you drink too much of it, you may have some deficiencies in minerals that your body needs.

Distilled water rips away basically all the essential minerals and all the general pH balance goodness that it brings to your body. You're just making yourself wet.

It's also pretty crazy that with all of this rain and all of these rainouts and all of that, that the rays played their first ever season without a roof after their roof was destroyed and had zero rainouts this season.

That's a good stat.

That's crazy.

Let's see if we've got a better stat of the day than that one. That's a pretty good stat of the day. Start of the day, start of the day.

This is start of the day.

While the world is watching to see if Big Dumper will set the AL record for home runs in a season because we celebrate AL records, Aaron Judge quietly set the American League record for intentional walks in a season with 36. As pointed out by obvious shirts on Twitter, in 2004, Barry Bonds had 120 intentional walks.

I was going to say he wasn't anywhere close to where Barry Bonds was. I saw him intentionally walk that season with the bases loaded. It was a lunacy. We were talking earlier this week about 500 Home Run Club, and I had mentioned, are there guys in the Hall of Fame who who aren't 500, who have 500 home runs? Is there anybody who has 500 home runs who's not in the Hall of Fame, non-steroid division? Because I think all of the guys who have 500, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Billy, are guys who we associate with steroids and therefore keep out of the Hall of Fame. You've heard me give the stat before on Barry Bonds. It is an amazing stat that if you took away all of the stolen bases and all of the home runs from his seven MVP seasons, he would still have 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases, which is something no other player in baseball has ever done. That season from Barry Bonds, obviously 73 home runs and 136 intentional walks with 73 home runs is the best baseball season there has ever been. But Aaron Judge has been better this year than the big dumper and has been better for four years.

He's had a four-year run here better than any player in the sport.

Offensively, I mean, probably most important defensive position in the sport that Big Dumper excels at, platinum glove and all. I think that matters. Also, the protection that Aaron Judge has in that lineup also enters the equation. I last checked a DraftKings sportsbook, and I guess there was a lot of hype for Big Dumper. He overtook Aaron Judge fairly recently and became a nice little favorite on ALMVP.

That's just because he's new, though, right? Because people have grown weary of Aaron Judges' metronome excellence.

Yeah, and I think that there's just a real curiosity around a catcher doing this. He's got a couple of different elements going for him. The Seattle Mariner's being relevant again, and perhaps some Yankee and Aaron Judge fatigue a little bit. The novelty of it probably plays into the equation, but also the excellence. You can't really go wrong with either of those two candidates. I think one defensively puts himself over the other.

Even if not defensively. Look, Aaron Judge metrically has had the better season. But there's an argument, and I think a pretty good one to be made that what Cal Raleigh is doing in terms of excellence hitting home runs in a single season is the most impressive single-season home run display we have ever seen of any kind. Because everyone Everyone else ahead of him, he's about to get to 60. Whether he does or not, everyone else ahead of him was either tainted by steroids, performance-enhancing drugs, or a Yankee. A very famously easy ballpark to hit home runs in. I believe currently, it's the third easiest ballpark to hit home runs, where in Seattle, it's 19th. He's also a switch-hitting catcher. The wear and tear on the body as a catcher to be able to have the longevity in a season to hit 59 home runs, you could argue that just simply as a home run hitter, this is the most impressive season there has ever been in the history of baseball.

It has to be non-steroid division because when you're- That's why it's impressive. When you're being walked 134 times or whatever it was intentionally, and hitting 73 home runs. No one's ever going to do anything like that again. You will see that once in your lifetime, it will be pharmaceutically aided, and it will be the last time you see anything like that.

If we want to take the award, literally, I I know Aaron Judges is extremely valuable to the New York Yankees, but they're the Yankees. Cal Raleigh is more valuable to his team, I think, than Aaron Judges, even to the Yankees.

You say that, I will tell you that that Mariner's lineup in a lot of ways is better, especially in the second half of the year, once they added Suarez, than the Yankees lineup has been throughout the year. When healthy, sure, but they've dealt with a lot of injuries this year. The value that Aaron Judges has provided has been more necessary this season than previous years, despite them having that payroll. But if you just look at the pure excellence, I mean, hitting 60 home runs, doing that, especially if over the weekend, he passes Judge and hits three home runs somehow this weekend, it's been a really spectacular season and maybe the most impressive ever. This episode is supported by FX's The Lowdown, starring Ethan Hawk. Allow us to introduce you to Lee Raybon, a quirky journalist/ rare Bookstore owner/ unofficial truth seeker who's always on the tail of his latest conspiracy. This time, his most recent exposé puts him head to head with a powerful family that rules Tulsa. Meaning only one thing, he must be onto something big. Fx is the low down. All new Tuesdays on FX. Stream on Hulu.

Don Lebatard. Florida claws back from down to '0 because they were getting their asses handed to them by Toronto to then get lit a fire underneath by their head coach, Paul Maurice, who did the thing. Remember how the run was sparked last year? Stugatz. He called him a bunch of P's and B's. He did the thing again. He called them a bunch of P's and B's, and then boom, five unanswered. You win the division This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

So college football this weekend, are the Georgia, Alabama game and Oregon, Penn State, are those on at the same time?

Primetime games, rare big-time SEC game that's on at night. Usually, the big game of the day in the SEC is in that 3: 30 window. Very small line, two and a half in Athens. Surprised by that, I guess. We'll see what FSU is tonight. But if Alabama goes into Athens, you start looking at FSU a little bit different. And college, Reece Davis already tipped the hand. If FSU handles business, even if they don't, college game day is probably headed for Tallahassee. It'd be cool for FSU to edge one out here and for that game to mean a lot. But I'm very curious to see what Georgia is. I'm not exactly sure what to make of the SEC. I know what their reputation is, but the teams at the top of that conference, Dan, LSU, I have the transit property thing. I know Miami played Florida better than LSU did. They were both at home. And that LSU SU performance against Clemson gets less and less impressive when you consider the teams that have also done this to Clemson and look more impressive doing so.

I don't know how you guys do this when it comes to points spreads, okay? Because I, too, was surprised by that point spread when I saw that George is favored at home by only two and a half. When I feel like a couple of weeks ago when Alabama was losing to FSU, we were all saying, Oh, that's all over in Alabama. Everything there, DeBore is not going to be able to replace Saban. He's going to be fired here soon, even though he's got a long contract and the buyout is prohibitive. I feel like all of us buried Alabama a few weeks ago. So to see Georgia at home, Kirby Smart is one and six against Alabama. To see Georgia at home, favored by less than a field goal, gives me pause, because any time I see a point spread that I don't understand, I simply assume I'm wrong. The most recent example, the Arizona Cardinals were a one and a half point dog last night, and I didn't understand it. Going into the game, I'm like, Why would anyone believe in Seattle this way? But the money tends to be pretty smart in these regards.

It's not Vegas that's smart. It's Vegas that sets the odds that gets betting on both sides. And the money, when I am going into a game and I think something is free money, I always think I'm wrong, and I'm so bad at this that I'll often bet against what I think just because I... I'm not even kidding. I'm not joking.

Responsibly, of course. You're betting against what you think responsibly.

I am not joking when I tell you that my temptation last night, when I see a point spread that I don't understand, is to say, Okay, I'll go against what I think is going to happen in this game, because I'm assuming that there are people out there who know a great deal more than I do about what they're doing with their money here. I'm the Jackass who's got four jugs of distilled water in his car without realizing why it is that my skin is getting drier than it used to be and has peanut shells all over the floor of my car.

You're just making yourself wet with that water, Dan. One last note on Alabama, Georgia. I spoke to George Sedano. Not a look at me, Louis. Just for context, he's called the last two FSU games. He says their corners are good, but they gamble. You look at Alabama's receiver room, that's the best in the country. It's crazy that Ryan Williams is not the best receiver on Alabama anymore, considering what he did as a 17-year-old. We all know what Isiah Horton is capable because he's a Miami transfer. He's capable of a lot, except for catching a seven-yard slant when the team needs it the most against Syracuse. But he's a third receiver in Alabama. Bernard has been unbelievable. Crazy to say that Ryan Williams, who had one of the best true freshman seasons of all time at 17 years old, isn't the best wide receiver there, isn't the leading wide receiver there. Their offense is figuring stuff out. Very curious to see what happens in that game.

Put it on the poll, please, @LevitarShow. Do we all know what Isaiah Horton is capable of, yes or no? Matthew Berry is here, and he is here to give us as fast as he can, as much fantasy information as he can. I have promised him that if he makes himself available for us throughout this season. I will indeed partake in all things fantasy by the end of the season, and I will become somebody. What are you making faces about?

That's not how fantasy works. You don't just decide, I want to be part of a fantasy league the last week of the season.

I'm going to commit after I get a...

Look, I don't- Is this for next season?

I don't think that you guys understand how little I trust any of you to actually commit to anything. When I say something, I mean it, and so I am promising that if Matthew Barry does indeed give our audience this information that it craves in condensed form, that I will participate in fantasy in a way our audience enjoys and feels after this season.

Dan Levitard, how dare you question my commitment. I am suffering through this punishment that you have put me through because a random football team lost.

I am suffering through having to pay Udonis Haslem too much money to enforce rules around here because you guys do not respect the rules or respect anything. I can't get my father to do anything. Tony just left the show chasing my father. He paid this thing off super quick. No, you guys are terrible. You don't respect anything.

You should have enjoyed our guillotine league.

It's awesome. Yeah, I mean, mostly they don't respect me.

I would enjoy guillotining just about all of you. I would...

Rough week for Roy. He was chopped last week.

I'm sorry, Roy. Did you have Green Bay?

I had Jordan Love as a quarterback, but we don't have teams.

That's not how it works.

You fool.

You fool. Silly boy.

Did you have Green Bay?

Did you think it was a survivor league?

Oh, my goodness. That's what I thought.

This guy's talking tough to us, questioning our commitment?

Forgive me for thinking a guillotine league and a survivor league were the same thing. Both of them sound a bit ominous. They're life or death circumstances in both names to the league. Forgive me for thinking they were synonyms.

Well, now I'm dead.

Matthew Berry, we have an open for you. We have gotten around to making an open for you. Thank you for making the time for us. We know that you are very busy, so let's give him his open, please.

Matthew Berry.

Matthew Berry.

Matthew Berry. Matthew Berry. Matthew Berry. He is our fantasy guru. He knows a lot more than most people. Obviously, if I don't know the difference between a guillotine league and a survivor league, I know next to nothing about what we're talking about. What is Cam Newton wearing right now on television? A bow tie with that hat. What are the studs in his hat? Matthew Berry, get us started here.

All right, the Las Vegas Raiders top five in the NFL in terms of most receptions allowed on deep passes. Oh, by the way, this weekend, they play Caleb Williams with the bears. Caleb Williams is top three in the NFL in deep ball rate. Percentage of passes, obviously, to go at least 15 air yards. So a team that's bad against defending the deep ball has to play a quarterback that's really good at throwing it. Other side of that matchup, by the way, the bears are also bottom five in the NFL in shutdown rate. The bottom five in yards It's a pass attempt allowed. And so far this year, Dino Smith is actually top eight in the NFL in pass attempts per game. It's a 47 and a half over under. I'll take you over. I think a lot of offense in the Raiders, Bairs game, randomly. Every single game this year, the Broncos have allowed at least 89 rushing yards from Stemmage to an opposing running back. They faced the Bengals this week. This is the week Chase Brown gets up the schneid. He's got 83 % of the Bengals running back touches. By the way, he also has a 12 % target here in the year.

They're using him in the passing game. Broncos allow the seventh most receiving yards to opposing running backs. Last week on the Denver side of the ball, J. K. Dobbins had a 85 % running back rush share. Bangles had allowed at least 125 rushing yards to opposing running backs in back to back game. It's a J. K. K. Dobbins week. O'mahri and Hampton. O'mahri and Hampton last week got a ton of usage, and this week has an unbelievable matchup. He had a utilization score of 96. It's a scale of one to 100 on how much a running back is used or any player is used in data that projects fantasy points. Anytime you score over a 90, you are an RV1. He's locked in as a top five fantasy football running back. And every single game this year, no matter who the quarterback is, Wilson has had at least a 37 % target share. Dolphins have allowed a touch down to a wide receiver in every single game this year. No wide receiver throughout this year has gotten more targets than Chris O'Lavi of the Saints. He's got a 32 % target share. And by the way, he's a 16-point underdog to the Bills this weekend.

Let's see. Last weekend, Matthew Golden had an 84 % route participation. He had 77 % of the packers air yards. It hasn't worked out for him yet, but this is the week that he goes off against a Cowboys defense that has allowed more More yards and touch downs and deep passes than any team in the NFL. No team has allowed more yards to opposing tight ends than Carolina Panthers. It's another Hunter-Henri week for the Patriots.

Excellent, as always. How are you doing so far with your information? How successful have you been this season? How does this season feel? Because the early parts of the season can be hard to figure out what is actually happening, right?

Yeah. I mean, overall, pretty good. I think, look, have I hit everything? I have not. My big ride or die, Omari and Hampton had a big week last week, so I just mentioned him. He's my one player that I planted a flag on and said, This is my ride or die. He was going about running back. He was going about 30th, I think, inside the top 30 overall. And he's He was a top five fantasy running back last week. So obviously been helped a little bit. There was an injury to his teammate, Najee Harris, opens up more playing time for him, but he looked apart. He had a huge production, I think, as another big week. So that's been really good. A lot of the pics gone well. One pick that I got wrong, which is what you're asking is James Cook. My concern in the preseason was last year, James Cook played less than 50 % of the snaps, wasn't involved in the passing game, and was just scoring touchstones at a really high rate. So the argument was, well, there's There's no way James Cook can keep this insane shutdown rate up if he's not getting a ton of usage either on the ground or in the passing game.

And yet he has. He's playing less than 60 % of the snaps this year for the Bills. He's playing less than 60 % of the snaps. He's got an under 15% target share. He's not a heavy part of the passing game for the Bills, and yet he's scoring every week. The Bills probably have the easiest schedule in the NFL. They're blowing teams out, and when they're getting in close, they are giving it to James Cook. So Cook's a top three fantasy running So it's one of those weird things where I was completely right about all the reasons why he shouldn't be picked high, but yet he still is because he's getting just insane shutdown usage.

Were these coming back for Kansas City? Do you expect their offense to look any I think it'll look a little bit better.

Mahomes just hasn't looked Mahomesian, especially on those deep passes. They found a little something with Taekwan Thornton, but I think having Xavier Orthe, who had developed more of a connection with last season, it's certainly just, look, getting a good player back for that offense is going to be helpful. They're out there with, again, Taekwan Thornton had a nice game on Sunday, but it's Taekwan Thornton and Hollywood Brown. So I guess I do think it will help the offense, just especially the deep passing of Mahomes, which has seemed off this year.

Tell the people where they find everything it is that you're doing, because as I mentioned, his fantasy information is wildly valuable. People really do appreciate it, and he will make your team better and make you more informed. Where do they find you on all the things you want to be found on?

Well, fantasy football happy hour is my show every single day. We follow you guys on Peacock. We're on five o'clock on Peacock. We're also live at noon on YouTube, so you can check it out. You can also see it on demand on YouTube, Peacock, wherever you get your podcast, fantasy football pregame, Sunday morning, 11: 00 AM Eastern on YouTube. And Peacock, we get you ready for all the games. We answer more questions than any other pregame show. And you can go to fantasylife. Com and get a free newsletter from me and some of my friends. We send it a free five-minute read. It's easy. It's free newsletter that gets you everything you need to know about fantasy football for that day. And listen, it's a free newsletter. If you hate it, just unsubscribe. But you go to fantasylife. Com and check all that out.

Appreciate the time, Matthew. Thank you, sir.

Matthew, real quick before you go. Dan, thank you. Before you go, before you go. Club Set open this week?

Yes, Club Set is open this week. Club Set is always open, but especially this week. He's their number one wide receiver. I don't know why people keep ranking Jerry Judy over him. Cedric Tillman. Club Set, always open.

Thank you, Matthew. Appreciate the time, sir.

Thank you.

Don Levatard. We're going to win. Stugatz.

We're going to win. They're annoying. What an old reference.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

I don't know if you guys saw this, but South Park has a different relationship with, I'm going to say, entertainment than just about anything I've ever seen in my life. I have always preferred the Simpsons. I have enjoyed the way that South Park hates Family Guy for not actually saying anything meaningful, but what happened with South Park last week is something that I was really having trouble remembering when and where I've ever seen anything like it happen. They are famously procrastinators. They get to do whatever they want creatively in a way that no one gets to do whatever they want creatively. And last week, they just missed an episode, wasn't ready in time, Because it was happening around the kimmel stuff, people were wondering, well, were they censored? Were they kept from doing it? No. Just didn't get it done in time. Wanted to do it particularly well. Want to always have the freshest stuff off of news events to react to, and it wasn't ready, and everyone just had to wait. I don't know what calamities that causes in the backgrounds, but I was wildly impressed by the amount of power that you have to have to just simply blow deadline, not show up for a scheduled appearance because your work's not ready, and everyone's going to have to wait.

Not just your employer. America is going to have to wait. And what are we going to all do? We're all going to wait, and they're going to do it the way that they want to. When those guys talk about the notes that they get on their episodes, what you get is something unlike anywhere else in entertainment, where the arguments are, We're going to have to blur the penis. No, we're not going to blur the penis. And so the President of the United States has a tiny penis running through his South Park episodes while he tries to impregnate the taken.

I think the nature of their deal isn't necessarily, You are on this date. It just gave us a certain set of episodes. I don't know. They had an anniversary some years back where they did a documentary on how chaotic it is to put an episode together. I don't know if you to watch that, Dan. But basically, it's over the course of 72 hours. It's not the crude construction paper animation of the earlier seasons. They can put these things together fairly quickly. I imagine they basically threw out half an episode so they can keep it up to date because they went at the SEC chair quite a bit in this episode, and a lot of that stuff evolved over the weekend. So, yeah, they probably worked really hard on an episode that didn't necessarily make their deadlines, and they decided to scrap a fair amount of it. It's pretty wild. They have incredible creative freedom. Cable television, pal. No oversight from the SEC. They're only leverage. We know that Paramount, given what happened with Colbert and their merger and how much they prioritized that, does bow at the... Does bend the knee. But the one exception that they have in their company seems to be the South Park guys.

Adam McKay mentioned in the making of Don't Look Up, I learned so much in talking to him about just how much the industry has changed, and I don't know how much I'm allowed to necessarily say here, but I'll try and talk around some of the things. Spoiler alert, if you have not seen Don't Look Up, it ends with, again, spoiler alert, the world ending. And generally speaking, that's not Hollywood friendly. There were fights around the movie 7, where contractually, Brad Pitt had to get put into the movie 7, that it could end the way that it was supposed to end because people don't like dark endings of movies. They don't want studios. People who are responsible for the money don't want to send the customer home feeling all manner of dark. So the way that the negotiations ended up working with Adam McKay as it revolved around creative freedom, and as it gets more difficult as five companies run all of Hollywood and entertainment, is he could only have the creative freedom that he wanted if he kept the movie under a certain length. If it went over the certain length, then he lost some of those creative freedoms.

But he was able to end Don't Look Up with the World ending. But as he was making the movie, the absurdities that he was writing in fiction as one of the people responsible for a generation of comedy in film, the things that were happening in real life were making obsolete things that he was writing fictitiously as jokes that couldn't possibly happen, where he's making the billionaire weirder and weirder about things he's doing, and then things would happen in real life that made things that he was imagining seem like he was copying the news when he was writing them before the news happened. The guys at South Park, I am really enjoying what it is that Colbert and the guys from South Park can do as they are being more creative and more hostile in in locking what it is that's happening in America, which seems to resonate than sermonizing or scraching, even though those have their profit centers, too, if you sermonize and breach. Because when you look at the very top of what is happening in the podcast industry, people who are giving the strongest opinions and the strongest concerns conservative opinions are the ones that are having much of the great success these days.

But it was super strange to watch somebody who's wildly creative and was writing fiction, watch real-life events be really weirder and more dangerous than the things that he was just conjuring from his imagination.

That was when the Biden administration was in place. Right now, in their hast to try to get the Epstein stuff out of the news, we thought they were flooding the zone in the first few months. It is every day, there's three things that happen that are just bonkers. There would be massive scandals for other administration. I'm not getting. This is my opinion, but There's several Watergate-level scandals that just don't even get covered anymore because of how crazy the news cycle has been.

But Steve Banon told you that all of that was going to happen, and I was wildly naive about some of the things that have happened in the last 10 years because I didn't understand when Breitbart was taking anything that I would say on ESPN and doing what is now being done to Will Bond when he talks about Bruce Pearl. I did not understand the threat that now seems quaint of just the tea party. I didn't understand what was happening anytime I was talking about a black athlete and it was becoming head lines on Breitbart, and then this community of people was getting mad at me. I, not unlike Mike Gandhi, wasn't able to change with the times fast enough not to be fooled by what it is that happened with the times, Because Steve Bannon and some of the things that you see in Project 2025, just flood the news stream with scandal, and all of a sudden, we become numb to scandal, and you can have 100 water gates a year, and it doesn't even matter anymore.

The flood, the zone coming from Bannon was pertaining to policy, and now it's pertaining to policy and diversionary tactics. The Isasar was caught, reportedly accepting a bag of $50,000, Megan Kelly takes Twitter and says, We don't care. And you just indict James Comey instead. It's just a radical time that we're in right now. And that wraps up politics.

That's it. That's about enough of politics.

That's as political as we've been in months. Like, dead on, like opining. I'm proud of us. Enjoy your Friday's, people. Big football Friday.

I am encouraged by the way that that the creative community has, in the last couple of weeks, been pretty loud, because I don't know whether Damosheck is right or not on Kimmel, that it's the idea that powerful people have decided to what was decided. I prefer to think that the people spoke up on behalf of Kimmel, and it had to be heard. But you saw that Hollywood did indeed rally around Kimmel, and so too did the folks on the right who were trying to protect their microphones, because as I was saying yesterday, I really do believe that America's core principle right now that is the strongest is just selfishness. It's just strong, strong selfishness. People are protecting their microphones because they don't want to have their free speech control.

Okay, a little bit more politics.

I can't segue from that back to Arizona, Seattle. What do you want me to talk about? You want me to talk about Arizona, Seattle? You want me to preview?

That's a great game. But the pivot has been like, we were obviously joking. Brenan Kahr made a joke online. The guy that co-authored Project 25, he was joking as if we didn't hear what the President said on the airplane. Now, I am encouraged, though, by that whole Kimmel experience, not just because Kimmel is back on the air, but because there was consensus that this is wrong, and it finally forced the pivot. Now, the pivot is to lie to the American people and gaslight them and say what they heard and what they read wasn't so, and that you were joking the entire time. Awfully convenient. But you did make them capitulate. Even if the capitulation was more lies, they realized that's too far.

When you see that Kimmel's ratings were what they were, and it doesn't even count all of the stations that he was preempted on.

Major markets, Washington DC, St.

Louis. Giant markets were not televising. What an enormous backfire backfire. The thing about this that concerns me is that the next time they do it, it won't be as ham-handed as it was that time because they made it too clear what they were doing, and the objection was obvious. Next time, it'll be done more in the shadows. But to have it backfire, not just with ratings, but now with the affiliates and Sinclair being penalized by getting bombarded by calls saying, No, we want our kimmel. You cannot strong arm Disney or Americans this way by not televising this. Sinclair has entrenched itself. The idea that Sinclair is now getting hit over the head by a bottle by its viewers demanding Kimmel when no one's been demanding Kimmel for the last 23 years. That's not something that's ever happened before right now. You're not getting any flooding of your station or bad publicity from for being someone who doesn't air Kimmel until right now.

Quickly, it's going to be a really busy weekend with a lot of sports, and I cannot wait to hear a means observations on Monday. And this reminds me that there is an incredible draft King's pool. This was super popular. A lot of signups last year when we did this. I tried to play, was not eligible because I am on this show. But I would like to make a prediction because it's a cool game. Open up your app, toggle the top menu to Pools, and you'll scroll down a little bit and you'll see the Weekend Observation's prediction pool. You can guess things like who's the first person that's going to be back? And my prediction for this, a little spoiler for the audience, I don't know anything here, but I think Xavier worthy is going to make a difference in this game. I think Patrick Mahomes is going to be the quarterback that's back. Jack.

You with your chief's opinion. I mean, you with yours.

I like my hand. I'm doing the nick Wright easy thing. I'm taking the greatest quarterback we've ever seen, and I'm going to say he's pretty good and he'll figure it out.

And you will ignore about, I don't know, 20 games of data that suggests that their offense is constipated and is going to stay constipated.

The same way you ignore that the receiver's are hurt. Don Lebatard.

There's sunglasses in boxes today, but in my bed in the hospital, ending our lives all the same. ♪ Stugats. ♪ It's the final nightgown.

This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugats. On Monday, it's the Weekend Observation's Prediction Pull, presented by Miller Lite and DraftKings. Make your picks, win it all. And you'll score a trip for two to hang out with us in studio, and at our next Miller Lite watch party. See, drapkings. Com/pools. That's draffkings. Com/p-o-o-l-s for details.

Hey, Cal Reilly sitting 60 home runs, dance unimpressed, and he's not alone, it's true.

I can tell you, you 'O'Mark Maguire.

' A few years back, Judge at 62, but most of you were mad 'cause it broke into UVA at Duke. In college football, Week 5.

Because of 'O'Mark Maguire. ' It's like Barry Bonds took a knife and he held the blade and threw it to slice our chance at being amazed.

Semi-socia hit '66 made it so we can't be dazzled by shit. Only he could light my fire. So we blame Mark McGuire, Bon Sosa and McGuire. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, There is nothing that old sportswriters like more than Bruce Springsteen. I don't know why it is you would say that I'm not impressed by 60 home runs. That seems like a totally unfair characterization.

Just yesterday, you said, Oh, all these guys are just hitting 60 all the time. That's really tough to do. I don't know if you know that.

I said tough to hit 50 all the time, not 60. I understand that he's only the seventh- Fifty is still pretty impressive. Yeah, it's still pretty impressive, but there are more guys doing it. Fifty used to mean something. The 60-yard field goal used to mean something, and the 50 home run season used to mean something. I didn't say I wasn't impressed by the big dumper. Billy's not impressed by having to call people for service on stuff? What is going on with you in the service industry? What's going on with you needing stuff from others? You don't like to need others.

No, it's not that. There are some things that I'm embarrassed that I need assistance on, and I was wondering if you guys had similar things that you are embarrassed. What's the most embarrassing thing that you need help with? My phone now for two weeks, I have the little switch on the side that's supposed to mute it off. So this should not be making sounds, yet it continues to make sounds. But I don't want to go to a phone store to have that fixed because I'm sure there's a simple fix that I just am not aware of. And when I go in there and I wait 90 minutes, they'll fix it in three seconds. I was curious if you guys had dumb things that you also-Have you asked for help on this?

From anybody around here?

Yeah, no. I've asked for help, and they say, You go to this setting, go to that setting, and I still keep getting notifications every day. I have to go and I put my phone away from the microphone so I don't get fined. I stick it underneath a backpack or something else so it doesn't make a lot of noise. But it just continues to make sounds for some reason. I don't know what's going on.

You're like me and Cody now? Is this the aging process for you?

No, I think that this is a technological error. I don't know if you know this. They have new iPhones come out basically every six minutes It's so now they're by the iPhone 17 that has some massive thing on the back of it to take pictures that honestly are not as good as Galaxy pictures, if we're going to be frank.

People aren't damn right. People aren't liking this one.

Well, this is an iPhone 13, so I'm about seven versions behind because I know what you're saying, it's really just four, but there's Ss and Ps and Cs and Ds in there in the middle. There's 0. 5. This is an older version of it. I think that now it's just intentionally being sabotaged so that I go and I get a new phone.

Well, haven't they been accused of that before? Haven't they had to pay for all sorts of money for that?

Yeah, they paid a settlement that nobody cares about. All sorts of money.

It does settlement.

Rounding there.

Where does that money go? Because it doesn't go to the people. You're entitled to like, six cents, but if I don't claim my six cents, where does that money end up?

Oh, it's such a racket. Things are.