Transcript of Chris Cote's Sprint For Chicken Sausage | Hour 1

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Chris, were you not ready to do that? Has, uh, have you been thrown off in general by the eating of the sausages at the wrong time? Like, what's happened?

And my arms are tired. It's been a rough morning.

Okay, so when I come here, man, yeah, you do come here. Do me a favor.

5 days.

Do me a favor of coming into the studio here. I want to test you with something here in a moment. I want you to be behind me when we give you this test real quick before I get to this Scoble conversation, because baseball is fascinating to me. Baseball's my favorite. I like it better than football and always have. The trade deadline is interesting to me and the randomness of baseball. The thing the Dodgers have done that does give them some guarantees that you normally don't have in baseball is the money makes it so that they can always make the playoffs. But just based on what happened this weekend, I don't know if you guys noticed this part of it. The Mariners were really close to winning the championship last year, and they traded Luis Castillo to the White Sox, who were the worst team in the history of baseball. The White Sox are in first place in the American League Central, and they're trading—

yeah, Tony, but everybody's basically within a handful of games of first place.

Upset about the Dodgers, and they went for the worst team historically the first place team.

Right now, but like two good series, they're back in.

But my point is though that the White Sox acquire Castillo because they're in first place, because the Mariners are no longer any good even though they were real close, and the Blue Jays aren't any good either even though they were real close last year. Like, the Blue Jays couldn't have been any closer to being a champion last year, but this year it all changes and everything gets turned around. But the reason I brought Chris Cody into the studio with us is A, so that he can watch, uh, the video of— can you guys explain to me what's happened here with Chris Cody, because we now have the surveillance video of him deciding as soon as the show is starting, he's decided to scamper, scurry, run, waddle into the eating area and find himself very quickly a sausage that he then ate like a pelican. Did not chew anything, just tossed it up in the air with his mouth and then swallowed the entirety of the thing the way a wiener should not be swallowed.

Yeah, Dan, so we have these chicken sausages from this place and we— so good, they're so good. They come in once, once a week and everybody knows what's going in there. A little maple honey, or I don't know what it is, but we eat them and we're like, yo, this is great. So we told the ladies that order our breakfast and lunch, hey, make sure chicken sausage on the menu at least once a week. Chris has realized, wait a second, I can have a couple of these.

It's like 3 of those things.

Some people don't eat the chicken sausage, they go, they go for the bacon, which allows Chris—

your mouth is watering. It is.

You heard it, right?

Yeah. You also love a wet sausage. This is a dry sausage. This is a dry sausage.

Some juice in that tin, but yeah. Half and half, I'd say.

Chris, can you just give me some understanding, though, of how much time was there before the show started? How did your decision-making go? Why did you scamper the way that you scampered in a hurry and a bit of a panic to get those sausages?

Well, I would say, unlike others around here during our pre-show, I'm locked in, not really worried about breakfast. I'm like, Roy, big plate of breakfast. But so I'm—

first off, first off, stop that. Stop right there. Stop right there. I don't like you and Zaslo breakfast shaming people because that says the same thing about me. He's like, Tony gets everything on the plate. Yeah, because nobody eats anything and I feel bad. I have Cuban guilt. I can't leave stuff on the plate. I gotta get the sausage, I gotta get the egg.

For me, between 8 and 9, priority work, second priority breakfast. Other people have that a little closer together. So what happens is we get to like 8:55 and I'm like, I haven't eaten anything, I'm hungry. So I'm hearing the Open and I'm like, is it too late? It's never too late. So I scurry over and I get a sausage. I feel like I was doing the right thing there.

Did you get one sausage?

I only did one.

How many sausages did you get?

I didn't have time for multiple.

I wanted to love a wet sausage. Yeah, I do too, Pablo.

The issue that I have is that that seems like something that you could have done, should have done, might have done before it affected your first words on the program that sounded like they had a sausage stuck in them.

That's fair.

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you allowing for fair criticism in that spot when all you're doing is—

I grabbed the sausage with my hand there, too. That was— it's a rough look. We don't have a lot of time.

Are the tongs there or no?

You can see in the background Greg Cody's already starting his awkward march to the couch. It means you got about 10 seconds.

You can see I'm— there's some true scurrying by me there. There's no, like, there's no lollygagging there. I am— I got somewhere to be.

You are absolutely right when you ask the question, Tony. Were there tongs there?

There were.

He looked at him, but his urgency was such that he just grabbed it. No napkin, no anything.

Not touch any other sausage. I'm a firm believer that if you're not gonna make contact with something else, you can reach in and grab shit with your hands in a public setting. As long as there's no contact with any other— that's why, like, at a buffet, at a work setting, if you're not gonna touch anything else, you can grab something.

Strong agree on this, actually, Chris.

Thank you, Jeremy.

I'm not the one you want support from, though. I licked my fingers that one time and everybody shamed me about it.

Yes, you did. I love a wet sausage.

I don't think it can be excused that you went in there and grabbed it with two fingers. You use your fingers as tongs when the tongs are right there. Like, you can say you didn't touch any other sauce, but those sausages are grouped together, and I believe there were freckles on some of those other sausages. I'm like a sniper.

When I'm grabbing food out of a pan, I'm like a sniper.

Okay? I don't believe you're a Green Beret. I don't believe that you are somebody. I don't believe you're a SEAL.

Oh, there's Jeremy with his finger in his mouth.

See, that's not—

The hell, man?

Knuckle deep.

It's on me. That's not knuckle deep.

So here we go. This is— now we're going to watch the replay again of me. Let's do a little play-by-play here. All right. So I walk up here. And you're gonna notice, gotta get a plate first, cuz I'm not a monster. Okay. I'm not just gonna take a sausage. So then I lift the thing. I look around, make sure no one's looking.

Whoop.

Just grab it. All right. There we go. Easy, easy peasy. And then off to the microwave, a good 15 seconds. But it's a good little, a good zap time. 15 seconds.

You did lick the fingers before you put it in there.

Well, cuz I didn't wanna touch the, uh, we park our cars in the same garage.

Not a great look for me here. Like I said, I didn't have time, guys. Time crunch.

Put it on the poll at @LeBittardShow. Should you grab the community sausage with your two fingers and not the tongs when the tongs are right there?

They're on the other side of that tin.

There's no—

would have been a long reach. Yeah, would have been a long reach.

No time.

The reason I have asked Chris Cody to stand behind me is because I want to put him through a test, uh, without any warning to see how he does. Uh, for those of you who do not know, and we will get to the Scooble story in a second because it's the one dominating the deadline, and I'd say sports in a way that surprised me because I didn't think baseball could still do this. The reason I have Chris Cody behind me is because Tony Romo—

oh no—

Tony Romo has been, uh, put on leave by CBS, which is at least a little curious because there are no games right now. And so J.J. Watt evidently is going to replace him much cheaper while he's on leave for preseason games, and one of America's preeminent broadcast chemistry teams is going to be disrupted for at least the near future and maybe longer depending on whether or not CBS wants to get out of that contract. And so Romo is being paid— for those of you who do not know, Romo is being paid by CBS on average $18 million a year. It's more than he made in all of the years of his playing career except for one. To me, that's crazy by itself. The fact that Tom Brady makes more as a broadcaster than he does for playing, the fact that Tony Romo made more and makes more as a broadcaster than he does from playing is crazy. But you are symbolically and in actuality, you are a face and voice for the league that has been pulled over on the side of the street. And with that comes a responsibility, I would say, that puts your job in jeopardy more than if you're merely the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

If you're the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, you can survive have a DUI or an OWI, if you're the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, if you're the face and the voice for the league on a preeminent broadcast, and they're already unhappy with you for a number of reasons, this might be the beginning of the end of Tony Romo and one of America's premier broadcast teams. And I assume that contractually they might be able to fire him for cause and get out from under that money. My guess is that the delay in all of this and putting him on leave is at least in part so that they can figure out what they want to do, because the only thing that saves eliminates Tony Romo's job right now is if his bosses were happy with him before this happened, because they'll defend him if they were happy with him and fine with his progress and where it is that he was headed. But they'll figure out a way to get rid of him if they were not happy with him. And I want Chris to try the field sobriety test because I found it confusing while listening to it and sober.

Like, oh boy, this woman peppered Tony Romo with questions that I would have failed if she'd come in here into the studio and asked me to do it. At 10 o'clock in the morning on a Monday.

Walk in a straight line right here.

But that's usually when you're super drunk, Chris.

You don't feel confident in your ability to follow these instructions laid out for you the way I'm gonna just play—

talking straight line, follow the pen with my eyes, don't move my head, never done it before, just heard.

No, that's not, that's not what I'm gonna ask you to do. After all of that, I believe that she gave an unfair field sobriety test. Now I think Tony Romo would have failed whatever the test was, including, you know, give me something on a snap count. Like, I think he would have failed all of the tests.

He failed, are your grandparents alive?

I— but I believe— let's have Chris Cody try to follow these instructions. Okay, try to follow these instructions as given by the police officer to Tony Romo.

Do not start the test until I tell you to do so. Do you understand?

Yep.

When I tell you to start, raise either leg. All right, with the foot approximately 6 inches off the ground, keeping your foot parallel to the ground. Keep both legs straight and your arms down at the side. So foot parallel to the ground, okay?

Yeah.

All right, keep both legs straight and your arms down at the side. Holding that position, count out loud in the following manner.

Okay.

1001, 1002, 1003, and so on until you are told to stop. Keep your arms at your sides at all times.

Wait, what?

Can you start over?

Watching the raised foot.

What?

And then you just tell me which foot you want to 6. Okay, I think I'm going to raise my right.

Yeah.

Okay. Yes.

Approximately 6 inches. 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, and so on until I tell you to stop.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, gotta tell you to begin.

Oh, I already started.

Yes, I got it.

Okay, the test hadn't even started. I was doing it the whole time. Romo failed and it hadn't even started. She, she was confusing.

I was like, what?

Look Look at the foot.

Dan Levitar.

For 5 minutes I was watching everyone just like, nope, not letting you in, not letting you in. So when I got up there, I had to say something, and I said it. Cheaters never prosper.

Chris Cody.

My buddy was saying, not today, not today. I think that was what he was adding. Yeah, that was so much better. I'm telling you, the response I got from this guy, what I said was amazing. Cheaters never prosper. This guy yelled as angry as he could.

I ain't cheating.

This is the Dan Levitar Show. Jason Bonetti came on with us and told us the other day that the field sobriety test has to be made easier. And I now agree with him because Tony Romo had no chance of passing that test if they got him in the broadcast booth at 1 o'clock on a Sunday. Like, he wasn't going to pass that test. You know why? Because he played a lot of football and like his back hurts. And his head hurts and he's got cobwebs and standing on one foot. Did you guys see Kirk Cousins try and do drills? This is Kirk Cousins, he's still in the league. Did you see him try and do drills for the Raiders? You play that position for 15 years in the league, they can make all the rules meant to protect you, you're still— put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Can a 35-year-old quarterback who's still in the league pass the field sobriety test while sober? Any of them? Any, any of them? Just, they're gonna be there. You're gonna have to lock them up because they're gonna be under the influence of football.

What does the hair look like?

Drunk hair.

That was drunk hair. That was drear.

Chris, get out of here. You failed.

Take the rest of the day off.

You failed the test. I want to play the video for the audience of Kirk Cousins.

Luis Urias has been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Nice. Dombrowski.

Thanks.

I hate it.

For what it's worth, I looked up CBS's next preseason broadcast. Best I could tell from cursory internet searches, they only have one preseason broadcast, week 3 of the preseason. So that's August 28th.

So to put him on leave now for a month as you sort all of this out and to announce the specifics of it's not just putting him on leave. JJ Watts, the replacement. You don't have—

it was celebrated last year.

But you don't have a game. You don't have a game until August 28th, so you're putting him on leave now. So you're telling us right now that he's on leave until at least the 28th, correct? You're— by telling us that J.J. Watt is the replacement, you're telling us we're going to hear a game that is disrupted in one of the premier booths in all of football. Nance, Tony Romo, one of the highest-paid broadcasters in the history of sports, is being taken off the air for at least one game and replaced by a cheaper J.J. Watt.

It would be a weird thing to announce if there wasn't going to be a game at he said he'd miss.

So what's your best guess on whether or not Tony Romo still has a job after this?

That's a great question. I don't know. And I also don't know what's fair. They, they might be waiting to see how this all goes through legally too. But it does— you know, I was a little skeptical. I'm like, man, it might be a little soon for Dan to take it there. But I think you're right on the money. This could absolutely be leveraged by CBS and Paramount in a way way that gets them out of a contract they might be regretting.

100%, because if he was, you know, dominating, dialed in, they'd be like, oh, oh, we sweep that under the rug, who cares about that, he'll be ready for football week 1. And now it's like, oh, will he? We don't know. Might be a way to get out of there.

When I was growing up, the baseline was for commentators was be super drunk, preferably on the job.

I mean, I always thought Pat Summerall was drunk. There are broadcasts where Howard Cosell was indeed drunk.

You know why there are all these empty spaces in baseball? It's not the game, it's because they're reaching over to drink something big and brown.

Harry Carey was probably drunk on occasion. But the thing that I want to talk about with you guys on the importance of these broadcasters, okay, because this has been something that has been intriguing to me the entirety of the last, I'm going to say, 15 years where all of these prime jobs end up going to former Dallas Cowboys, even though the Cowboys are never any actually good, whether it's Jason Garrett or whether whether it's Aikman or whether it's Tony Romo or Moose Johnston, whoever it is you want to pick, the, the former Cowboys get the best jobs. And also, I'm wondering how intrigued you guys are by this part. Do you find it interesting at all that Romo makes more as a broadcaster than he ever did as the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, except for one year when he made more than his average salary from CBS, which is playing— he's working once a week, he doesn't have to do all of the offseason training, the The job is less rigorous in all the ways than playing football by a multiple of 1,000.

Right. I am with you there. Being quarterback seems way more difficult than doing what Tony Romo does now alongside Jim Nantz on Sundays. However, let's look at the marketplace. If you are the star of television's biggest show, your salary is in line with the stars of television's biggest stars. Like Ray Romano. Ray Romano was making an ungodly amount of money when he had the biggest sitcom. Charlie Sheen was making an ungodly amount of money when he was a star of— Ryan Seacrest, same deal. And that's exactly what these guys are. For whatever reason, we are not programmed that way. But Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, they are the stars of television, and not by a little. Biggest thing going.

This is where I'm gonna stop you though. Do you know how many years Jim Nantz had to work to get to his salary, which is still half as much as Romo's, which he got walking in the door?

But it's the position.

I get it. I understand why it's happening, but Tony Romo is getting twice as much, roughly, as Jim Nantz, and Jim Nantz has had to work his entire career in order to get there, and Romo gets that by virtue of being the Dallas Cowboys quarterback.

Uh, but I think you're also minimizing that achievement. Statement. Tony Romo also worked his entire career to get himself in a position where he is in demand as a lead voice, the same way that Tom Brady did.

Agreed, but not at that job. He's being paid at an entry-level experience the biggest salary that there is. He's making more than Joe Buck. He's making— he's making more than everyone except, I believe, Tom Brady. I believe.

But there is a There's a scale for— he auditioned for the job and there is a scale for lead analysts on the network afternoon.

This— but this is my point on that. When you say the scale, it's about to change. If they can replace him with J.J. Watt, they're not going to pay J.J. Watt the way that they're paying Tony Romo.

I think if it changes, J.J. Watt gets a raise.

He'll get a raise, but he's not going to be making $18 million. They have an ability here if they want to. Look, there is right now, and, and I learned this, uh, in a way that was really, uh, stupefying given the— that I sat right in the middle of it and did not notice what was happening with sports media seats. Okay, there became a time at ESPN where if Jemele or Pablo or Bomani or Sarah Spain or anybody wanted a seat on ESPN television, the only one remaining was the one next to my father. Like, all of those people, there was one seat remaining for it. So I sort of saw, swimming right in the middle of it, I saw the way that ESPN ended up contracting before it contracted because there was one seat available for all of the people that I worked with, and it was next to my father. Right now in broadcast streaming, everyone needs broadcasters, everyone wants live sports. No one but CBS was paying like that, except for Fox, for one guy, and it was Romo. And I think he might have just thrown away that bag, and I think he might have changed the way that that position has to be paid, at least at CBS, because they have the ability to get out from under the contract if they want to.

And this is not a crime that would normally put that contract in jeopardy. It's only in jeopardy because they're already unhappy with him.

Right. But I do think the marketplace— like, Aikman makes similar money. Brady makes more. There's like 5 of those jobs. And he's right in line with what people make at that job.

And CBS and Paramount now have the ability to lower it. They have.

Yes. Yes. But ultimately, it's because if they're seizing this opportunity and we have evidence that suggests they've been unhappy and it's not just them. I mean, people have soured on Tony Romo. The Joe Sports Fan. Where's the predictive analysis? Where's all that fun stuff that we used to like about Tony Romo? Generally, his stock is down across the board.

I think he should be paid more. Like, I think every single person on a professional live sports broadcast should be paid as much as anyone in any position in the United States.

I do think that there's this weird thing, and Dan's guilty of it too, where we don't look at these people as linchpins to entire networks' programming. There's a reason why they go to They go to these advertiser conventions and they're pitching everything and they're doing it with the faces of the network. And Jim Nance and Tony Romo are faces of that network.

And when you are on the face, when you are the face of a network, it can't be pulled over drunk driving and embarrass the network that way in a way that is sustained without hurting the value of what it is that we're talking about. Because I would say to you and continue to say to you that we overrate understate the importance of what it is Tony Romo is doing there, because I don't believe that they will lose a viewer on what is their Sunday broadcast if Tony Romo's not doing it. Not one. I don't believe they will lose one single viewer because it's J.J. Watt, because it's— they steal Greg Olsen, because they decide to do it with just some random offensive lineman. You tell me, do you think? This— because when you're talking about paying someone more than he ever made as an NFL quarterback for a symbolic position, but it doesn't actually cost you a viewer if you eliminate the position entirely. I'll go a step further. If Jim Nantz were doing that broadcast by himself, I don't believe CBS would lose a viewer who wants to watch that CBS game. Not one.

Not one would leave.

Like to have a little color.

I would too, but I'm just throwing the hypothetical out there.

I agree.

I'm saying you're still gonna watch the game because you're interested in the game. So why are we paying those people that way?

You know what, you're right. I think they should probably take that position and divvy up the money, give it to the people down on the sideline, because what they have to do, being prepared at any given moment on a live broadcast to be able to communicate an extra story as they go chat with people in the locker room— now those are the real heroes here in America that deserve top-tier calories.

Happy 49th birthday today to Tom Brady.

Happy birthday to him.

I don't care. Good luck.

Did you see him over the weekend on the yacht where it was just him in the front of the yacht? It's like $12 million boat and he's going on. It's just him.

And I felt sad for him.

Uh, it's like, no, nobody there to celebrate with, you know, your kids, your wife.

No, everybody hates you.

I saw that thing too. So like, I don't think that's such a gigantic yacht. I don't think we know he was alone.

Yeah, I think there's people down below.

People were like, oh, look how sad that is.

On the top though.

Somebody can hang out.

My boy is living.

Even if that's like his Sunday morning, let me just go on a cruise by myself around. Like, everyone feeling bad for Tom Brady. I thought that was hilarious.

Dan Levitar, the Jets coach. Sweetie, Chris Cody, I should go say hello. This is the Dan Levitar Show. Chris Cody, many of the listeners are pointing out that after you grabbed that sausage with your fingers instead of tongs, you immediately put your hand with those greasy fingers on the community microwave. And you did so—

I believe I licked them first to clean off. So get your facts straight.

Steve Martin pointed that out.

I want to clean the fingers. I believe there was a shirt wipe there quickly.

Different hand, but then you—

you're touching all of the buttons with that wet finger. You're touching— you touched all of the buttons with the licked fingers. I mean, that is foul.

Did I not grab it with my left hand, the sausage?

The paper towels are right there. So is the tongue.

No time, guys.

Time crunch.

Put it on the poll at @LebatardShow. Are you disgusted by someone who touches the communal microwave with their wet sausage fingers? Because the thing about the fingers is the sausage was not wet. I love a wet sausage. The fingers were wet because he put them in his mouth after consuming or after grabbing the dry sausage.

I love a wet sausage. Yeah, not a good look for me.

Uh, which one? The fact that you keep stepping on Roy every time he's playing the I Love a Wet Sausage, or just the fact that you're putting the microwave— uh, your fingers all over the microwave while they're wet? Which one?

I'm afraid to talk now.

What do you do if, like, if you're Tony Romo's agent, you point to the fact that the ratings are better now than they were before I showed up. I— we, we've seen quantifiably ESPN improved its Monday Night Football booth, and the ratings reflect that. And not only do their ratings reflect that, the Manningcast ratings have dipped because more people are on ESPN, because Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have settled the waters, because all of football has gone up in ratings everywhere.

Everybody's ratings are up during football season.

Everyone's, right? But this is an argument that I'd use in a negotiation. I— if I'm Troy, uh, Troy Aikman and Joe Buck, I rescued your booth.

Okay, so what do you think is going to happen here though? What do you think the conversations are happening right now in private? Do you believe— your best guess is Tony Romo is going to keep his job? Yes or no?

I don't want to be reckless.

I—

my personal belief is that they're unhappy for it to leak out the way that it did. And also, this is just industry chatter around Tony Romo too. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong in them seizing this opportunity potentially because they're just not happy with the performance of Tony Romo.

We can question the all of it, including when you're making that kind of money, not having a driver at all times so that this doesn't happen to you. But one of the things that I go to, even though I don't want Tony Romo to lose his job, and I don't want ever for people to be defined by their worst public mistakes. The fact that he was asking to stretch his back and everything during that, the fact that I think that he's cloudy because he had a bunch of concussions and a bunch of injuries that puts him in pain— I think most quarterbacks walking around the world at this age playing the way that Romo played, with as many injuries as Romo had and played through, I think many of them are in a constant pain pain and discomfort. I want to play for you now the video of Kirk Cousins running the other day because I have, uh, I have something that I want to, uh, put in front of the audience and the American people as an idea, and you tell me whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. Let's watch Kirk Cousins here running some sprints with his teammates very poorly, clearly not an athlete of any kind.

This is also— if I told you this is Adam Sandler, uh, one year of eligibility left, in a movie where he's a 50-year-old, uh, trying to make the team in college, you would tell me that's not the quarterback of the Raiders, that's Adam Sandler trying out for a team in his 50s. He might as well be holding a jar of pickles and trying to eat from it as he does his exercise. I'd like to go to Roger Goodell and Jay-Z and an assortment of people and say, you know what, I've got a job for Colin Kaepernick. If you can't be more athletic than him in a private workout, you can't start at quarterback in this league. If you can't just simply move around during the drills better than the present-day Colin Kaepernick, you shouldn't be allowed to have a starting job in the NFL. Last time I saw Kirk Cousins, he had an arm that was a noodle.

Tore his Achilles also. I forgot to mention that.

All right. Let's have Colin Kaepernick and Tom Brady do a shuttle drill. Who are you picking?

Huh.

That's a good question.

Clown.

I'd be fine with that.

I'm picking the Patriots.

Starting at 49.

It's the first week of camp. That's day one of camp. Out of camp. Cut the guy a break.

Oh wow, okay, so you don't think he should be fresher because his body's not injured by—

No, it takes a while to shake the rust off. You ever run a sprint in your life?

You got it.

It's the beginning.

You ever run a sprint?

Answer that.

Some people use the warm-ups to warm up, Dan.

Okay, so from the offseason, Kirk Cousins is—

Let's see how you look doing that.

Do a sprint.

I'd look like that.

No, he looks—

He looks way better than you.

I disagree. I believe I— play it again. I believe that I could absolutely do what Kirk Cousins did as the starting quarterback of the Raiders because Fernando Mendoza is not ready. I can absolutely do that. What, are you kidding me? But he's not even— he's not—

you would look better than that.

Yeah, I'd look the same. I'd look the same.

Maybe he was just sitting on his foot and his right foot's asleep.

Yeah, I think he's going out of his way to get a full stretch on that Achilles. I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't. Yeah, good gate. In fact, should start week 1.

For a team that's going to be 1-16.

I bet you Mendoza looks a little bit better at that drill, but that's not— that's not playing quarterback. There's way more to it.

Moving on to what I believe is the story of the day in sports that it's taken me too long to get to in earnest because I was too busy talking about Tony Romo. The Los Angeles Dodgers skewing the sport in such a way that has people howling that what they just did by trading for Scoble is unfair. I don't know. Have you guys heard anybody else saying what is my theory, that the Dodgers got him just to keep him off of every other roster that can beat them in the postseason?

No, I like that take a lot, actually. It's a luxury that they can afford.

Well, they can afford every luxury.

Well, they can afford the luxury because they're not being taxed as if they make a ton of money. They're being taxed as if they're bankrupt, which is unfair until 2039.

The secret supersized secret in that sport is that the Dodgers and their television deal altered everything. Everything in a way that made them the new Yankees. But even in the age of Steinbrenner, it wasn't this lopsided where there were years under Steinbrenner where the Yankees couldn't and didn't make the playoffs. What the Dodgers have guaranteed themselves is not postseason success, but they've absolutely guaranteed themselves we're getting to the playoffs every year. There we are, too good. We have too many reinforcements. It doesn't matter if Snell's hurt. It doesn't matter if Glasnow's hurt. It doesn't matter if Mookie Betts stinks now. No, it doesn't matter. They can just keep replacing everything as they go because they have, uh, what feels like, uh, 3 times more money than everyone else. And so when they make those propaganda ads on behalf of the salary cap, uh, and I ask you guys the question, when's the last time in sports you saw— anywhere in sports, doesn't really happen in football, right? Although the Rams are trying to do it, but it doesn't happen in football— that's unfair— where the reaction is just from all sports fans, a trade happens and they're like, that shouldn't be allowed.

How, how do we stop that from happening? The salary cap forces all of these teams to govern themselves. Otherwise, this would be happening. This would be happening in football. Somebody would be buying all of the players. It would probably be Jerry Jones. Somebody, if there were not a salary cap, salary cap that forced these owners to govern themselves, and if there was not something that was collectively bargained to put ceilings on the two rich guys competing for stuff, you guys know this would be happening in basketball and football as well. Somebody would just get all of the players. The reason it can happen here is because there is no salary cap and one team has more money than all the others. And now how's everyone howling unfairness when it's just not something I see very often?

Well, Dan, you've always talked about that, like open it up, free market completely across across the board. See what somebody's willing to pay for Dak Prescott on the open market.

Well, DeMaurice Smith told us that what you would then get is collusion of a different sort.

You get the opposite way collusion because they're colluding this way but now they're colluding that way.

What, what DeMaurice Smith has said is that if you do not— and I don't know, do you guys agree with this? Because DeMaurice Smith would have vastly more information and knowledge on this than the rest of us. But he says, because I, because I asked him, do you regret agreeing to a salary cap? And he's like, no. I get, then I am ensuring that these owners do have to spend their money. Otherwise, they will get together and figure out not to spend it. And I'm like, no, they won't. There's always going to be a Daniel Snyder or Jerry Jones or Stephen Cohen or somebody out there who— or a Balmer who's like, no, I want to win. I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna collude with you. I want to win.

And that's what the players are banking on in their offer to the owners right now, because what they've is for competitive balance, a tax on each end. What they've said is there's going to be a certain number where if you spend over that, you're taxed, and you have what's essentially what happens in the NBA with that first and second apron where you pay this massive tax bill. But they've also suggested it at a bottom number, that if you don't spend a certain amount, so to create essentially a salary floor, there is a tax. Tax because there are so many teams that spend at a low payroll, and their view of it is that the teams pocket so much money from revenue deals. The Dodgers are an aberration in all of this, the way they make money hand over fist.

I don't believe that as obsessed as we are now with money and money in sports, and as much as we talk about money and money in sports, I don't believe that the grand majority of people listening to this understand the second apron, and I don't believe they understand what the league just did with that second apron that the players weren't expecting, which is they all agreed, oh, Okay, it's, it's not because the tax is actually so much, because Ballmer can afford it. It's not because— and, and Gilbert can afford it and does. Like, it's not because the tax is so much that people avoid it. It's because that then James Dolan can have the excuse, hey, the second apron. It's just so that they can have the excuse. Like, they— none of them have to respect it, and it's not actually so punitive that any of them can't afford it. Maybe there are a few, but the truth of the matter is they're using that second apron to do the, the, to do the collusion without doing the collusion.

And they did that on top of making roster maneuverability more difficult. You can't acquire guys and sign in trades, so it like, it puts the president of the team or the GM of the team in a more difficult space in trying to improve the roster long term. So it's punitive to the owner who already is like, I don't want to spend all of that money, and the team has to look at it operationally from a perspective perspective of, hey, if we just keep operating in the second apron, we're not going to be able to make the moves in the margins that help you win.

Do you believe that most of the audience or even 10% of the audience understands everything happening or anything happening with the second apron? Not everything. Anything happening with the second—

about the first apron, there's people in the media that don't know.

You understand then what I am saying when I tell you that if I opened up to every owner on football and said, hey, Mahomes is available, right?

You say you want that, but you don't. It makes— at least in America, this is how it's been. Baseball's been lucky. Cap sports legislate that your team in its small market has a shot. And in soccer, it becomes a point of frustrating. Although I think you could look to the Premier League and be a little encouraged. You have stories like Leicester City winning, you have Bournemouth making it to Europe, you have Brighton making it to Europe, and you have teams like Tottenham almost get relegated. So I, I don't think in football would work kind of that way. We'd all assume like, man, this team's spending unlimited resources, they're going to be the best. There's too many variables in football. There's injury. The sport— the ball's not round and there's things that you can do schematically. I think the, the toughest sport to see that happen would be basketball.

I don't think that I would be anti-free market, anti-capitalism because the Raiders don't have a chance now with the salary cap and haven't for 20 years. The Dolphins with a salary cap haven't had a chance for 20 years. What are they going to do, have less of a chance?

Like, they—

I mean, but at least the Raiders have something that they can hinge their hopes on.

I mean, because they have a draft, but they're false hopes. I want to get into this a little more because it is super rare to have a trade that all of sports reacts to with, that's unfair.