Transcript of The Big Suey: The Gold Medal of Dan Le Batears Interviews

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings.

Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast.

I'm sorry. I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging.

I have been tempted in restaurants walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys?

I've done it. Now, here's the Marching Man to Nowhere, Fatface, and the Habitual Liar.

This episode of the Dan Lebitard Show with Studio Gots is presented by DraftKings. Draftkings, the Crown is yours.

Stugats has been real chatty during the breaks. He was just ripping me nonstop. I don't even know what the starting point of you ripping South Beach Sessions was. I walked in the room and you and Cody were howling with laughter, and it was about South Beach sessions, and I don't even know what it is that you were laughing about or what triggered the thought.

We were discussing how we thought the last segment ended very, very well. Greg prefers you to end a segment with a great point as opposed to trying to get him on some hard network out. Because you're really good at this. You make great points, and it's been a while since you took us and carried us to a break, and it felt good. You and I were talking right afterwards, and I said, Dan, don't worry about anything else. Baby steps. You took it to the break. You made a great point. We finished right then and there. Greg was saying, You should be Dan's producer. You should produce South Beach sessions. I said, If I did, I would tell him, Hey, enough with putting people on the couch. Let's move on to something fun and funny. You're a fun and funny guy, Dan, and all you do is serious. Get away from the serious. That's all we were saying.

I mean, in fairness, Dan has always been like that. Before you were on the air, I used I used to call you Levatiers, Dan Levatiers, because your interviewing style was you wanted... If you got a tear out of somebody you were interviewing, you'd won the gold medal. I mean, that's the gold medal of interviewing to you is drawing emotion out of somebody.

That's not true.

Yes, it is true. It is. It's your gold medal.

What medal is it?

It's your gold medal.

You don't care if you break news, you just want tears. Love of tears.

Not news, break hearts.

There you go. So Stugatz says, Where's the funny? Because guys, I believe everyone would take a look at the entirety of my career and say that on radio and television, all he did was respect television and radio way too much. The funny is here and the serious and the deeper is there, but I'm almost fundamentally incapable of small talk. I don't do it very well. I don't have very much interest in it.

That's not true. You and Mike Fuentes, I saw before the show a nice 5 to 6 minutes.

Ask him how many times that's happened since he's worked here. Go ahead.

I was noticing it. I'm like, Look at Mike and Dan. They're just talking about life?

He is walking a little bit taller today.

I'm not good at that, but I will say this one is surprising to me. This one I don't have because in keeping Chris, this might surprise you about your father, in keeping with your dad having a perspective in his 70s. I don't know how he came about this because he's someone who is almost allergic to learning and changing. At this age, it's not something that he wants to be doing. And yet, more than anyone on Earth, your father, after listening to several two-hour South Beach sessions, will reach out multiple times and say, This is the best work you've ever done, Dan. This is the best stuff in your career that you've ever done, because your dad has some want for this vulnerability that men love to mock about, look at Pat Reilly crying in the meeting because he's a coward or whatever it is you think he is when all he is is greedy about winning, and he will do whatever it is that he wants in order to win. And Jimmy Butler put him in a checkmated spot where he had to pull out my dad cart. An act of total desperation to try and get what he wanted because there were no others.

It's the final card.

I mean. I seem to have checked in with the Miami Heat recently, especially after that athletic story. I'm wondering if they were at all bothered by the dad stuff or the stuff surrounding the dad stuff, because Jimmy was dealing with this for quite some time, and he was actually performing at a very high level while he was dealing with this. When we talked about the Miami Heat have given liberties to Jimmy Butler that they haven't really given for other people, it's not just media availability. Although, Udonis went through something similar, and the Miami Heat absolutely acquiesced to everything that was going on in that personal life. But I would be particularly hurt by there, knowing the effort that even I just know, and it's probably a tip of the nice word.

It's more hurtful than that, right? We can do all the stuff about leaking and business play and everything else, but this is a notoriously private organization, at least in part because they like to control the messaging and the optics that has never had anything like that. So the most hurtful and embarrassing thing I would think about this, although I did not ask this question, is that you are basically showing every Everybody, the organization's ass. This is a private organization that prides itself on that is not how we behave. The lead thing is accountability. Now, we'll see in Golden State with how everything is going where and how that goes with Draymond Green, the fated embers of Draymond Green's career, trying to tell Jimmy what to do when Draymond Green ain't in charge anymore, but has always been the fire of what it is that that team does. But That the part about this is the mess when if we parsed through the details of everything that happened here, Jimmy already had a different set of rules than anyone who's ever played here because of what Shaq and Wade and LeBron brought that forced change upon Riley, but not so much change that Riley's ever going to let somebody else be in charge.

Is there an admission that they miscalculated this thing? Because we said it as it was running. The press release was a huge miscalculation because you backed a player in which very reputable people who are very rarely wrong said, he wants out of here. And by the way, he ended up going to one of his destinations that Shams reported at the beginning, where Burn Lee was over there saying, No, none of this is true. They totally misread that situation. Do they at least acknowledge that now? Because they backed a dude into a corner that you do not back into a corner. They blame him. It's awfully convenient. They got to see their own missteps here.

He blames them. That's where we are. That's how it gets there.

Well, let me ask you this. When it came time that Jimmy knew that they were not going to give him the max extension he wanted, isn't that where it all began to go sour? He realized that his future was not with this franchise. Just as the franchise realized we're not going to win with Jimmy, our best player.

We've taken Jimmy as far as we could take Jimmy.

Two years, $111 million. All of a sudden, Jimmy found his joy again. That's exactly how it happened, the moment that he got his extension.

It was always about money, and it's sad that the divorce ends this way. It was always going to come to an end unless, as stated before the season, as were the expectations, as were the things that Jimmy Butler echoed when he showed up at training camp. He played a bunch of games and played at a really high level, and then maybe the Heat would pay him in that twilight contract or one that they believed they could still get a little more out of him. But when we got to this point, it ends in this really nasty way because it took a month and a half in the middle of the season. We saw Jimmy Butler take 14 free throws in his final six games of the Heat, now 26 in his first two with the Warriors. That shows you the difference in the play style.

I'm going to make this the final words on Jimmy Butler, and this will probably end up being a lie because we've talked about this even today, about 20 minutes longer than we should have. But here is Eric Spolstra. This part is funny to me because of how it is that we pirana feed on the detail sales of the Discord. To me, Eric Spolstra is giving the proper voice to what all of this should be before divorce and money and business and everything get in the way. Jimmy Butler has caused himself friendships in that locker room from the way that he has handled his business. But I do believe here is the perspective that is the proper perspective to have from Eric Spolstra about the last five years.

The longer I'm in this business, the more that I feel like there's less absolutes, more things can be true. In this case, I don't have to completely understand how we got to this point. But what I can have is a sense of gratitude, completely. It was a great partnership and collaboration for five years. Some really deep core memories. I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful for the time to be able to coach a player like Jimmy. Every once in a while, I look through my journal from the bubble.

And I get goosebumps when I take myself back to that experience.

It was so intense. And from a competitive standpoint, to have the team come together and really unique adverse circumstances and to have that real sense of a team and a spirit. Those are indelible memories that I'm going to treasure that the rest of my career and my life.

I hate to admit this, but I'm going steal that journal.

I want to see what's in there. I'm shocked he has one. This team's missing killer mentality.

Oh, come on.

That was nice when he just did it.

Too nice. Too nice. Almost made me cry.

Exactly right. Just faunting over the X. The music.

Move on. What is that, though? What was that music?

He had nothing to do with that music.

What was that music to make it... I could have done with just the words. I didn't need the helpful music. I needed the music.

Goose bumps multiple times.

You got Goose bumps? Oh, God. Goose bumps.

That's the type of videos get me. And Spoh is right.

No. He's right.

We should think back on this years from now. This was a good thing with Jimmy.

It was his best marriage. It was his best- It was. That's where I was. Both parties acted the way that they've acted their entire careers in the end.

I saw Jeff Goldbloom in a Jurassic Park movie. It must have been the original Jurassic Park, saying some form of the equivalent of, I'm always looking for the next future, Mrs. Jimmy Butler. This It was his best marriage, but the marriages are all going to end badly because that's how marriages tend to end.

Wait, just so we're clear, Goldbloom said Jimmy Butler?

The next future miss is Dr. Malcolm.

But, Dan, if I told Heat fans six years ago, next year, you're going to get Jimmy Butler, you're going to make it to the NBA Finals with him as your best player twice. Heat fans would take... That would exceed every expectation Heath fan has.

Everybody would be thrilled to have Andrew Wiggins if you hadn't mention Kevin Durant.

I don't know. Look, beating Boston in those two runs were great. I love listening to the radio stations out there, having that over Boston. But now that Boston took the message that the Miami Heat refused to take when they lost to Boston and totally did a drastic change of the roster and became really good after that. I think we can all agree now, with the benefit of hindsight, that it ended up holding this franchise back because they kept thinking that they can go on these miraculous these outlier runs that really in that sport have no precedent in a full season. You can have a lockout run, but I think it ended up tricking us into fool's gold.

I'm trying to get out, okay, guys, but everybody wants to talk Jimmy Butler, so go ahead, Gody. I'm trying. Everybody- Well, football's over. I know, but I want to talk about other things, and I can't, so please, Greg.

You have information, Dan.

That's how I'm advancing the story, but I've done it for 22 minutes too long.

It was a miscalculation to think Jimmy Butler as your best is going to be good enough to win championships. I don't want to say his five plus years were a failure by any means. They were not. But let's not retrofit it. He did not win a championship. That was why they signed him. The standard here is championships. He's not Dwyane Wade. He never will be. He's an alpha dog, though, who wanted to be treated like he's Dwyane Wade. That's why he's gone.

I don't think anyone's saying he's Dwyane Wade. No.

That's the final word.

I thought, suppose we're going to be the final word, but okay, fine. That's the final word. Another Another bit of bad news, by the way. I was telling you, I told you months ago, Valentine's Day, keep an eye on that arbitration in Minnesota. If you're a heat fan, what you wanted is A-Rod not to win that arbitration because that's where the Anthony Edwards relationship is. It's with Aarod. He's here with him in Miami all the time. If Aarod had not won yesterday, the ruling on ownership of the Timberwolves in that arbitration hearing, all of a sudden, Anthony Edwards, who's been pretty vocal about how bad they are this year, and they are bad with him. What's happened there is a little, I guess it's not confusing, but a whole lot of people think that Karl Anthony Towns wasn't as good as he is, and he's clearly that good because all of a sudden, Anthony Edwards doesn't look quite like the league wrecker as a Timberwolves.

The next MJ?

Last year is the best Timberwolves team we have seen. It's better than any of the Garnett teams. Did Garnett make one Western conference?

He made one Western conference.

With Littrell and Sam Casselle.

That's the best Timberwolves team that there has been. But there are a number of different things that I wanted it to get to today inside and outside of sports. One of the corrections that we have to make, Stugatz, I believe that we have to now acknowledge, put this on the poll, please, at Lebitard Show, is Howie Mandel, now America's greatest prankster because he had everyone believing that Bill Bur and Billy Corgan are brothers, and evidently, all of that was nonsense perfectly acted throughout by Bill Bur, who pretended throughout to be, and still pretend to be irritated by the revelation from Howie Mendel and Billy Corgan that they were brothers who descended from the same father.

I've been all over this. I've seen every interview that has been done about this. I've seen the interviews in question. I've seen all sorts of investigative pieces, and I still don't know the actual answer. Bill Burk could have misspoke and creaked the door open to all sorts of scrutiny, but To contextualize this conversation, Dana White, several months ago, went on Howie Mandel's podcast and acted his ass off and kept the con for about a month until he was pressed on what happened there. And he's like, No, Howie actually just asked me to do this bit, and I went along with it because I think he's great. So was this the next con from Howie Mandel? Did he orchestrate, two guys that have been in social media, they say, Hey, they look alike. Did he actually orchestrate this whole brother thing to get attention? Because it absolutely did get attention in its performance art, because Bill Burr, as Dan mentioned, is still keeping up with this con, still very publicly upset, and has the acting to actually keep it.

Bill Burr, if you're not watching, first of all, I love to hear Bill Burr talk about movies, like do critical analysis of it. But I also think Bill Burr right now is on Broadway. Is it in Glen Gary, Glen Ross, or is it in something else?

Yeah, it's Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk.

Jeremy Jeremy Strong is somebody, Stugat, who won Super Bowl Sunday for making fun of himself. It was his idea in that Duncan Donuts commercial to emerge from the method acting of a barrel of coffee in a way that had to identify him in words by Jeremy Strong, because you wouldn't have been able to tell from his face that it was Jeremy Strong because of the amount of coffee goop syrup that he had on his face. Jeremy Strong did that only to improve his image by hanging out with Belichick and Ben Affleck and all of these people in this commercial that make that commercial such a national winner two years in a row.

I love Jeremy Strong. His commitment to the bit at all times is incredible because he's this method actor that everyone says is a nightmare to be around. But all he cares about at this point is letting everyone know that he understands that. I don't know if you guys saw, there was a variety of articles commercial with him about this commercial, and he gives these long, eloquent quotes about why he felt it was important to show people that he actually does get the joke. There was one quote that said, I got there and they had prepared a porcelain white bathtub, which I felt was all wrong. I wanted it to be something cylindrical so that I could come out of it vertically. If I was in a bathtub, it would seem like I was in repose. It's just amazing that he cared this much about the details of a Duncan commercial.

And totally on brand as somebody who is self-serious in even the quotes where he explains why he's trying to make fun of himself.

What an amazingly clean read there by Jeremy. I mean, you can give me a hundred times to read that sentence. I would never get it rights.

That is correct. Yes. We all know this. You're going to try it now. It's not something that even needs to be stated. It's an understood undercurrent that we have on the entirety of the show.

What does repose mean?

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Don Levatard.

You have some hot takes today. Joe Chesnut's a fraud. He's on fire.

He called Connor McDavid overrated before the show.

What the hell was that, Greg? Yeah, no. I love it. Stugatz. Roy, let me explain it to you. You know more about hockey.

This is coming from a guy that's watched Connor play six times, if that.

This is the Don Levatard show with the Stugatz. Well, to answer your question about Howie Mandel, yeah, that's a great bit. That's a great bit. And it reminded me of the late great Andy Kaufman, whose whole career was, Is he serious? Is this real? Is he acting or is he crazy? Is this really him? And he walked that line, which is you're just not sure if it's real or not. And I think that's brilliant I love the idea of Howie Mendel being the guy that pranks bald people.

Everyone's bald that he does this to. Is that what he's going for?

Well, Dana White also stormed off his set. We'll get to that in a second because that was evidently a prank. But here's the Jeremy Strong quote from that Marshall, It was my response to the idea that I don't get the joke. I'm tired of it. It doesn't really serve anything. It's false. We live in this age where there's so much attention on all the other stuff that's not the work, and we've become conditioned now to talking about the work so much. It really takes away from it. We'd all be better off going back to a time where actors were able to disappear into the work, and there were more absences than presences. They're present in the work and absent outside of that. To which Al Shipply responds, giving a long, earnest interview about your Duncan Donuts commercial to prove you don't take yourself too seriously.

Have you heard Kieran Colken touch on their relationship on the set of succession? Because they have totally different approaches to everything. Kieran Colken still take shots at him through the I think Jeremy actually appreciates it. But Kieran Colken could not care about direction or throwing himself into a role any less. He just wants to go. He actually worked with Jesse Eisenberg on his most recent movie, and he said it was bizarre working with a director in a scene because he'd act out the scene and the director would give him all sorts of notes, and he's like, Shut up. I don't want it. I have notes for you.

I only watched that movie because he'd chosen it, because I want to see what Kieran Culkin's next choices are.

Jeremy Strong on the concept of the commercial, I also had a memory of my dad. I grew up in Boston, and he used to send me into Dunkin' Donuts to get one cream, two sugars. At some point, that reminded me of the Henry Wadsworth longfellow quote. Paul Revere's In That Ride. He's a better reaper. I thought, one creamer by land, two sugars by sea. Should I talk about the time that I saw Jeremy Strong on Broadway? My It's a way of show.

I'm like, You're the dad.

That's the final card.

Damn. It's the old Reilly.

There has not been nearly enough Greg Cody in this Greg Cody Tuesday.

You want him to read?

I ask you, Greg Cody, Aaron Rodgers leaving the Jets. We have not had enough Stugat's opinion on this as well because that was a pretty spectacular flameout on all things Jets for them to release Jay Glazer's scoopage, hide it in the Super Bowl coverage, just like, Yeah, never mind about that whole thing we just did at quarterback. What a disaster.

It was a totally failed experiment, especially based on all the hoopla when they signed him. The Jets Super Bowl odds went through the roof when they signed Aaron Rodgers as if he was still in his prime. Then he misses his whole first season injured except for four plays. Then the last season, Here's the weird thing. He didn't play that terribly. His second half of his season was not bad, but he was surrounded by a bad team that he could not lift up. A failed experiment. To me, it's like, oh, they want to move on from him? My reaction was, No, of course.

Put it on the poll, please, Juju, @LebitardShow. Do the Jets have any experiments that are not failed experiment? Or put another way, is to call the Jets experiment a failed experiment, redundant. Dan, it's a tricky one because I don't know what the Jets are going to do with quarterback next year.

To Greg's point, since October 27th, I think, Aaron Rodgers had 18 touch downs, had four interceptions. He was really, really good. Good second half. I understand why the Jets want to walk away from all the stuff that goes on off the field with Aaron Rodgers, but what are they going to do? How are they going to find someone who over a 10-game span throws for 18 touchdads of four interceptions? They're not going to find that guy. And so I would leave the door open if I'm the Jets to Aaron Rodgers coming back, because I don't think Aaron has a ton of options, and I think the Jets are his best option. And I think the Jets need him.

Why are you falling in love with when he played bad defenses? He's nuked the last two seasons. He was bad at the start of the season. There were winnable games, games that he didn't win. I know. That Denver game nuked your season.

I know. But Mike, what I'm falling in love with is the idea of who's going to be our quarterback. Who is going to be the quarterback if it's not Aaron Rodgers? Jameis Winston. Jameis Winston is not good enough.

His numbers were comparable to when you shoved Zack Wilson out the door. Maybe it's Aaron Rodgers. Eighteen and four, Mike. No, Your season on the end of the season, and yet he closed stronger than he started. But overall, this was a very bad experiment, wasn't worth the headlines, and also, they're probably going to lose what they invested in Devante Adams now, too. All of it was He's mad. All of it was super predictable. He's a different quarterback. When all the pressure is off and his friend's over there and he just wants to spam him yards down the field, yeah, he'll chuck it down and show you that he can still throw it, but he refuses to for the vast majority of the season when it mattered most. Don't fool yourself into that close.

Mike, I'm fooling myself into the fact that we don't have a quarterback. We never have a quarterback.

He's barely above a replacement level guy on the totality of the season.

I don't even have to look at it. I'm guessing over an 11-game span, that was the best 11-game span by a Jets' quarterback in probably two decades.

He's only getting older, dude. It's been a very long time since we've seen him be awesome on a consistent basis. We were talking several years in Olympiad. It's been a long time. That's not the way the aging process works.

I think one of the things at play here is that we have to realize LeBron James and Tom braided are aliens. They were aliens. You can't replicate that. Now, because of Tom braided, you just assume that somebody like Aaron Rodgers is going to be great at 37 and great at 39 and maybe play into his 40s. It doesn't happen. Tom braided was an alien. The norm is Aaron Rodgers falling off the cliff and failing at his age.

Late '30s.

Yeah. I happen to think, though, and I know this is not popular in sports shout era, I happen to think that both Stugatz and Mike are right about this because is, while Mike is saying barely above replacement player, Stugatz is right that in the history of the New York Jets, a 10 or 11 game run of 18 and 4 is absolutely not Zack Wilson. I know that there are numbers that can be cherry-picked to make it look, especially when it comes to wins and losses. Those tenures are the same, and everyone hated Zack Wilson. But I understand how it is Stugatz gets tempted by the last 10 games only because in absence, he has no idea what's going to play quarterback for him. There's not a lot of worse positions to be in, and I'm assuming they're going to draft a quarterback, but there aren't a lot of worse positions to be in in football than heading into an offseason and there aren't good quarterbacks available. Or as there is in this offseason, somebody's going to take a chance on Aaron Rodgers if he wants to play as a starter because they're in the same predicament that the Jets are in.

We don't have someone, and we need to sell tickets with some hope at that position.

Someone might take Daniel Jones. Someone might take Kirk Cousins. There are some guys out there, but those aren't solutions. I don't know if those guys are better than Aaron Rodgers. In fact, they're not.

You can make an argument that Kirk Cousins is not anymore. He touts that arm injury as the reason. But you mentioned Kirk Cousins, and Kirk Cousins and Ben Rothsberger towards the tail end of his Stealers' time, these were teams that are like, Well, we could probably be better, but what do we do? We're worried about what if we reset and we get worse at the position somehow, and they end up holding on to those guys maybe a little bit longer than they should have. You were not in that class. The Stealers and the Vikings were way closer. You are not a good team. So you hit reset. You don't just keep treading water with this guy that is not going to get any younger, that is not going to be less outspoken, that is not going to bring you fewer distractions. He's just not good enough at this stage in his career to welcome all that other stuff, and you as a team are not good enough.

My biggest fear, two years removed from the Achilles, is that Aaron Rodgers will go somewhere else and have the season I wanted him to have here. But he's not going to have it. With the New York Jets. I would rather him be bad with the New York Jets than be good elsewhere. That's insane.

He's not going to be good with you next year.

I know.

I'll take it. There's no way he's good.

Russell Wilson is the guy. I like Russ.

That's a straight-up trade.

Justin Fields.

I don't want. No, I don't. There was a point, I think I said earlier this year that Justin Fields should be the Jets next starting cornerback. But that was then. That was before 18 and 4.

Sam Darnold reunion? No. Oh, come on.

Sam would never come back.

What a story that would be.

Sam would never come. At this point, you believe that the situation of the Jets is so dire that Sam Darnold would never go back there? But you'd be willing to want Sam Darnold because I assure you, Sam Darnold will not look without Justin Jefferson the way he does with Justin Jefferson.

I don't want him. We don't have that guy. All the best things that have happened during Sam Darnold's professional career happened away from the New York Jets. He is not going back to that dumpster fire, I promise you. And the Jets don't want him, so it doesn't matter.

But that's not the part that you threw it through that prism with at first. At first, you've made that 2025 is the year that Sam Darnold. That's a thing that's so. Think about what have happened the last five years in football that Stugatz is saying today, Sam Darnold doesn't want to come back to the Jets.

In flack a reunion.. That's an interesting... There you go. Maybe third stop's a charm for Mac Jones.

Don't you think Sam Darnold would take less money to go elsewhere? Do you agree? Let's say the Jets made the biggest offer to Sam Darnal. You think he's taken it? Because I don't.

I don't really want to talk about Sam Darnold.

How about the Pastronaut? He's available.

The only reason that... We're doomed, man.

Josh Dobbs. Yeah, he's out there if you want him. Trey Lance. I mean, there's options Stugats.

No good option.

Trey Lance. All bad.

Trey Lance. There is no quarterback in football now that I associate with five interceptions more than Trey Lance.

Tommy DeVito is a free agent, Stugats. No. And you're friends with his agent. I mean, this could be perfect. Stalata? Yeah.

Make it happen.

What'd you promise him?

A bounty jacket. He's still asking me for it as if I have some control over this. He's a weird guy, but I love him. I love Stalata.

I think my favorite behind-the-scenes His text that was sent during Radio Row Week was Stugats sending Stalato a text about two hours after we had him on saying, Hey, I found socks for you if you still need them.

Radio Row is a lot of fun that way. That's what it's all about, man.

Yeah, he left. He left and goes, Oh, Rookey move, I forgot to put on socks. We're like, How do you forget to put on socks with Jordans? How did you leave your house today? It's not Loafer's, it's Jordans. No, it was. It was sneakers. Like, Oh, rookie move. Forgot to put on socks.

That's psychotic. That's psychotic.

That is not a rookie move.

That's something else. It's normal. Normal? Yeah, I've done it. I'm not wearing socks right now.

You are not normal, Freddy.

What shoes are you wearing?

I'm wearing my Skechers, not socks. When you have your Jordans on, what are you do? I mean, I don't have Jordans. You do have a pair of Jordans. I'm not high fluten like that. Juju bought you a pair of Jordans. Oh, yeah, those. They're in a museum. I don't dare wear them because they're Jordans.

Game room of Curios.

You also have the Wutang Jordans. You have multiple pairs of Jordans.

I've never gotten those. They're around here somewhere.

I saw you try them on.

I know, but now they're around here. I want them, the Wutangs.

Oh, those are gone. You're not familiar with how people work around here. I know. You will never see those again. That's what I mean.

Christopher is probably wearing them right now. I got my own.

The one thing that I learned at Radio Row that made me wince about football as I learned that Walter Payton played the entirety of his career not wearing socks inside of the cleats because he liked to run with bare feet. I was like, I can't imagine what those feet look like. Or smell I can't.

The socks. To...

What they looked like, God rest his feet.

God rest his feet indeed.

Yeah.

You said it like he's still alive.

Do I get $50 from the fine bucket for keeping him still alive instead of killing him?

It is opposite thing.

I don't want to see what his feet look like right now, 20 years later.

Greg thinks that the Eagles taught everyone a lesson. They taught the entire sport a lesson. What is that lesson, Greg?

We've alluded to it earlier. The lesson is offensive line and defensive line are fundamentally the most- So the most obvious thing.

The Parcell's lesson. That's the lesson, the most obvious thing. Hold on.

Let's hear him out. Come on, Freddie.

Go. I think it's quite the opposite of the most obvious thing. In the age when the Dolphins think it's all about getting Tyreek Hill and a quarterback, teams are so quarterback obsessed, particularly in the age when all quarterbacks except Tua run the ball, you downplay the value of an offensive line. I think the Eagles have gone the opposite direction on both lines, which is not obvious because most NFL teams haven't done it, and that's why everybody's looking up at-I love when we strike a nerve.

It's so obvious. He's spicy.

It's ridiculous to say that's obvious when throughout the league, it's not obvious. Name another team.

No one does it as well, but everyone would acknowledge the most important part of football is the trenches. Then why don't they act like it? Because there's not that many great players.

Name another team whose three of five top salaries go to offensive line. Name one.

I would think the Lions maybe with Sewell.

Three out of five? I don't think so.

It's a pretty good offensive line.

What I'm saying, I know the guy, the D. Lyman that got hurt, he makes a ton of money.

The point is, it's not obvious because most teams aren't doing it. Most teams are not committing. You don't see You see offensive linemen being... You see a couple of offensive linemen a year go in the first round. People aren't committed to it.

Greg Cody is spicy today, okay? Because ESPN has ranked its 59 Super Bowl winners. Oh, boy. Greg Cody does not like where the perfect offensive landed. Number one.

Are they in the bottom nine?

Well, Shula would be spinning in his grave. To his dying day... Spinning?

Turning?

Whatever. To his dying day, the one thing that really rankled Don Shula was the underappreciation appreciation of the only undefeated team in history. And that underappreciation continues. The 72 Dolphins among 59 Super Bowl winners are ranked right in the middle, 24th. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. Third. I'm not even being a homer here. There's one team in history that won all of their games, and that's the 24th best league champion in the Super Bowl era? No, it doesn't make any sense.

Lyons were pretty close for what it's worth. Two of their top five are offensive linemen, left tackle in the center. You have to go down to number seven for Penne Sewell, though. Okay.

But there are many, many, many, many teams. I would dare say perhaps the other 30 or at least 25 of the other 30, don't have any high paid offensive linemen in terms of top five salaries.

Well, I mean, Cleveland has half of their top six being offensive linemen.

You don't know anything about what you're talking about.

You have to call up here and say to me that we're trying to upsell the Falcons to you?

Sorry, you're not a Falcons fan.

You haven't been.

If you have been, you don't know what you're looking at.

Stop being a homer, bro. Get out of my- I'm the last one who's a homer?

Don't you ever call me a homer.

Who the hell do you think has been saying the truth since 1973 on Atlanta radio?

Who? Who?

Who needs me?

You're Boba.

I'll take that. You know what? Who? Being called a homer is not the worst insult I've ever heard. So I don't care. Call me a homer.

Thankfully, though, when Greg Cody says that Don Chula is spinning in his grave or turning in his grave or whatever, Billy and Stugantz were in New Orleans, and they conducted a two-hour seance that is presently being edited for God bless football.

Tell everybody to see this. Sometimes it's just surprising.

I want to know how that turned out.

A two-hour seance. So I am here to say that Billy and Stugantz, and this is why God bless football is the number one football podcast in America three of the last four years, successfully exhumed the spirit of- Well, there's no way to know.

All right.

Attempted to it successfully.

We talked to Bloody Mary for two hours. Well, you did.

I wasn't there.

That's true. Two hours, they went and talked in New Orleans where you can experiment with voodoo and seance and spirits and death, and it's above sea level.

Well, I opened up the thing, American cities above sea level, and there's mixed reporting on New Orleans. This site says that they're 6 feet below sea level here.

That is correct. Their cemeteries are above sea level. Why don't think they're above sea.

I think they're just above ground.

That's correct because there is no beneath ground. It's just the sea.

Well, there is beneath ground. It's just below sea level. You can dig. It's not impossible to dig.

Not very much, though. I could dig.

You used to be able to dig deeper.

Not At your show, I met a man who sent me a shovel in the mail because one time we were talking about, and he came up to me and he goes, I don't know if you ever got this, but years ago, I mailed you a shovel.

I said, Sir, I did get that shovel. For three years, I've been wondering who sent me said shovel? I'm glad I met you. It was his birthday. It was his birthday. His wife said to me, You know what? I've been trying to get him to retire, but he's never going to retire because he keeps doing things like mailing people's shovels.

I didn't know you could mail a shovel.

Yeah, he's figured out how. That's great. What a shovel it is, too, Greg. I'll tell you what.

Was it gold-plated?

No, but it has the pointed head on the shovel. It's not one of those shovels that you just move dirt around with the flathead. Flathead shovels. Get out of here. Who needs those?

Yeah, who needs it? Who needs me? There you go. By the way, when you reach Shula, did you find him in a good mood? Because he could be very cantankerous. He was cranky. Yeah, I thought so. You weren't there.

I know.

I look forward to it.

Sources told me.

It's going to be a good interview.

There's a lot of Actually, there aren't a lot of US cities that are below sea level. Most of them in California, Dan, if you knew that.

Yeah. I mean, you want to be above sea level.

Yeah, that's what some are saying.

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