Transcript of Amin's Insightful Weekend Observations | Hour 3

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There is nothing casual about football season. You can tell yourself you're just gonna watch one game, and 6 hours later, you're emotionally invested in a 4th quarter between 2 teams you don't even care about. That's what I love about this time of year. The entire weekend becomes football. You're texting friends, tracking games, second-guessing coaches, convincing yourself you saw something before everybody else did. And then Monday comes around and you get to do the whole thing again. Those are the weekends you remember. And for me, some of the best ones have usually involved some good people, a great game, and a cold Miller Lite. No matter what triumphs are in store this season, legendary game days start with Miller Lite. Cold, crisp, refreshing, that clean finish. And it's part of plenty of memorable football weekends. Make game day legendary. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Game time is Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

You're listening to the Dan Le Batard Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports app. Now live in all It is time for Amin to share his game notes. No one in the media will tell you what happened better than my boy Amin.

Weekend Observations is brought to you by Miller Lite.

Legendary moments start with a light.

Dan!

I love performing this segment, but I do not like writing it. Week after week, having to come up with something both insightful and insightful.

Both spellings.

But there's a reward to working on this. The gift of knowledge by the Socratic method.

By the simple act of repeatedly asking questions, I shall gain the wisdom. Last week I learned the answer to, are the Raiders for real?

They aren't. This week I move a step closer to the answer. Is Arch Manning good? Spoiler alert, he isn't.

Didn't they just take away his first-team reps, Saz?

They are giving the backup some reps this week with the first team, which could of course lead to them benching Arch Manning.

You know about that, Wally Pip?

Bloody Saturday! 5 of the top 7 teams lost in college football, and a 6th, Miami, needed double OT to survive the night. I haven't seen that much royalty taken out on one day since the Red Wedding.

Nice.

Thank you.

Does that make the Cains already a Stark? She was at the Red Wedding, you guys know that? Didn't get in though.

She was on the outside, she had to see the end.

Guest list was tight.

Yeah. The door.

I know.

New question! Are the Browns for real? They beat the Ravens on a kick from a guy whose name looks like he needs to buy a vowel.

By the way, white guy.

He missed his first kick this year right before that.

I thought he was gonna miss again.

Pronounce his word— his name.

Wow, there's not a single vowel in his last name. Don't give me that sometimes Y bullshit.

Isn't it Schmidt?

Is it?

That would be amazing if his name is Schmidt.

Isn't it?

Welcome to Cinephobe.

Uh, his name, by the way, he's a white guy named Andre. That's another—

Caleb Williams! Return to action after missing 3 weeks with a severe case of the dramatics.

We'll never forget that.

I started a Substack, Jeremy.

I don't know if you know this. It's dedicated to recapping Jeremy Taché's Substack on gossip surrounding Greg Cody, 10 Day Tony, and any Leotard Show adjacent Substack.

Well, get to work because there's a new Substack out right now.

I, I, you know what, already updated.

Yours is?

Mine's already updated.

What's the handle for yours? I'll go follow.

Oh, I don't know.

All right, mine is Jeremy's Levitard Sub Sub.

I didn't know how to change the name.

There you go.

So it's like Amin E67457, something like that.

So I'll go check it out.

Yeah, everyone has a Substack, Dan.

Everyone.

You don't have a Substack? You know what it means?

You're a huge loser.

Exactly. Thank you. Do you have a Substack?

I don't even know what it is.

Okay. BYU beat Notre Dame, which means there was a lot of jumping up and down on beds this weekend.

Soak it in.

It's a soaking joke.

Let that joke soak.

Florida Panthers, first team in NHL history to have a natural hat trick in back-to-back-to-back games.

Not to be outdone, FBI director and avowed hockey fan Kash Patel notched his own unnatural hat trick by going back-to-back-to-back nights sleeping—

never mind. Scroll past that one. I don't know, I gotta start editing these.

Golden State Valkyries took a 1-0 lead in the WNBA Finals despite shooting only 32% from the field. Game 2 is tonight in Ballhalla. It's a cool nickname for your home court, but the problem is if you say it 3 times, Kash Patel shows up with a keg.

I'll see you in Ballhalla, brother.

Game 2.

Here's the Science, a Bar Rescue podcast. Hosted by Chelsea Reynolds, a real-life bar and restaurant consultant, Colin Cassard, a real-life veteran of the commercial kitchen and food truck scene in Portland, and 2 guys who would never let shooting poorly stop them in a bar, me and Zach Harper. Here's the Science, wherever you get podcasts.

Also live watch-alongs every Monday at 4 PM Eastern. Now, I do that bit every weekend, you know, I talk about me and Zach knowing our way around a bar or whatever, right? And the joke is, I never pass a bar and not stop in. Except for in China.

Ah!

Where I also never pass a bar and not stop in, but I'm hoping somehow the fact that I brought up a foreign country will confuse the assembled corps of media covering the most intense beat in all the land and cease further questions on the matter! Also, they told me while I cannot say that I'm an attorney, I can say that I'm a practitioner of bird law.

5 days.

That's what she lasted.

5 days. That's quite—

yeah, quite the accomplishment. Everyone, for the love of everything, stop sending me Luke Windsor doing Obama.

First, when you see something that's wildly viral, assume that I, a product of the internet, have already seen it. Second, I'm not the patron saint of Obama impersonations.

Doc Rivers, on the other hand—

I mean, Ben Simmons, uh, he has a documentary, Dan, that dropped yesterday on ESPN+. In it, he called me a real piece of shit for what I said in a press conference after Game 7 versus Atlanta in 2021.

You know what?

He's right. I had a terrible press conference after Game 7, and then Joel had a bad press conference after Game 7. You know what Ben had? A horrible Game 7.

Deshaun Watson. The type of success from an accused sexual assaulter you typically expect on Election Day.

Accused.

People who can't sit in a seat without launching themselves like a cruise missile.

Get the hell out of here.

Guy sitting in front of me on a red-eye cannonballed into his seat so hard it popped my iPad from the device holder and into my chest.

I felt like I got shot by my own iPad. Woke me up from the quality half-sleep you can only get on a red-eye flight.

Can I tell you what I can't stand on flights?

What's that?

When the person who's getting in the seat behind me— why do they gotta like jar my headrest to sit down? Like, it's rude.

I don't understand.

Zaz, red-eye flight. I'm going to demonstrate for everyone who's watching on YouTube.

Red-eye flight.

I'm behind this guy. My iPad is stuck to obviously to the back of his seat. Yeah, that device holder.

American.

He sat like this.

Yeah!

Like, it was insane! He speared the damn chair! I'm like, buddy! And not even an oh, my bad or anything. Just kind of adjusted himself and buckled his seatbelt. I'm like, what are you doing? Reminder to—

Who matters?

Sorry.

Seeing Serena Altschul promo the new season of Yellowjackets reminded me of how awful Jeremy was at being an MTV News host.

Terrible.

Hell, man. It's another reminder to subscribe to my Substack that recaps Jeremy's Substack, the reports on the gossip surrounding 10 Day Tony, Greg Cody, and every other Le Batard Show adjacent Substack wherever you get Substacks.

So my wife and I stopped watching Yellowjackets after season 3, and then I saw the Serena Altschul clip where they found the girls. The girls are rescued. I got to watch.

Got to get back in.

I got to get back.

I was—

because I got to get back.

I'm scrolling and it just starts the MTV News. I'm like, that's like the MTV News.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was like, what is this, like a throwback to what happened on this day?

And then she starts talking about the Yellowjackets, like, oh my God, I gotta get back.

Corporate synergy, check. Nostalgia, check. Right? Get me excited for a season, check.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's how you do promo.

I have to see how it ends. I gotta see them rescued.

You gotta see it, and you gotta see that adjustment when they come back into civilization. How are they gonna deal? They ate some people. Spoiler alert.

Xenophobe, episode 328, year 1.

That's the name of the movie, starring Jack Black, Michael Cera, David Cross, and friend of the show Hank Azaria, who steals the show by telling us, trust me, it's gonna be a very sleek podcast. You know the quote, you know the quote.

Cinephobe, wherever you get podcasts. The New York Times, Dan.

Some people call it the failing New York Times, not me, 'cause I won a Pulitzer with them, kinda sorta, through Pablo.

The New York Times found the O.J.

accomplice. This was the guy that O.J. alluded to in his book If I Did It. And if you're looking at that, say, wait a minute, I mean, the book says I did it. The if is very, very small. It's inside the I in I did it.

Look at that.

In the book, O.J.

described a hypothetical friend named Charlie who accompanied him on the night of the murders, stood by as a horrified bystander, and then helped dispose of the weapon and the bloody clothes. In real life, the Times discovered this accomplice existed And his name was Joey Ippolito, a mafia associate and convicted drug runner. Unfortunately, Ippolito has long passed away, so we can't confirm this with him, but I have a feeling both he and O.J.

will reunite somewhere warm to welcome Lionel Messi and the rest of Argentina.

Speaking of hell, Art Bryles, Argentina, all of it. These are the Weekend Observations.

And a quick reminder to everybody, should have done this last week. I apologize. I'm sorry to all the listeners because I should have let you know You can win a VIP trip for 2 to Miami to hang out with the Levitart Show.

That's right, enter the Weekend Observations Picks Contest presented by Miller Lite by October 26th for your chance to win. Must be 21 or older. Visit draftkings.com for all the details.

Football season can make maintaining any routine difficult. You stay up for the late game, grab whatever food is nearby, and promise you'll Get back on track tomorrow. Then another game arrives, and suddenly tomorrow means February. But lasting weight loss isn't simply about having more willpower. It's about finding an approach that works with your biology, habits, and lifestyle. Noom is the leading behavior change company, helping people lose weight and keep it off. The Noom GLP-1 program combines weight loss medication with psychology-based support medical guidance, and personalized tools to help you build healthier habits and work toward lasting results. The Noom GLP-1 program starts at $39, and medication can be delivered to your door in as little as 7 days. Start your GLP-1 journey today at noom.com. That's N-O-O-M.com. Noom, lose for keeps. Initial 1-month subscription from $39 plus tax and $99 plus tax per month thereafter. Cost of medication not included. Final pricing depends upon program selection.

Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense?

Drinking Jägermeister shots ice cold.

Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down or letting your worst hitter bat first. Or like going for 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go. It wouldn't make any sense. So don't let the team down when it comes to Jägermeister. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all.

Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold.

Drink responsibly.

Jägermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast-Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

Folks, listen up. You know what nobody thinks about until it ruins your entire afternoon?

Glare.

You've got the TV exactly where you want it. You've got the couch. You're ready for 7 straight hours of football. And then the sun moves 3 inches and suddenly you're watching the game like this, like, I'm leaning, I'm squinting, trying to figure, is that a touchdown? And instead of fixing the actual problems, we'll just live with that. Yeah, around 4:15 you just can't see the TV. No problem. Yes, problem. That's insane. Your windows matter. The right window treatment can change the way a whole room looks, feels, and most importantly, whether you can actually see what you're watching. Blinds.com makes it easy. Go DIY or have a vetted pro handle everything from measuring to installations. You can talk with an award-winning design expert for free, virtually, with no awkward in-home visit. They'll even send up to 10 samples fast and free, and everything is backed by their SureFit guarantee. Visit blinds.com right now for an exclusive $50 off when you spend $500 or more with code DAN. That's blinds.com with code DAN.

Dan Le Batard!

Analytics have/are ruining the game. We're playing AI hoops.

That's his team! His team's at the forefront of all this!

Dan's ass, don't steal my thunder!

I'm sorry!

I'm sorry!

I'm sorry!

Jonathan Saslow!

I get carried away!

This is the Dan Le Batard Show!

A couple of NFL things before I head to the weirdness that happened after the BYU-Notre Dame game. Jordan Love, if you're watching last night, late last night, Jordan Love continues to look exceptional even though his receivers drop an awful lot of passes. They've got 18 drops this season. The next closest quarterback to have that many drops has 11. That's a lot. So it's not particularly close. And then also the Bills offense after 6 weeks, number 1 in EPA per drive, number 1 in explosive play rate, number 1 in rushing success rate, and number 1 in quarterback does crazy things, then bends over and farts the ball out of his ass for a 12-yard touchdown pass. Like, that's going to happen at some point this season, I assume, where he's just going to bend over and shoot the ball out of his butt. We have said that he has thrown the ball backwards while throwing it forward. He has now flipped the ball. Uh, with, uh, with Greg Cody's dismissive hand motion, uh, which is not the throwing of the ball at all. And, uh, somehow it ends up in the right place. It's the second time this season Josh Allen has done one of those crazy flips in a desperate situation, and it ends up working for a big game.

Because you think you've solved everything that needs to be solved with Josh Allen. You're feeling good about yourself because on 2 or 3 of the plays you have held him down and not allowed him to get to the the 10 yards and then he does something desperate and crazy.

He's the only quarterback still doing that, right? Mahomes has stopped that.

There is no other.

When I was telling you before about CJ Stroud threw his first interception, the quarterbacks are all brainwashed into you cannot under any circumstances turn the ball over. He's the only one still playing like this, correct?

Cam Ward does it occasionally, gets him in trouble. By the way, another update on the Jalen Hurts thing. While you can get blood clots without football happening to you, that That's not the case when it comes to Jalen Hurts. You can responsibly say this was brought about because of football. From a football standpoint, this is from Ian Rapoport. Jalen Hurts should be able to recover after these 3 months of treatment. The blood clot was provoked, which means there was a cause, and it was getting cleated in his calf. Now, that is actually pretty good news, as Ian Rapoport alludes to, which is in terms of worrying about having a second one pop up and having to be on lifetime blood thinners, less likely when you have a provoked one like this.

I think it's okay for us to continue to wait for more reporting. We've talked about this a lot, like we're doctors and doing our own diagnosis when what we have is just the Chris Bosh sort of short-circuiting of a career. And that's the reference that we have for this. And it was something that altered Chris Bosh's career and the future of the Miami Heat. But it is okay for us to wait for more reported details when we're guessing on some diagnoses here.

Nah, it's more fun to guess, man. It's way more fun to play a doctor. Come on, give me a white lab coat.

Okay.

And a stethoscope, and I'll give you all the diagnosis you need.

So at the end of the BYU-Notre Dame game, and I'm going to say it again, okay, these are the things that happened toward the end of that game. First of all, Bear Bachmeier throws a touchdown pass for BYU that the referee had to duck to avoid. It came very close to hitting the referee right in the face, which would have been amazing.

Everyone would have been cool with it.

Then after the game, the conference says, hey, our bad, there should have been There should have been another play for Notre Dame. There should have been another second on the clock. But then Bear Bachmeier, the quarterback of BYU, does and says this after the game.

Out of high school, Notre Dame disrespected me and my family pretty badly, and I wasn't going to lose to those guys.

What happened?

Yeah, I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have said that. But there's, there are some receipts kept, and man, I'm glad we won.

What is that?

Okay, hold on a second. So you're volunteering something that none of us knew, that you're the only one who has the receipts on, and then we ask you a follow-up question and you're like, yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Let's just play that sound again. This is the winning quarterback after the biggest victory BYU has had in a while, and you could make an argument that BYU should be the number one team in the country.

Out of high school, Notre Dame disrespected me and my family pretty badly, and I wasn't gonna lose to those guys.

What happened?

Yeah, I shouldn't have— I shouldn't have said that, but there's— there are some receipts kept, and man, I'm glad we won.

That does sound a lot like Mahomes.

It does, right? The gravel, the Kermit gravel.

I shouldn't have said that.

I don't know about you guys, because I was thinking about this yesterday, okay? Because I'm sitting there watching the Packers game, and Jordan Love with his helmet off looks different to me than I thought Jordan Love looked. He just— I know what Jordan Love looks like, but many of these guys in the NFL are wearing armor and uniforms, and you know them wearing that armor and uniforms. And so there aren't many guys in the NFL that you would recognize if you saw them. But I was thinking about this this weekend when they went to sayonara on the sidelines with his sling, and I'm like, my God, he's a child.

Like, that's not an adult. That guy's— that kid's face has not even grown into being an, an adult.

And the pressure that we're putting on these games, the amount of money ESPN is about to pay, $300 million to expand this playoff format to 24 teams when you do not need 24 teams.

12 already gives you a James Madison. You don't need 24 teams playing these games.

We are pressurizing these games so much and putting so much money on these games that we are forgetting all the time because they're high-stakes games and because of how we care about Saturdays, that these are kids. And every time one of these quarterbacks takes his helmet off on the sidelines, I'm noticing they're children. Like, they are—

they do—

they look like— Slayton looks like something out of high school, and he's one of the experienced ones.

I mean, they're not children, but I, I get the point. They are still young and they're likely to make mistakes. You just mentioned ESPN paying $300 million. It's funny because They're paying $300 million for something they don't want. Behind the scenes, ESPN did not want this expanded playoff. It actually hurts their television product if you mitigate some of the importance of the regular season matchups, which this undoubtedly does. Look at how much fun we had this past weekend.

It's because all those results had big consequences for the 12-team CFP.

In a 24-team CFP world, you view this weekend Totally different.

None of the losses this weekend of those top 10 teams, you don't really feel any impact next year.

ESPN had to go with something next year. ESPN had to go with something that was driven by the conferences, the conferences that think, well, look at how big we are. It's not fair we play each other so much. So we have to reward the likes of Northwestern for operating in this conference that had Oregon and USC and UCLA added to it. It's the hot dog meme. We're all looking for the guy that did this. These mega conferences destroyed the sport, made it hard for the top end of their conferences to look as impressive as they used to. And now we're going to end up with a really diluted version of what has worked over the last few years, which is the 12-team CFP.

So you think if what happened this year to Texas happened next year, Texas is still firmly in the playoff picture next year?

Yeah, firmly.

Florida's firmly in the playoff picture.

Yep.

Greed obviously is pushing a lot of this, but we started the show by saying a 3-loss team is going to make this year's playoffs. Not next year's playoffs.

Not the 2024—

Potentially.

I, I think there's going to be a 3-loss— if Alabama loses 3 times, they'll figure out a way to try to get Alabama in there this year. when no SEC team right now is undefeated. Alabama just lost to Tennessee. And I mentioned that last week, the Alabama-Georgia game doesn't end up costing Alabama anything. I think Notre Dame can lose both the Miami and BYU games and still somehow get in with 2 losses, even though they don't play anybody else, just by virtue of being Notre Dame. But if you obviously double the 12-team playoff and I'm sitting here telling you, I think a 3-loss team is Yeah. Getting in this year. If you make it 24 teams, you're going to see so many games in which early on a team is just thoroughly outmatched, I think. But what I just watched this weekend suggests to me that everybody is the same kind of flawed, that there is— there is nobody— I cannot look at Miami the same way after this weekend. And I don't even mean it as an indictment. I'm just saying whoever you're putting at number 1 so far this season, You've been wrong in putting them at number 1.

When I see a team atop the college football standings at number 1, that is not a team that can lose consecutive weeks to unranked opponents the way that Texas just did. In my entire lifetime covering the sport, there's never been a number 1 team that would lose to unranked teams in consecutive weekends. Number 1 used to mean something.

I don't think it's as much about in the 2014 playoff that in the first round you're gonna have a team that's wholly unmatched. Like right now, Northwestern, if you want to do by the AP rankings— no, uh, poll— Northwestern would play at UCLA or SMU would play at Utah in the first round. I don't think it's about those teams that they would get smoked by those teams.

Right, the better teams would be rewarded, rewarded with a bye, but it's also an additional round, so it's not much of a reward. They're, they're still having to play an extra game.

Yeah, I just think to me it's like You think Northwestern should be competing for a championship? Like, that— like, that's a championship-contending team? I— you, you think SMU, because they're number 23 right now in the AP, like, they should be competing for a championship?

How is this any different though than James Madison getting smoked when they got into the playoffs?

Well, because we're trying to allow— we're trying to be fair.

They earned it.

We're trying to be fair by allowing a Group of 6 team in.

Yeah, the, the rules are changing. This is a bad Yeah, it kind of felt like we were right there at the right moment in college football.

There are not 24 championship teams.

Right, there's right now about like 7, and if some teams put together, maybe a few more, but there aren't 24 championship title contenders. And it's—

I know we're all gonna be watching, we're all gonna like the extra games come that time, but you're just kicking an excitement can down the road. Yeah, I'll get up for the extra playoff games in December. That's cool.

You just kind of ruin October. You just kind of ruin November.

Yeah, I hate the 2014 playoff because I think that it ruins so much of what makes college football's regular season so great. At the same time, you are at least allowing teams to compete for a championship because exactly like you just said, we basically decide before the season up until the last couple of years, oh, there's like 8 teams that can compete. And if one of them beats another one, we're not going to move them down the rankings. And we have this sort of anything from objective competition that's happening. We have a totally subjective thing that, that's an invitational by a network that was limited before. 12 at least requires, hey, you've got your Power Four conference champions, you got the best Group of Five team, and likely the runner-ups in those conferences. So now you're debating a few teams on the margins. But now when you get to 24, like, all these at-large teams are just going to be totally subjective.

You can't do, though, ruining October and November when we right now are in the middle of 61 straight days where football is on your television, college and pro, every single night. We right now, every single night for 61 days, there is a football game on television because more is always the answer on this stuff. And so, of course, we go from 4 teams to very soon thereafter 6 times as many when we already made it 3 times as many because more football Yeah, but consequence was what made Ohio State-Indiana compelling.

In a 24-team playoff world, that is not a compelling game.

That is compelling entering it because you realize, hey, Ohio State lost to Texas, which by the way looks really funny in the light now. And if they lose against Indiana, they can't afford to lose another game. They can't.

They can though, because a 3-loss team is going to get in.

That's your take, but that's not the take that you should take.

But you're, but you're sitting here—

when we were at 4 teams, everyone was clamoring for more for every time the 5th team gets left out.

When we were at 12, everyone was wondering why aren't Notre Dame and Alabama in. They're gonna err on the side of excess instead of restraint because the money is excessive.

Right, but this one's wrong, and I don't know why we're not asking the question, how is this allowed? Seriously, what happened here?

The CFP is not a governing body. They are not—

they are not the NCAA.

What can they enforce? They enforce who gets into a tournament that they created.

Who is the CFP?

We still don't know. It's the conferences. The conferences that ruined the sport by getting conferences too big in the first place that aren't actually a governing body that can enforce anything.

They haven't ruined the sport yet.

But ESPN doesn't even want it. ESPN's having to write up a $300 million check to have something that is wildly unpopular with the base. It's like 80% of people do not want this, and we're all getting something that we don't want shoved down our throats by a governing body that is not a governing body.

But here is where greed is a dilution, because I think this part is fairly obvious here.

When it 4 teams, Indiana-Ohio State is an eliminator. When it was 4 teams, that game ends one-team season. And I don't think Indiana deserves to have its season ended based on losing that way. I don't think Notre Dame deserves to have its season, uh, its season ended by that. It used to be, and we know this is so, right? It used to be you couldn't have one loss. One would be something that would end the season. Now we're getting to 2 and 3 losses are okay, and it didn't make Ohio State-Indiana any less interesting.

That's why 12 is good. It's going to be less interesting with 24.

12 is perfect.

And 4 was good.

4 wasn't bad at the time that we had 4 because there were 4 elite teams loaded on both sides of the ball.

They're hogging all the talent.

Well, and it was better than nothing.

This time, this day and age in college football, 12 seems to work. 24 does not.

Yeah.

24 to 7. We still have CFP Eliminator games. I know it doesn't have as much juice as Ohio State-Indiana, but LSU-Mississippi State, that's an Eliminator game.

Dan Le Batard.

John, can you rate my Al Pacino from that billiard scene in Carlito's Way if I do it for you? I think it's pretty good.

Yeah.

Jonathan Sasslow.

You think you're big time? Well, you're gonna die big time!

That is on my infamous scale of 1 to 10.

That's a, that's a 7.6.

Solid.

Good job.

Good job.

Good job.

That's a Sui nominee right there.

Good.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

The NFL does not need To expand, it will.

We did not need that Colts-Titans game yesterday. Didn't need it. Didn't need to be played. Nobody needed that football game to be played. Chris Ballard least of all. And we got that game anyway because the error here is going to always be made on we'll give you too much until you complain, not too little if there's money involved. And $300 million for a 24-team playoff so that you can have a round robin. We've been mentioning for a couple of years now the idea that college football is our second biggest sport in America. Why would they ever err on restraint?

When do you ever know? When do you ever know? Scarcity leads to more demand. Scarcity is a chief governor of when it is that you get demand. They're going to keep pushing this envelope. to get the most money, and they might not stop at 24. Why not just keep grabbing at money when there's money available?

Okay, but there's, there's an irony though to what you're saying, right? Because for years we were asking for a playoff.

Years.

And then in such a short period of time where finally we got to a 12-team playoff, which everyone seems to like, They're doubling that. Like, Dan, how many years were we asking when we're doing the BCS, are we asking for some kind of playoff? And even when we were doing the 4-team playoff, how many years were we asking for, can we make it 8? You know, like, but now we're in this rush to expand. It took us forever to get here.

You've gotten here though with what is a laughable measurement system. The idea that we're still doing this with AP voters and committees. The idea that all of this conversation around the sport is good for the It's not ruinous for the sport.

What's ruining the sport? There's— I, I know, I understand warning and predicting of an apocalyptic future, but there's no— there's been no tapping the brakes on how popular football is in this country. Both college and NFL football are bigger, better, and badder than they have ever been.

Correct?

Like, there's more interest now in these, in these two than there have ever been. So what's ruining it?

For football.

But there's plenty of examples in major sports that either grew too quickly or made mistakes or were too slow to change their game and they lost their momentum and the arrow started going downward.

Look at the NBA. Look at Major League Baseball. Look at what happened with UFC. NFL is not immune. Football is not immune. College football certainly is not immune. And for college football to want to swell these conferences up, which was unpopular enough, and as a byproduct impact what we love about the sport so much, which is the weekly tradition and this game matters, to rip that away, this is a huge mistake. And they may not come back from it, and the ratings are already down this year.

You guys sound like Francesca!

It's too much football in one day. It was never special. Now if you have just Sunday games, 1 and 4 o'clock window, and then have a big game Monday, you got 24 hours buildup, you got a big standalone game. Now you hit people with a Sunday night game after, you know, this idea we waited all day. Well, it's the stupidest song that ever was created. No one waits all day, they watch football all day! Wait, I waited all day for Sunday night. No one waited one minute for Sunday night. They watch football all darn day. The dumbest— whoever thought of that? I always say it's the most dumb— it's the dumbest thing I ever heard in lyrics. I waited all day for Sunday night. No one ever waited one minute for Sunday night. They watch football all day on Sunday, getting ready for Sunday night. That's the dumbest song ever created.

It's hard to disagree with that part.

I disagree on these grounds. I want football between 7:45 PM and 8:15. I don't like that half-hour break. I want it— I want them to stick another college football game in there and just play 30 minutes of football.

So you've waited all 30 minutes for Sunday night?

I've waited 30 minutes for Sunday night. All of us have a little bit. Once that last game goes off the air— first of all, that 4 o'clock window, a little light, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, I don't like the 3-game windows. That's bye weeks front-loaded. We'll fix it by expanding the league. Yeah, but Dan, look at what happened with the NHL. For them, it was the lockouts and changing TV networks. NBA, we've talked about the challenges facing the game and how it may need to evolve. Major League Baseball was a national pastime.

It stopped.

For the NFL and for college football, the competition— these are all antitrust leagues.

They don't actually have competition.

The competition is your handheld device.

And if you're ripping away the importance of, wow, if Ohio State loses this game, they have to win all the rest of their games.

If you lose that in mid-October, then I'm going to check out my device and I'll be like, I'll check in on the sport in mid-November when some of those games have some meaning.

And if you look at the ratings already, they're down this year.

You can only do so much of this before you actually start finding yourself in the position that those other leagues found themselves in.

I just don't trust ratings in general the way that we're doing all of this stuff. And I also don't think that football occupies the same class in the culture that all of these other sports.

One was the national pastime.

I know.

It can come for everybody.

Yes, one used to be the national pastime at a time that was much slower. Football doesn't have a slow problem. They are in and they are flooding the zone that make Francesa say it's too much, like he's swatting bees away from his face.

I got an idea for a mini league to be played in that 30-minute span that you're talking about. 7-on-7, and the clock ends at 30 minutes no matter what, and they just go play. And that league only gets played in the in-between time between the 4 o'clock games and the Sunday night game. What do you think?

It's a good window.

Somebody's got to do something in the 7:45 to 8:15 window when some people choose to shower, some people choose to slow down, that they need a break.

Now that 300— did you guys— were you guys aware that there had been 17 seasons of the Red Zone Channel, which Roger Goodell, in celebrating the 300th episode of the Red Zone Channel, called one of the great inventions in the history of sports.

I thought it was like 57 years, wasn't it?

Like 3,000 episodes?

Well, it's also an invention that they stole from DirecTV.

Yeah.

So is that 17 years going back to the original inception of Andrew Siciliano's version that they decided, hey, we can do this ourselves because we're the NFL?

Didn't Jon Taffer claim to have invented that?

Sunday Ticket.

Sunday Ticket is what he invented.

Yeah.

And the butt funnel.

You know about that butt funnel?

Put it on the poll @LevitarShow. Do you know about that butt funnel? Uh, so the Ben Simmons documentary that comes out, was it literally the day that he tears his Achilles?

Yesterday.

Uh, the mention, uh, that you had in the weekend observations of, uh, Ben Simmons calling Doc Rivers a piece of bleep.

Call me a piece of shit.

Uh, have you, uh, have you seen it or have you seen, uh, what have you heard of it other than what he said about Doc Rivers?

Well, I, interviewed Mark Spears, who was the guy behind the documentary, the Hall of Famer Mark Spears, and he talked about— I asked him straight up, I said, like, weren't you worried that he was not going to be forthcoming? And he said, yeah, but he was incredibly forthcoming and very honest and, and open and talked about all these things that he really hasn't talked about on the record ever. And talking about his feelings being hurt by what he felt like was a betrayal and an abandonment at his lowest point by head coach and his teammate, Joel Embiid.

What were your thoughts when you heard the news that Ben Simmons was injured as a member of the Sacramento Kings? People said that he, uh, was looking good, but I had assumed that just about everybody had checked out on the idea that Ben Simmons would be anything other than a disappointment and a bust, uh, in first reference.

I think the hype around Ben Simmons before the injury was a little bit much. like this idea that it's, it's this great comeback story. I like— he, he, he quit on the Sixers. He quit on them. I don't know that to me that that's a great comeback story. And by the way, maybe, maybe he was gonna be good this year, but how many years in a row before last year where he was in the league, how many years in a row did we get the summer workout videos? Oh, Ben Simmons is back. Ben Simmons is back. Like, I don't know, you gotta miss me with that.

I asked Mark that same question.

I said, Mark, I'm a skeptic.

How would he argue against me in the sense that—

Like, why is this summer different?

Yeah, I've seen so many times, oh, he's shooting 3s now, and it's like—

and the same thing happens when we get to the season. And Mark said that basically Ben points to number one, he's healthy for the first time, and number two, at no point were any of those other things, those clips that you and I are talking about, real game footage. And if you see him against Golden State the other night, you see him against the other San Antonio the other night. That's real game footage against real NBA competition, and he played confidently and like loosely and freely, and I think that's the big thing.

I don't think that it was going to be this great story. I don't think— to me, he doesn't come off as someone who really loves basketball, but I do think it's a bummer that he got hurt yesterday because I do think it was going to be interesting at least to see how he was going to perform this year.

He does seem like someone who loves basketball.

Just listen to him.

All these people talk about I don't love the game. That's bullshit. I've played through injuries. I've broken my foot. I've rehabbed that. I've had multiple back surgeries. You know, I've been through it all. If I didn't love the game, trust me, I would be at home. You know, I'd be fishing. I could go to Australia now, go get a nice home, be on the reef fishing. Could have, you know, find a wife, have some kids, and call it a day. But that's just I love this shit.

Yeah, he just tells you to go fuck yourself, first of all, in that clip. Second of all, that's—

this is— this is—

that's what the comeback is all about, right? You have to be at your lowest point. This guy was anointed. He was a number 1 overall pick. He was an All-Star, All-Defensive Team, all these things. And then he had his lowest point and his life unraveled from that point. And so had he played this season and, you know, played like he did in the—

I was interested in the story.

I was. It was going to be a big story.

I was interested, but like, I say, you know, prove it. We would have seen. Now, now unfortunately he doesn't have the opportunity to prove it. I was interested.

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Can it be a big story if it involves the Sacramento Kings? And also, just from the perspective of today, I would like to marvel for a second because I do think it sort of gets lost. A basketball team was losing on purpose for 10 years so that it could get draft picks. It gets Markelle Fultz, who short-circuits It gets Ben Simmons, who short-circuits, and it gets Joel Embiid, who short-circuits. That's amazing. Like, that's hard to do, to have that kind of failure.

And they just signed LeBron James and got Jaylen Brown from the Celtics.

That's a great story when looked at from that perspective.

That's the biggest argument against tanking. It's like, even if it works and you get the number 1 overall pick, there's no guarantee that it's going to work.

But to have 3 of those, though, like Joel Embiid physically and Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz mentally, And physically for both of those guys.

But the 3— to have 3 of those is just an uncommon amount of bad luck where you get a fundamental short-circuiting.

Okafur was also kind of part of that. Not a number 1 overall, but—

Number 2, wasn't he?

Yeah, top 3, I believe.

Yeah, you tank to get one of those picks.

I mean, he was the one who played the most.

Rays-Guardians tonight.

Getting ready for Sunday night. That's the dumbest song ever created.

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