Transcript of Is Giannis Antetokounmpo... Magic Johnson? | Hour 3 (feat. Amin Elhassan) New

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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 the light.

Dan!

You scoff every time the topic is broached. Your attitude is dismissive at best, downright disrespectful at worst. You claim history is on your side, and you definitely don't believe in the quarterback. But I believe the time has finally come where we can say without any humor, hesitation, or equivocation Are the Raiders for real?

No, we can't say it. We've been saying it for 25 years and it's just not a question that ever ends in yes, they're for real. No.

I, I was appalled to hear the show today. You talk about all these other games. The game of the day was Raiders-Chiefs.

They lost.

In hostile territory.

They lost.

No, it was a great game.

It was a great game.

It wasn't hostile territory. It's their territory.

This hostile— Kirk Cousins played like he's worth every penny of that ridiculous 9-figure deal he is inevitably gonna get. Fernando Mendoza, you're running finance workshops all year long. Patrick Mahomes remains undefeated lifetime in Allegiant Stadium. That's including Super Bowls.

Never lost.

You know what he says when he pulls up to Allegiant Stadium?

Never low.

This is Mahomes. This is Mahomes. It's home, but also his name is Mahomes.

Jameis Winston.

Is a Disney movie in the making? Remains to be seen if that movie is Any Given Sunday 2 or Radio 2. Remember when Bryce Young was a bust? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Travis Hunter.

Shook Tee Higgins so hard, I think his shoes are still out there on the field right now. Remember when Drake Maye was a bust? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Had a dream that Greg Cody went on vacation in Russia and met Vladimir Putin, and they— who became instantly smitten and enamored by him. Then Greg and his catchphrases Became propaganda tools that Putin used to make himself more likable. Such a specific and odd dream. The Miami Heat cruised past the Toronto Raptors 129 to 107 in preseason.

Yep.

Giannis's debut saw him post 9 points and 7 assists in just 14 minutes. After the game, the usually reserved Erik Spoelstra Compared Giannis to Magic Johnson. Or as the minister of Heat propaganda Ryan Cortez so eloquently put it, it's over for you hoes. Just remember, that guy won a Pulitzer. Miami Heat and Rockstar Games announced that they will team up for a night in Vice City that'll transform the Kaseya Center Into Vice City, showcasing the Miami-inspired setting of Grand Theft Auto 6 for a first-of-its-kind sports crossover experience that will see the Heat play on a special court, introduce a new uniform never previously worn, and roll out unique game programming and live elements like stealing a helicopter and firing a bazooka from it. Game's gonna be nationally televised on ESPN. Dan, do you know who the opponent is?

I do not.

The Milwaukee Bucks. What a way to rub it in. We get it, you won the Giannis deal. Congrats. Bub Carrington. The rare case when someone needs to shut up and dribble for totally non-political social commentary purposes. You guys hear about this Bub Carrington?

Yeah.

Yeah, we were raving about, about, uh, uh, Tony's beloved Wizards.

Yeah, he said we tanked. Like, we didn't play as hard because we wanted AJ. Like, you're not supposed to tell the media that, buddy. Nikola Jokic. Give me a break.

That's a forward pass.

Felt like Dan on any given Sunday. Not the movie Any Given Sunday, but any Sunday. What am I supposed to do with this? I just want to ask everyone around the room to explain this to me and then instantly disagree with whatever explanation they come up with.

Easy.

That's the show for 20 years. Carly Ursae Gordon. Boy, she seems like a swell boss to work for. I love the idea of her sitting me down at the end of this and going through every observation beat by beat. Now, what did you mean about this on Any Given Sunday with Dan? Portland Trail Blazers fire broadcaster for tweets he made when he was 15. Makes me glad they didn't have Twitter when I was 15. Then again, there are whole-ass episodes of Cinephobe that will probably get me shot into the sun by the Blazers. Carrie Ursae Gordon has every instance written down. She's ready to discuss them with me mid-episode. And what did you mean here when you said 20 CB? What does that exactly stand for? Speaking of Cinephobe, Cinephobe episode 326, Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, and Jason Segel. The movie that gave us one of the greatest on-screen sports debates of all time. Call me when LeBron has 6 championships. That's your only argument? It's the only argument I need, Sean! He's so unhinged, look at him. Also has the more underrated quote from Miss Squirrel. Quote, I'm a math terrorist with close ties to algebra, and I have weapons of math instruction.

Cinephobe, wherever you get podcasts. Sacramento Kings rookie Immanuel Sharp was asked his top 3 movies of all time, and he answered Jason Statham's Wrath of Man, The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp and that other guy that got canceled, Armie Hammer. Yeah, yeah. And Bird Box.

Oh, I like Bird Box.

You sounded like you like Armie Hammer too. You got in there quick. You're a big pro-cannibalism guy.

You like Armie Hammer?

Winklevoss twins.

When pressed on— when pressed on The Lone Ranger being a particularly horrible movie, he replied, and I'm not making this up, quote, you're crazy. Any movie with Johnny Depp being terrible is crazy. My man, let me introduce you to Mordecai. I don't remember that one. Pepperidge Farm remembers that. Disney+ dropped a trailer for its new animated series called Messi and the Giants. The show centers around a 12-year-old Leo Messi trapped in an alternate reality ruled by giants. I guess everyone to him is a giant. Can't wait for the episode where he gets his injections. You think that happens in the pilot, or do they wait for the flashback episode in episode 8?

How old is he?

He's 12 years old.

All right, you already got him. It's weird to me. You want to give immunity to the 15-year-old broadcaster, but you don't want to give immunity to the 12-year-old who needed a growth spurt from his hormones because you're so hateful for Messi.

In the show, Dan, he has to return home by competing in soccer-like battles and taking on legendary giants. Again, I think they're just regular-sized people and he's just tiny. Unlike his opponents— this is my favorite part, this is straight from the press release, I swear to God, unaltered— unlike his opponents, Leo can't use the world's code powers to boost his game, so he has to rely on skill, teamwork, and determination. Are you shitting me? He can't use boosters? Talk about Sean Astin digging a pool. Sean Astin digging a pool in hell. Speaking of hell, Argentina. Those are the weekend observations. He can't use boosters. They're playing in our faces right now.

Dan Le Batard.

It's Judge Koch, sweetie.

Chris Cody. I should go say hello.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show. There's a new report from Dave McMenamin that LeBron is dealing with chronic arthritis in his left foot. His daily training routine starts with monitoring the condition as well as his lower back. He missed the first month of last season while dealing with sciatica. Also in the McMenamin story, he's the first one to arrive at the facility every morning at 7:45, even though he lives 100 miles away in New York City, because his helicopter just lands on top of the Sixers business office next to the practice facility. What are your thoughts here on— I would imagine at some point LeBron's got to age. I mean, his body has held up. I don't know if I can call that an unprecedented body, but it's pretty close. to being unprecedented, uh, to be able to do what he's doing at his age?

No, it's unprecedented, Dan. And but the aging has already started when you look at what's happened over the last however many seasons. He doesn't get through them like unscathed anymore. He's always got things that he's dealing with, and that's just— that's to be known and that's to be considered. And that's for the Sixers also to use him judiciously. You can't play him like he's 32 or 33. He's pushing up on— what's that, 42 now? It's gonna happen sooner or later where it's like those little kind of tweaks are happening. So then also when you talk about he's getting there first, I know there are going to be people like, wow, like, see, that's professionalism, whatever. Like, that just reflects how much work he needs in order to be ready to play, right? And that— you talk to any older player who's still active.

Speaking of older players, Alexander Ovechkin has announced this is his Final season. Continue.

I mean, no more bands, no more bands for Make 'Em Dance. Um, yeah, so any older player, the, the process of getting ready to play and the process of cooling down after playing is the thing that's changed the most about their career. They got to get there on the training table early, they got to do all this extra work afterwards, they got an ice tub and, and hot tub and, and stim work and all this stuff. just to be able to perform again the next day. So it doesn't shock or surprise me. It probably doesn't shock or surprise the Sixers, but it is something to keep in mind as everyone has all their projections that the Sixers are going to run away with the Eastern Conference, that there is a management portion to this that they're going to have to do all season long.

Well, it's like what Vince Carter said, because when you say chronic arthritis in his left foot, yeah, 25 years, 30 years of basketball is going to end up doing chronic arthritis in the left foot. But what Vince Carter says is, yeah, I could still dunk. It's landing that's the problem.

Yeah, and, and the thing about guys like that, like Vince, like LeBron, like Tom Brady— this is the part I think none of us really fathom or grasp— he's been an NBA player longer than he's been not an NBA player. Like, the majority of his life has been spent as an NBA player. Yes, there's wear and tear from high school and AAU and all that stuff, but we're talking about high-level, 82 games a year, 35-plus minutes a game each timeout. Most of his life has been this, so yeah, there's gonna be some wear and tear and arthritis and all these— sciatica and all these other conditions.

I mean, did you see much of the Heat on Saturday night? And specifically, I mean, I get it, obviously it's one game and it's one preseason game, but they're gonna be fine shooting 3s. Like, they have guys who can shoot 3s, right?

I had this conversation with Jason Jackson, who did the radio call up there in Quebec City, and I said, this is such a refreshing thing, not only for Heat fans, but for Erik Spoelstra, because for however many years— and I remember I said this in 2023 when they went to the Finals, and Will Mansell and all the other local people got upset when I said this— I said, the Heat can't out-talent anybody. Every victory, every march, every battle that they do is a function of we do everything the right way, attention to detail, execution, and we wait for you to mess up and we take advantage of that. But they can't out— just show up and out-talent anybody. And everyone got upset, but I'm like, yeah, like Boston was more talented than they were, even though the Heat succeeded in winning. This time, for the first time maybe since 2013, 2014, the Heat have a team and say, oh, could you just out-talent people? I'm not saying that they're going to do that. I'm not saying that they're going to just give up on execution and all those attention to detail things. I'm saying this is the first time legitimately they're gonna be like, you just can't stop us.

You can't guard us. We're gonna give it to that 7-foot freak, and either you help and we've got wide-open shooters, or you don't and he's gonna dunk on everybody. And we can just do that over and over again. And that's got to feel so refreshing after so long of being kind of like in the grind and in the mud.

I was taken aback though by Spo immediately invoking Magic, though. That, that suggests to me something that they're planning around Giannis in the reinvention of whatever the next stage of his career is, that feels a bit like what D'Antoni said to James Harden when they started playing around him, where they're like, uh, James's response to D'Antoni saying you're going to have 15 assists a game was to say, coach be tripping. Uh, they're gonna have Giannis playing a style of game that really makes them good from 3. Not a little bit good. Yeah, they're gonna be really good from 3 because all their 3s are going to be wide open.

I think to me, Dan, what I read into it is Spo never talks like that about anybody. Like, for him to say that before a single meaningful game has been played, right? And he didn't just say it like, oh, kind of reminds me of Magic. He's like, I was talking to Pat about this. That was his quote. I talked to Pat about this. And he didn't say Magic. He said another big guard that played for Pat in the '80s. Yeah, we know you're talking about Magic. So to me, that's, that's not a little thing. When, when Spo says something like that, there's a lot of— But just calling him a guard.

But just calling him a guard.

Yeah.

Like, what do you do? Magic Johnson, I believe his rookie season, I believe he was like 0 for 21. 1 from 3 or something absurd because he couldn't shoot. He wasn't really somebody you wanted shooting 3s either. I had not heard Giannis referred to as a guard before this. Had you?

Not since maybe his second year or something like that. I know Jason Kidd early on as his head coach put him in the guard position the same way he did for Cooper Flagg in Dallas. And the whole thing wasn't like, oh, this guy's a guard. It's just like, hey, let him learn guard skills. because that'll help him, uh, as he grows as a star player. And it sure did. But like you, I hear Spo talking about that and it's just like, oh, this is what we talk about when people say Erik Spoelstra is the best coach or one of the 3 best coaches in the NBA. This is what we're talking about. This guy's got a creative mind and a way of looking at the game that's so different from everyone else. And he brings with it the attention to detail and all the other things I talked about, the execution. But for, again, a decade He's been having to do it the hard way. He's been having to go out and hunt for his meals and skin them and roast them on an open fire. And that's what he's been feeding his family and everyone else.

And now for the first time he said, hey, Spo, let's go to a supermarket.

What?

It's just there? I just, I just, I just pick it up and, and scan it and then I can go?

Yeah.

Are you surprised that they're still going to play that fast, that they're not going to change what they're doing? Because Giannis is already saying— he did an interview with The Athletic and he's saying, you know, is Heat culture just clever branding to glorify work the way every team does? And he's like, no, it's real. And it's real. And he's like, it's about togetherness, how serious they are, communication. Yesterday we had a meeting. It was probably one of the most exciting, entertaining meetings. There were 2 Navy SEALs and they were telling their story and we were doing push-ups. It's real. I love every bleeping second of it. I'm not even gonna lie, it gives me goosebumps. It's almost like being alive again, end quote.

You gotta, you gotta take the context of where Giannis has been the last few seasons. I'm not gonna say his entire Milwaukee tenure, obviously they had great teams there, but the last few seasons, younger teammates, not as accomplished teammates, teammates who don't have as much experience, and teammates that probably, let's just say, don't take the NBA privilege to heart the way he does, the way a kid that was selling trinkets on the streets of Athens to make— to help his family get by. Giannis has an appreciation. His work ethic comes from an incredible appreciation for, wow, how lucky we are to even be able to do this. And so you get to Miami and like, yeah, some of it is a little look at me, Louie. Oh, they got Navy SEALs talking to them while we do push-ups. I had to chuckle at that. But the part where he's talking about the seriousness, man, everyone who comes to Miami to play, that's the first thing they recognize. It's like They are so serious and so on point here. And is that the only way to be successful in winning in the league? Absolutely not. But if you're Giannis Antetokounmpo and you just came from watching Kyle Kuzma do whatever the hell he was doing for the last couple of years, and then you come here, it's not even about playing with a great player like Bam Adebayo or great role players like Klay Thompson and Tim Hardaway.

It's like, man, I see how— what Myron Gardner and how these guys are approaching and attacking the day. And they're like, man, they're really getting after it. Finally, people who share my sentiment and my zest for this incredible opportunity that we all have.

I don't know how many people were paying attention to Bucks basketball last year, but Bobby Portis and Myles Turner weren't in physical shape. Bobby Portis has lost £20 because he knows what it is that he's entering here. But those guys were heavy for NBA basketball players. You could see that they weren't moving around well, and it's because they didn't seem to care very much about the basketball they were playing.

I saw, I saw from media day, I think it was Gisele who was sitting down with Klay Thompson and she was like, have you ever had a croqueta? And he's like, no. He's like, do you want one? And he's like, uh, you could see instantly on Klay Thompson's face, like, I shouldn't be doing this. And again, that's a sentiment that I don't know exists at 30 or 29 other NBA media days where someone is being presented a small item of the local fare. And the player's first instinct is like, they're going to be on my ass for this one.

Those are good croquetas. You can't get started. They know otherwise he's going to be £400. Klay Thompson at £400 is not going to be a good 2-way defender.

One-way defender.

Good. Good seeing you. I mean, I appreciate your time. I have a number of things that I still wanted to get to here. And just for the record, Klay ended up eating the whole croqueta just so that we're— because you can't— that's not a croqueta that you can resist. I want to go back for a second to a story that we touched on, because I think that even though the Arizona Cardinals lost in a heartbreaking fashion yesterday— they're at the goal line and a pick-6 at the end goes the other way, even though they had 4 downs to win the game, first and goal, second and goal, third and goal, fourth and goal— I believe Trey McBride feels very good because he's gotten Jeff Siemon into a lot of trouble. And by pointing— let's just look at all of this again so that you can see how Trey McBride points to the camera. He was saying, please, you're ruining the game. And he points to the camera. And now this is a genuine controversy, not for McBride. Like, the one who's a stain on the profession is the linesman who shouldn't be telling players to bleep off.

And he's— I think the snitch feels good in this spot, pointing to the camera and being like, look what I've brought upon you. This was a private conversation. It's now going to be public.

It was reported by a CBS sideline reporter that what Trey McBride said beforehand was, please.

That's it.

That's what happened. The last 2 games now for the New York Giants have ended in their own end zone and they get like a compelling turnover. Guys, if you want to be in the barn and get cursed at by an NFL referee, there's only one place that you can go.

That's right.

Gametime. That's right. Get all your friends together.

Say, hey, let's watch the NFL.

Let's get tickets and be in this environment. Tell them it's Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code Dan. for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and use code DAN for $20 off.

Being a snitch, that must be why God loves the Giants more.

So I am waving my hand underneath my nose in a universal, no matter your language, symbol for something that smells bad. And I've got 4 stories to put in front of you from the something that smells bad file. First, Penn State football.

Whoo!

Whoo!

That's good. That's a good way to start this segment.

Thank you.

Second, Jed York getting suspended 6 games and $500,000. That is an expensive trailer park BJ.

Woo!

Yes, that's correct. Allegedly. The Colorado State defensive coordinator being relieved of his duties and simply leaving the sidelines during the game.

P.U.

Jed York was relieved of his duties, allegedly.

And, and also Doug Gottlieb, Doug Gottlieb, our friend Doug Gottlieb, who just says things all the time that are silly, says that the coach is way more important than the player in arguing on behalf of Protecting College Sports Act with protecting the coaches and not the players.

Bethy Pho.

Dan Le Batard.

I ain't never met nobody in the world that's done hate on Blue's Clues, bro.

Great nomination.

Like, who don't like Blue's Clues, bro?

If you don't like Blue's Clues, you're a loser.

Juju Gotti.

Look, you get one paw print, that's the first clue. You put it in a notebook. Now what do you do?

Blue's Clues, Blue's Clues.

Sit on the chair and think about it.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show. Let's go out to Tony for Tony's top 5 to see what it is that we can update you on as it regards all of Football Musings. I am at the end of my 112 observations. I have now used all of them. Let's see if Tony's got 5 more. What do you have, Tony? Hey!

Hey, Dano! Excited to get this top 5. Really quick, I love what Chip Kelly is doing with the later part of his career. I want to see if we can put up the picture of him in a hard hat with Northwestern. They ran the ball and had 413 yards rushing against Penn State. He was running the wing T, Dan. He was doing traps. He was doing Sally. He was doing everything he wanted. They ran for literally almost a mile of actual yardage. It was insane.

That's not Northwestern being good, right? Or their new stadium being good as much as it is Penn State being dreadful, right?

You get dragged. You get dragged.

Northwestern impressed me, um, with Hayden Charles being tough and being able to make plays with his legs.

He's good for 99 yards.

Yeah, no, no, but did you watch the Indiana game? They were right there. That game was in the balance for a while.

All right, and Pastelito, the quick hit: the Bears had 34 first downs, the Jets Ran 32 plays total. 34 first downs for the Bears. Jets ran 32 plays total.

Hey!

El Bancoano, the flag plant. The Vikings are 4-0 and the best team in the NFC North. And Dan, they're still a quarterback away. Kyler Murray stinks. Let me read you a really quick stat. Vikings are 32nd in yards per play. Kyler Murray is 30th among 30 qualifiers in QBR. And they haven't scored a touchdown in 2 of their games. They're 4-0 and legit the best team in the NFC North.

Some context, Hockenson passed up a touchdown.

He did, but still, that, that, you know, it is what it is. Zaz, do you understand the rules, how football works, why that's a smart play?

It's not a smart play. It's a really low IQ play.

We have seen way more teams score twice in a short time than a fumbled, uh, kneel down.

Yeah, so you, you think, you think it's more likely for a team to score twice touchdowns, including an onside kick, than it is for a team to fumble a snap. That never happens.

Yes. Okay.

Low IQ there from Zaz. Lamparada, the deep dive. Dan, you had spoken about it. Philly was up by 10 with a 3rd and goal from the 2-yard line with 8 minutes left and lost the game after having a 96% win probability. Let's see how that happened. Dan, Jalen Hurts had 68 net yards passing yards on 31 attempts. He also went 5 for 15 for 46 yards versus the blitz. It's his 2nd lowest total EPA versus the blitz out of 89 career games. So basically half of his attempts were blitzes and he threw for 46 yards. 68 net passing yards the entire game. Crazy. The hot take, we really haven't spoken about this game at all because Dan's been just like pushing it to the back burner. I think the Raiders make I think the Raiders are a legitimate football team. Their defense is great. Nakobe Dean has been incredible for them. Max Crosby has been great creating pressures. The offense is doing kind of what it needs to do. Like, Gente's a good runner. Bowers is back. Mayer's playing well. If they go to Fernando Mendez at some point in the season, maybe, but Kirk's been playing well.

They have a legit shot, especially in their, in their division with the Chargers being bad, with the Broncos. I don't really trust them all that much.

I think the Raiders are a legit football team.

Like, they could make the playoffs, and I think they will.

Hey!

El Cafecito, the definitive take of the NFL weekend. Another thing we also touched on briefly, but I do want to give some context for, Dan, the Jaguars are a legit contender in the AFC, but they're doing it on defense. They held the Bengals to 23 rush yards, 4th lowest game in franchise history. They haven't allowed a 75-yard rusher in 21 consecutive games, 4th longest streak in Super Bowl era history. Plus Travis Hunter, who they're like, does he play offense, does he play defense? He's not really playing much of anything. Travis Hunter looks to be an actual lockdown corner, led the team with 76 defensive plays, 6 targets allowed, 3 receptions for 21 yards, and had 2 pass deflections and a 58.3 passer rating allowed. He also stole Tee Higgins' soul with that juke move, Dan. He said, speed? I am speed.

So a couple of things to add to what it is that he was saying there, uh, about the, uh, rush defense. When he says the Jags are good at rush defense, the longest streak in the history of the league is presently owned by the Seattle Seahawks. They have not allowed a 100-yard rusher in 33 games. That's 2 seasons of not allowing a 100-yard rusher. You cannot run the football against the Seattle Seahawks. But, uh, circling back around on the Jags real real quick. It's not just that their defense is good. Deshaun Watson looked incompetent against them. Drake Maye looked incompetent against them. And Burrow lost both of his receivers because they took out both of his receivers because of how violent they are. Uh, thank you, Tony. Appreciate the top 5. Uh, I want to— since I mentioned Deshaun Watson, I want to mention something that, uh, happened last week because the Browns are now 3-1 and somehow Deshaun Watson has gone after looking incompetent in Game 1 and having reports say that if he did not win Game 2, he was going to lose his job. When I saw him come back against Carolina, Chris Myers was a little breathless in his description of the tapestry that gets woven on Sundays when you're telling the stories of these players.

And when you talk about Deshaun Watson and what he's coming back from, it's not actually hard to use the right language to dance around this. All you have to do is say coming back from an assortment of self-inflicted wounds, not a comeback story like Damar Hamlin's, not a comeback story that has Tony Gonzalez under fire because there is no nuance or perspective in how it is that you're describing something that has, uh, an undercurrent of Foulness that feels criminal and shouldn't be glossed over because a quarterback happens to have won 3 games after being one of the worst contracts in history and after a short-circuiting that involves his bad behavior, not anyone else's bad behavior. All he's coming back from is stuff that he did. So let's play the Tony Gonzalez sound so that you can hear for yourself what made a lot of people recoil.

You can't say enough about Deshaun Watson. And we talked about it in the pregame show, the adversity that he's gone through on the field, off the field, everybody doubting him, the home crowd right here, they're going to be cheering him from here on out. But the stuff that he's gone through, you have to take your hat off to him.

That's a goddamn disgrace, Dan. It really is. That is such a disgrace. You have to take your hat off to him, the adversity that he's gone through. Tony Gonzalez should be embarrassed with himself immediately after those words come out of his mouth. The adversity that he's gone through to come back and do what he's doing right now, take your hat off to him. Take my hat off to him.

Zazz would never take his hat off for anybody. He's not taking his hat off.

Ah, that's a disgrace. That really bothers me.

I mean, he is playing in the league. I'm not saying I would say nice things about him, but it's a tough spot.

So every time if he plays really well, they should just be like, he's a piece of shit? No, no, no! Talk about how he played, that's fine, but don't tell me the adversity he has overcome.

That's fair.

Get the hell out of here.

Well, it could just be— if you're going to talk about Deshaun Watson in positive terms, you have to throw in there and allegedly sexually assaulted dozens of women. Every time?

I'm asking.

I'm not saying every time. I'm saying in the context of taking your hat off to him and talking about all the adversity he's overcome, there can be a framing in which you're talking about the specifics of the adversity, because it— you can say it's adversity, it is adversity, but it's adversity of his own making.

I think the other thing too is he said on the field and off the field. Like, on the field he has had adversity, right? Coming back from an Achilles injury, like coming basically back from the dead, off—

Back from sucking.

Back from sucking. Like, that's adversity. Obviously he said off the field too, which—

I just want to make it clear, I am leaving my hat on for Deshaun Watson.

You've made it clear. No, I understand. Look, I'm— I don't think the broadcasts have ever been good at this. Watch any Packers game and see how they talk about the Josh Jacobs stuff and, and how they don't talk about sealed records and how nobody actually wants to see the details of what that is. Because once you see the details, you're going to be horrified by what it is that Josh Jacobs is not allowed to play football with when Deshaun Watson's allowed to play football. Josh Jacobs is gets put on a commissioner's list and the league is trying to find out what it can about what happened there. I will not say that these leagues have ever done a good job or their broadcast partners have ever done a good job of talking about any of this stuff.

It's not just the league, it's society.

I'm— yes, but it's the league and the partnerships with the streaming services that are less inclined than ever to fall on the wrong side of the leagues because they want to be able to sell a product to you that is to everybody, even while making the moral decisions to offer this guy more guaranteed money than has ever been gotten by a quarterback when he was available because of how desperate and valuable the position is. But you can frame what you're saying with, uh, the all of it, Chris, to answer your question. You can have Tony Gonzalez say what he's saying and have someone else on the set— point out with plenty of talkers on the set, hey, how about we slow down a little bit on that one and offer a little bit of context on, on what it is that you're saying? Because, uh, this— any woman who's watching this who cares about football is left to find everything about what just happened there to be football not actually caring about what women think about anything. If a 3-1 start to your football season allows you to just skip merrily past what is on this guy's resume.

It's, uh, you know what I have trouble talking about? Talking about Deshaun Watson through the prism of him being a really effective quarterback too. And we're all going to have to learn how to deal with this because we all wrote him off. And I think that's a larger point that he's trying to make, is there's going to be plenty of ample opportunities now to seize on these broadcasts because Deshaun Watson was an afterthought and now he's making himself relevant within the sport again. And so there's a lot of potholes here and people have to do better.

My point is that it's 3 games and the hyperventilation has already started. Let him get the Browns the playoffs to see how much more difficult this ends up becoming. When I, I found myself wincing at the way Chris Myers was doing it just at the end of the Carolina comeback, and that was 2 games. That's— it's, it's just starting is my point. And some of these people who are talking about this are gonna have to get some teaching moments because there was blowback on there on Tony Gonzalez. Like, Zazz is not alone in this. the blowback was fairly immediate in terms of people being disgusted by how hyperbolic the language was celebrating someone who's got, you know, criminal behavior on his resume.

It's disgusting. It is. I just— I don't— again, I don't have a problem with praising his play. I don't. And I don't even think that you have to also throw in the caveat of what he has done off the field or his has been alleged to have done off the field. But don't, don't, don't tell me how, how proud of him you are for what he's overcome. Get out of here. It's that part.

It's, it's the praising of who he is off the field to be able to overcome some sort of adversity. And you can talk about his play. Like, we do this with all sorts of players. We did it with Tyreek Hill. We've— we're gonna do it with Josh Jacobs. This is just gonna be a part of it because it's a part of this league. It's a part many professional sports leagues, is having to look past violence or sexually abusive behavior against women. It's really a part of this league, as many star players in this league become marketed beyond all of that. This is a situation even beyond most of what we've seen, and yet there seems to be this extra fervor. Maybe because he's a quarterback, maybe that's what it is, maybe because he was Dabo Swinney's Michael Jordan. but there is this fervor to cement him as not only back, but this like hero amongst men. And that I simply don't understand. It's not super dissimilar to the way we've celebrated Jameis Winston specifically for his personality. Very different cases, very different results, but it's, it's, it's, it's not right to celebrate the human being.

Celebrate the football player if that's what you have to do.

I think that there is a scenario If you feel confident that someone is rehabilitated, feels sympathy for what they did to their victims, and is really trying to own up to what they did and do better. Deshaun Watson does not do any of that. So what are we doing?

People are going to have to learn how to talk about this if the Browns are going to be relevant and he's going to be the best quarterback that they've had in a long time. Like, they're going to have to figure out in the meetings how to sit down with Tony Gonzalez and be like, all right, Tony, this is how we're going to do this. You're gonna do it.

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