Transcript of It's DraftKings Gameday! | Local Hour

It's time to put on a suit and roll out the carpet. Crank up the tube and gather near. It's the best time of the year, so keep your dial right here. It's me and you and me again at the Sew Week. The greatest of life's mistakes and best revelations. And so much more. Brought to you by the greatest beer. It's the best time of the year, so keep your dial right here. It's me and you and me again at the Sooze. And every day you're gonna go to a website.

.com.

To vote on the sounds that brought you cheer. 'Cause it's the best time of the year, so keep your dial right here. It's me and you. It's me again and it's you. It's me and you.

It's just music from the 1940s. Like, at the advent of television, this was the music that they played. It is an exciting day for us around here because our partners are doing it big all over the United States. It's DraftKings Game Day, and we have blown the budget flying in Dave Damashek from parts unknown to start celebrating football, America football in general.

And LA.

We are putting, we are putting the gas in gas bag today because DraftKings is giving away free gas here all over the United States. And in Miami, they've popped up a DraftKings Sports gas station. And I'm going to give you the address right now. And it's going to be a crowd at 10 a.m. It starts free gas at 15290 Northwest 7th Avenue. You'll see all the DraftKings signage. It is DraftKings Game Day. It's the DraftKings Sports gas station. That's 33169 is the zip code. And we're going to be checking in with our Olympic participants in a moment. I saw Zaz over there. I was also given information via video that I had not seen before that really stunned me. Zazz is an exceptional dancer, and I just simply would not have guessed that Zazz was an exceptional dancer. I wouldn't— like, if you guys thought around here from our group of known associates, who's the best dancer, I would not have guessed Zazz. Who would you guys have guessed? Like somebody who would really slice up a wedding floor from everyone we have around here?

I would say me.

I would concur.

Yep.

I throw it down. I do the Michael Jackson dance every once in a while.

I saw the Daytona video. And Mike dropped just a little bit. He said, oh, I'm getting some of that Miami flavor.

Of Celia.

I mean, I'm in control.

He knew how to do that move.

I'm not even in charge when they play Celia.

All right, let's just show the YouTube audience real quick before we go out to the DraftKings Sports gas station, this video unearthed of Sazh dancing.

Oh, wow.

He is pumped for DraftKings game day.

My apologies to the audio audience. I suggest you check out YouTube.

What are you talking about? The audio audience is being delighted right now.

Apparently this type of dancing is called clogging.

Thank you, Chris. Very informative.

It's also what's happening intestinally.

Because you ate what you were calling chicharrón before the show today?

Yeah, I took a big bite of a juicy chicharrón and I got oil all in the inside of my eye, so I'm playing hurt.

Uh, Demashek, have you enjoyed the chicharrón? Are you familiar with the breakfast?

Oh, Dan, I'm wild for chicharrón.

Did you have some of your disgusting clam pizza when you got here?

I flew in. It, you know what, it put a nice exclamation point on an otherwise dreadful journey over here. Thank you for asking, Dan. On the flight, first of all, it started out well enough because I had the whole row to myself. And literally half the flight I'm by myself in the lap of luxury because no one's in my lap.

Did you put your feet up and do the thing?

I didn't do that. That feels obnoxious. But either way, about halfway through the flight, A guy, probably 65, 70-year-old fella, comes over and sits in the aisle seat. This is my row. He didn't ask, he didn't ask, can I sit here? Didn't make eye contact with me like, oh, looks like you got some extra room here, I'm gonna drop down. Just sat down in there like it was his business to do so. Dan, was it irrational of me to be a little bit offended that he claimed to put his tuchus in my row?

Did you muffle your objection or did you tell him, get outta here?

I didn't say anything because I did the quick math like, oh yeah, you have no claim to any of these seats, so it's not your business if he sits there. Nevertheless, I was offended.

We will get to that as a conversation point in a moment, and we'll get to the gas station in a second as well.

Then the pilot came on the— go ahead, do your thing, do your thing.

Thank you, I appreciate it. We have some, I guess, news in that the Titans Titans, a team that should be very happy that anyone wanders out there to talk about it, cover it, or write about it in any way. The Titans have banned the reporter that had this particular exchange here with Cam Ward, which seemed, uh, pretty benign. But, uh, let's play the sound real quick again for the audience of Cam Ward going back and forth with a reporter who has now been banned by the Titans.

How would Cam Ward assess the way Cam Ward has played so far this preseason?

How would you assess it?

Not well.

You don't think so?

I don't think so.

I'm glad you don't think so. That's good.

Cam, how would you, how would you assess it?

You know, I assess it as, you know, did we win the game or did we lose the game? I assess it as what I can get better at. I don't assess it as, um, someone who can get up there and You know, operate when, when everything's on. It's a different process level. So it's more of, you know, slowing down the game to everybody. And I believe we made a huge jump from week 1 to week 2 because we're getting more condensed in the playbook. We're not really opening everything up. And, you know, when we come to week 1, I think it will be a different story.

Can you guys please get the guest bookers on getting me that reporter and seeing if we can talk to that reporter? And can you give me some information on that reporter? I don't know anything about who's asking the question there, but when I say banned, he's He's had his press credential revoked, correct?

Correct, because I don't think he's a reporter, and we probably shouldn't call him that. Now, he might be doing some reporting from camp, but it seems as though he's a YouTuber and is occasionally featured on SiriusXM. He's not with a publication. He is not your conventional, you know, press questioner at these availabilities. And he opined a little bit. It's like you don't hear Skip Bayless types at these press availabilities. So what I would gather is the Titans were like, well, that wasn't the greatest look, and this guy gave his opinion. What's this guy's deal? And someone was like, well, he's not with anybody. And I think that's what got him revoked.

He's got a YouTube channel. His quote was, I'm not a Daily Beat writer, I'm not on local radio anymore. So that was their position, and they are right about that.

So what is the distinction you guys are making on reporter that I'm not sure the audience would make on reporter there? Because there are a couple of interesting things happening there. And again, we will get to this gas station in just a second. The address is 15290 Northwest 7th Avenue. Avenue, 33169. Free gas from 10 to 2, courtesy of our partners at DraftKings as they make it a DraftKings Sports gas station. But I don't—

And also, if you're watching us in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, LA, you're going to have the same opportunity. This is a big-time activation that's going on in this country from DraftKings Sports.

They're giving away a lot of gas. But when I ask about the distinction on reporter, this is the reason I'm asking that question. Okay. I don't know if you guys have been following some of these things. I've got a friend who's He's a retired sportswriter in Los Angeles who is now just in retirement walking dogs. And he saw an ad the other day where USA Today was looking for a beat writer for the NFL, and that job paid less than he makes as a dog walker to cover the NFL. The L.A. Times, a once great sports section, is just going to go on the road now with the Dodgers and the Lakers and some with USC and nobody else because the sports section is dead. And I wonder how much of our future has these teams saying about these reporters, well, why do we need any of these people out here anymore, given the way that we're doing things? Press box, uh, you know, columnists used to get the best seats in the house. There's obviously no reason for that. Wouldn't we head toward a day where whether it's a YouTuber or a newspaper guy or a radio guy or anybody else, if the team's offended by it, if the networks and the streamers are no longer interested in journalism because ESPN isn't interested anymore in journalism and they lead the way on the standard.

then why wouldn't teams do something like this more often? Why wouldn't they just start banning people whose behavior is just objectionable to them?

It has always been, and in fact we've talked to Pablo about this in the last few months as well, is it's the leverage that these teams have as we go further into this direction, which is do it the way we want to, and whether or not This guy, is he Nashville-based at least? I'm assuming it does send a pretty powerful message, and you do see that in the Oval Office as well these days. Ask questions that we like or else you're going to get smacked down.

I do feel for him a little bit in that he asked a fairly benign question, Cam turned it on him, and then he opined in a way that you're not accustomed to hearing a conventional reporter respond because He's a take artist. He does a show. He's not, you know, he's not a traditional newsman.

Dan Le Batard.

Let's throw it to my boy Jeremy Taché, who's sidelined right now. Tash Money, what you got for me?

Jeremy Taché.

Thanks, Jax.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

All right, we will try and get him, see if the guest bookers can find him so that I can talk to him and ask him some questions about what happened here. But let's go out to this DraftKings Sports gas station now. Again, I'm going to keep giving you the address because I'm assuming that most of you would like free gas. So 15290 Northwest 7th Avenue, it's 33169. We're going to have a bit of an Olympics out there between Tony and Zaz and Matthew Coca from Nothing Personal. Let's check in here with Jeremy, who's still for some reason wearing that stupid cowboy hat. Jeremy, what, what can you tell us from out there at the DraftKings Sports gas station?

Hey, y'all.

Well, I did want to tell you that DraftKings Sports is live in all 50 states in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. And Dan, I know we just got to the clogging and we got to the dog walking. I'm glad we got the really heady stuff out of the way first. But I wanted to tell you, DraftKings Sports is giving away free gas. You mentioned it. Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, and right here in Miami. That's between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time. So wherever you are, it's your 10 AM and 2 PM like us right here in the Lord's time zone. Exact gas station locations have been revealed on the DraftKings Sports Instagram. That's DraftKings_Sports. Those are revealed at 9 AM local time for each person. So on top of the free gas, Dan, DraftKings Sports is dropping brand new game day deals throughout the day on the DraftKings Sports app. So what you're going to want to do, of course, is go download the DraftKings Sports app, use the promo code Dan, and you can You can participate in our free-to-play game for the Show Olympics. Dan, you mentioned it. We've got competitions going on and there's a free-to-play game on the DraftKings Sports app that's located in the pools section of the app.

So just search Show Olympics and you'll be able to find it. But Dan, I want to tell you all the details here, right? We're going to be out here all day long. We'll be with you at the top of every hour. And Zaz will be representing the Dan Le Batard Show. will be representing Mystery Crate, and of course Matthew Coker will be representing Nothing Personal with David Sampson. We have got 3 games to play. We will have the tire toss, the windshield wash relay, and up first, Dan, we got the perfect pump. Do you want to play? Do you want to see it? You want to see this competition?

How does it work? Tell us about how it works before we do it. Yes, let's do this. Let's do this right now, and we're gonna do it every hour. We're gonna have some sort of some sort of contest. You look like somebody who's paid poorly as doing some work on a safari.

I am.

You're doing it clean, cleaning stuff up in a safari area.

You look like an unhoused Ghostbuster.

That's right. I felt like Steve Irwin, but I appreciate that you guys have said unhoused Ghostbuster. We've got all of our folks right here.

You look like Steve Irwin out there.

Tony, we're going first.

And this is Woof.

I don't even know what to do with that. Um, I guess Dan's devil rays are, are the winner here. So—

What is that in the background?

You've got— Tony is gonna be up first in the Perfect Pump Challenge. The way this is gonna work is we are going to see amongst our, uh, our 3 competitors here which gets the closest to pumping exactly 1 gallon of gasoline. The closest ultimately wins. Again, you can play On the DraftKings Sports app, we have a free-to-play competition here where you can decide who you think the winner will be and even guess how close they will be to exactly 1 gallon.

So is Tony smoking a cigarette near those gas pumps? Is that what— what does he have? What does he have in his mouth? What is he doing?

It's unlit.

Okay.

Black and Mild, Dan.

Yeah, it's unlit. You're sending a great message.

Looks buzzy.

All right, so ready? Yeah, we're ready to go.

I've got a question though. I do have a question for you, Jeremy, please. Uh, just real quick.

Yes.

Uh, the pump of the— he's got to just stop, right? He's not allowed to like click it slowly toward a gallon. He's just got to stop. Well, he gets one chance at it.

Yes, you get one chance. You pull, you get as close as you can to a gallon, and that's what—

Are you allowed to go over? Are you allowed to go over?

No, no.

Okay, so disqualified if you go over. So if the first 2 people go over, Coca could just put in 1 penny and he wins. It's like Price is Right.

It's just the closest to it.

I will tell him the strategy.

It's just the closest to it.

They just said you can't go over.

I heard—

go ahead.

Let's go, Tony.

I, I really think it's a bad look to have a cigarette, uh, hanging.

It's not great. We know it's not great.

Well, is he going for Cuban mechanic? Is that what he's going for? Like, he's going with the whole sleeveless undershirt. Is that what he's going for?

How do we do here? Wow, Tony went 1.001 gallons.

So loser!

The closest, obviously, thus far.

No, but you said— We're not gonna—

we're not gonna call him a loser. All right, we're not gonna call him a loser, but we gotta see how this goes before we call him a loser. We got a free-to-play. You stop asking questions.

This is how this goes. Just stop asking questions, Dan. There were too many questions. Matthew Koka, you are up next.

He's the closest right now. He's the closest right now.

He's the closest.

He's the closest.

How do I know what I'm supposed to do now?

You're supposed to get as close as you can. You're supposed to get as close as you can.

You were supposed to—

Dan, why do you ruin everything? You were supposed to get as close as you can to 1 gallon. Get as close as you can. Yeah, but do I get close if I get to the 2 gallon? Yes, to the 2 gallon. To the 2 gallon.

So now I'm going under a gallon.

You're going to be under 0.001. Yes, you're going to get as close as you can. You want to be— And we don't pump our own gas. Way to go, Dan.

I asked you what the rules to the game were because I've got audio audience that can't watch on video, and on video we can't see the numbers on the pump.

So I don't think the audio audience cares about your rules.

Oh, Matthew Coker goes 1.005. So Tony is the closest at the moment, 1.001. We are now sitting at 2.006. We will have John Zaslow approach from his cuck chair. Zaslow? He's just been watching everybody pump.

He looks so good.

Yo, it's not a cuck chair, I'm just relaxing. All right, Zas, your mission here is to get to exactly 3.006 from where we stand right now.

Zas worked up a little bit of a lather there sitting in his chair, didn't he? Got back sweats.

Are you ready?

Yeah, we're all ready.

Go for it. We're just gonna learn from Jeremy whether he won or not because Jeremy knows the rules. No one else does.

2.9, and he's way over. 3.070. So Tony's the winner at 1.001. That is as close to exact as possible.

We're using room for error here. Congratulations, Tony.

Tony is first, Kota is second, Zaz is last place, although he does look cool, I'll give him that.

All right, go ahead. You're gonna interview— gonna do the sideline report with the victor who, uh, started by breaking the rules and immediately losing and was called a loser. Go ahead.

Tony, how does it feel to win the first competition?

Uh, like normal.

I mean, to be honest, like, I know I'm gonna probably go 3 for 3 in this competition, so I'm not really worried.

This is just a practice time getting ready for, for what's to come.

And what type of advantage does it give you to get out ahead 1-0?

Uh, I mean, we knew this was gonna happen, right?

Like, we're just on to the next one. Whatever the next one is, we're gonna win. So I'm not really worried about advantages or other advantages.

It's a Black Mild, it's a performance. All right, Tony, go ahead and get your lather on. And folks, before we head out of here, I want you to know that if you are going to come by one of these gas stations, whether you're in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, or right here in Miami, The way that you participate is you arrive at your participating Game Day Fuel location during the promotional period of 10 AM to 2 PM local time with an eligible, eligible passenger vehicle. Wait in line if applicable, and on a first-come, first-served basis, follow all instructions from DraftKings event staff, gas station personnel, traffic control personnel, and law enforcement officers. Just listen to everybody that's here, okay? They're gonna help you out. They've been here for a very long time. Verify your age and eligibility with DraftKings event staff, and then remain in your vehicle at all times. This is the most important thing while you're in the fueling queue and during fueling. You will remain in your car. We got folks to take care of you. Dan, we'll check in with you with the rest of our Show Olympics. I believe next we're going to have the tire toss.

So be sure to head to our free-to-play game to see who you think is going to win.

All right. Thank you, Jeremy. I will say that the best thing about that outside of our partners giving away free gas all over America and in Miami— I'll give you the address again, 15290 Northwest 7th Avenue. until 2 PM today. 33169 is the zip code. The best part about that is between the 3 of them, I could not tell who looked more like they would work at a Miami gas station. The 3 of them— and it's Coca because he's a little too clean, his outfit is a little too crisp. But Zazz and Tony, uh, actually Coca looks like he works at a full-service station, at a place that's been caring about how your gas is pumped for 70 years, still doing it full-service style.

Yeah.

Like, still cares about presentation. It's like 128 years to Yeah, like he looks, he looks exceptional.

And Tony's going to come back with the air filter that you just changed saying you need to change it.

That Tony is in Hialeah. That's right. And he's looking to rip you off. And more, more gas station people in Miami look like Tony, cigarette included.

Dan Le Batard.

I'll go with this one.

Dave Demachek.

It has come time now.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

Oh my God. The guest bookers seem to have gotten already are, are banned and scandalized. Uh, I called him a reporter, but evidently Mike Ryan and Chris Cody are saying the reporter designation is, uh, is not, uh, not applicable here according to the Titans, because they might not have done this if, uh—

He's a pundit, I'd call him.

Okay, but if he were a newspaper reporter, a more traditional reporter instead of a modern reporter, perhaps he does not get banned for this.

him.

Uh, okay, I will. I'll get there. Thank you. I appreciate all you guys' help in trying to help me do the show and play games where I don't know the rules and the audience doesn't know the rules either. You, you during that game.

No, no, the rules were pretty clear. Who's closest to a gallon? And then Dan's like, what if we made this a Price is Right?

Price is Right rules!

Price is Right rules!

Damashek, was that an illegitimate question to ask? Are you allowed to go over?

It was a wrench.

I'm 3 feet away from you, Dan. You're right.

Thank you. So Jared Stillman, you can hear Jared on his daily podcast Stillman and Company on YouTube live weekdays, 3 Eastern, on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. That's Mad Dog Sports Radio, that's a mainstream media outlet, so I don't know what you guys are doing with this. But Jared, thank you for joining us. Uh, uh, can you tell us, uh, first of all, how you got the information that you had been banned?

Yeah, yesterday. So I was doing Mad Dog Sports Radio in the morning. I do weekends on Mad Dog Radio, and then I'll fill in, you know, whenever during the This week, I had gotten done with my shift. I walked upstairs and the PR director of the Titans had texted me and said, hey, can you give me a call when you've got a couple minutes? I said, sure. Now, I figured this was going to be one of those uncomfortable talks. You know, Dan, you've done that forever where the team's unhappy with the coverage and they state their case and you state your case, and it's a way to say that you agree to disagree, but it's kind of like working the refs. I've probably had in my career, and I've been doing this for 14 years, probably 20 or 30 calls like that over the years with all the different teams of somebody's unhappy with the coverage. Well, okay, let's talk about it. And so when I picked up the phone, the PR director for the Titans was like, hey, I really hate to do this, but, um, you know, I think from this point forward, we've decided that, uh, you no longer qualify as media, as a YouTuber and as a live streamer.

You no longer qualify as credentialed media for practices and press conferences. Again, I hate to do this, but that's just the decision that we've made. And I was like, okay. And I said, you do know that I just did 3 hours of SiriusXM radio, right? And they said, yeah, but you don't need access into our building to do 3 hours of SiriusXM radio or to do whatever SiriusXM shows you got. I said, okay. And I let them say their piece, and there is kind of a moving goalpost depending on which argument they want to take, whether it was this wasn't about one incident, but it's about the totality of the coverage. Then they're telling other people that, well, we wanted to prune down the amount of non-traditional media that we invite in. And so there's a bunch of different reasons. And the reality, Dan, I think you've done this long enough to know, they didn't like the coverage and they found a loophole, so they decided to exercise it.

How long is the ban for?

Oh, I think this is in perpetuity. See, what's funny is that I I did local radio in Nashville for 10 years and then took my show, kind of like you did, took my show independently, digitally, onto the, uh, you know, onto YouTube and everywhere else. And I don't feel like I'm any more or less critical of the football team than I was when I was on the radio for those 10 years. The difference is, is that they have stunk the last 2 years, winning 3 games each of the last 2 seasons. I'm not a believer in the quarterback they drafted number and sold us on as the next Patrick Mahomes in unretired Warren Moon's jersey 4. I'm not a believer, and I've hammered that away. So I think this is in perpetuity, but I like to go to OTA practices and training camp practices more than I like to go to individual press conferences, or— 'cause that I can see. I can't see any practice during the season, and I can watch the games on TV. But as of right now, I think this is in perpetuity.

And you can't go to the games either, right? Like, you, you used to go to the games 'cause you were a fan.

No, I never covered the— I never covered the— I mean, I did occasionally, but no, I was more of a practice press conference. If I felt like I had criticized somebody, I would go to the press conference just to give them an opportunity so that nobody would ever say, well, you won't come and face the noise. So I felt like I always did that to be around enough. I would consider it more of like a columnist. appearance than it would be, say, like a Daily Beat guy, which I never claimed to be and never wanted to be.

Do you consider yourself a reporter?

No, I have broken some stories. I do, you know, peddle it, you know, hear things behind the scenes and then try to get it confirmed and then talk, you know. But no, I would not consider myself a beat reporter. I would not consider myself a— I would not consider myself a journalist in the sense of what journalism used to be. but where journalism is heading, where that mix of punditry and analysis and talk show host, and that's what I would consider myself.

Is the assumption then, have you talked to your peers in Nashville and are they ultimately going to be chilled by this? Are you the sacrificial lamb for all Titans media then?

Well, I'm just going to read to you what the headline in the newspaper, the columnist wrote yesterday because I think the headline probably tells you how the local media feels. Gentry Estes at the Tennessean wrote, Rejoice, Titans fans, your team has found the problem. It's Jared Stillman. I think that this is— you know, I don't know if the Titans really get talked about a lot around the country, but when they do, it's probably in a more mocking fashion. I think for the local media that covers the team, this is a sign of, okay, they found a reason to ban this guy who is consistently negative or who constantly questions if what we're saying is the truth, because on several occasions the Titans have been caught lying. And so is this guy— like, they found a loophole to get him, are they gonna come after us? I think is probably a sentiment that the media shares.

Is there going to be any sort of movement behind you on this? Because usually these things can get reversed there's enough of a clamor around it. Do you feel like anyone is activating the local journalists on your behalf?

I think there is a little bit of talk about that, but I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not sure I necessarily care that much. I mean, the biggest reason that I would go to the press conference is because everybody would say to me— you know, this is where I get too caught up into what they say on social media— but people would say, would you say that to their face? And it's like, yeah, Yes. Yes. I mean, I used to get into it with Vrabel when he— Mike Vrabel, when he was the coach, all the time. And I like Vrabel. I don't think Vrabel likes me, but I like Vrabel. But if I think that you're, you know, trying to push some bullcrap, like, I'm gonna call it out. Or, you know, again, there's no way to know unless you hook somebody up to a polygraph whether or not they're telling the truth. But I am, you know, I, I can be very cynical, and so this has been how I've kind of always been, but now I don't have to worry about the, you wouldn't say that to their face, because I'm not allowed to go.

So I'm not— I can do this job, the punditry job, without showing up there every day. So now this is something that I just have decided, if they want to be that way, they can be that way, and I'm just going to continue to have the same opinions that I've had, and I'm going to call it how I see it. Dan, I liken myself to an umpire. in the opinion space. I just call balls and strikes, and I know I'm gonna hear it from the dugout. And so I know, hey, this guy— and sometimes he might have to get run and there might be some confrontations, but the next day when first pitch is thrown, it's back to balls and strikes.

Dan, I was gonna say we should clamor for this guy, but he said he doesn't give a shit.

Yeah, Dan, this reporter has been wronged.

Reporter?

I'm not a reporter and I don't give a fuck.

Uh, put it on the poll please, @Le Batard Show. Is being banned from Titans stuff a punishment of any kind at Le Batard?

Punches.

Punishment or reward? You don't feel like you did anything wrong there, right? Zaslav was on yesterday and he was saying, I thought correctly, that usually in that setting, the reporter doesn't give his opinion. The reporter would say back to Cam some version of, no one's interested in my opinion on this, Cam. I'm asking you because I want to know your opinion on how you think you have played. That's obviously not how you handled that.

No. See, I think Cam sucks, and I have said that I think Cam sucks. I think Cam is going to be a bust. I think Cam had talent, but they've already ruined him, and then what they're trying to do now is going to keep ruining him. So I think Cam stinks. Cam stunk in the preseason, and Cam for the most part stunk last year. And I've said that, and I am unapologetic in my belief that Cam Ward should not have been the first overall pick in the And so if I go to that press conference and I ask Cam, how would you assess how you played? And Cam says, how would you assess it? And I say, well, I'm not here for my opinion, I'm asking you. Then everybody would have said, oh, so you get on there and you talk all that shit, and now when you're here you won't push back and you won't— so when he asked me, how would you assess it? Not what I would do. Well, because it wasn't good. Pro Football Focus at that point in time— I don't know what it is now, but at that point in time, Cam Ward was the 102nd-ranked passer out of 104 quarterbacks who played in the preseason.

That's bad. And so I don't feel the need to apologize. It's just I'm asking you a question anticipating that you'll answer it. You can answer it however you want. So then when he turns and asks me a question— I answered it.

Best guess here, uh, you were banned because of what happened here, or it was the last drop in a bucket? You were banned because this is the last thing that happened with you. You've been giving, uh, objectionable opinions for a long time, and they just took this as the opportunity to be done with you.

Oh man, I've pissed the Titans off so many times over the last decade. I mean, I've had so many phone calls. It's gotten to the point now where on almost a yearly basis I would have a conversation where the Titans would tell me, no, no, no, you don't understand, Jared. This next guy, he is going to lead us to the promised land. And then they would fire him, and then the next year I'd have the same conversation about the next guy that they would pick. So yeah, I, I think it was, you know, when they say it was the totality of my coverage, I think it is that I have been, you know, they've been awful for 5 years. years. Awful. And I feel like because I've said it, because I didn't just embrace the quarterback they drafted number 1 overall, because I put pressure on them to be accountable and I put pressure on them to win at the rate that they always promised that they're going to, that they finally had just had enough and just said, okay, well, we can use this YouTube loophole to get this guy out of here, so let's just get him out of here.

Last question, true or false, uh, your Are you happy that you're banned and are getting this publicity 'cause now you don't have to go and cover this shit anymore?

Well, I'm not happy about it. I do like attention, but I don't like when the attention is about me and controversial. So I like hosting a show where people are like, did you see what Jared said? Or, you know, Jared had this really strong take and, you know, this was, or, you know, like when I get something right, I like that. What I don't like is I don't like, I like going into controversy. I don't like being the controversy. So, I mean, yeah, am I getting attention from it? Sure. But am I happy about that? It makes me a little uncomfortable. And it makes me uncomfortable that if this team starts off poorly, which I think they might, that this will then come back on Cam. That this will look like Cam got the guy banned because he couldn't handle a tough question that went viral. Now they're 0-2. Cam can't handle the pressure, and I don't think that that narrative, if it happens, would be fair.

You can hear Jared on his daily podcast Stillman and Company on YouTube, also SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. Jared, I appreciate you, uh, making yourself available. Thank you, sir.

All right, thank you, Dan.

Do you think, Dan, that it's out of bounds to do what he did in that setting?

I'm not sure how I would have handled all of that because he makes such I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you make some good points, but I am not exactly confrontational and I'm not interested in embarrassing athletes. So saying that someone sucks is not something you've heard a lot from me in 20-plus years doing this of like any kind. These are professional athletes. They're at the top of the food chain and they are very good at what they do and what they do is very hard. And so I've thought about how I would handle that situation if it got turned back on me because I wouldn't have handled it the way way that— I wouldn't have thought quickly enough to handle it the way that Zaz said he would have handled it, which is to say, no one's here for my opinion on this, I'm asking you. But I am interested in the line between reporter and opinion giver, between mainstream media and YouTuber, and how all of this is gonna change in the future. And I believe that within 10 years, this is gonna be more and more common where if media people don't like how you're covering their team, they're not going to keep giving you free access to their team.

He didn't shy away from being a provocateur, right? And that's what his aim is. He accomplished that. And I do kind of— I'm down with him saying like, my audience will hold me accountable. If he turns it right on me, given all the shit that I've talked about Cam Ward, I gotta— I have a responsibility to the audience and the reputation that I've built for myself, even though it put him in a really tough spot. I do kind of fuck with that.

I understand that as an explanation, but I believe that that is kind of a turn where it is that sports radio— you know, the sports radioification of journalism makes commentators be harsher to the athletes in a way that's changed all of the ways that television and newspapers cover the athletes. Because if the search for clicks is what you have to do, the only way to do it is to be an agitator and is someone— and to be someone who brings this kind of attention on yourself.

It is a different day and age, and the Titans are in that spot where they have to balance conventional media with provocateurs online that kind of have a semi-regular cadence, but you don't really know where they're coming from. Like, imagine asking Edwin Pope after 1 year on a terrible team with a coaching staff in flux, hey, what do you think of Cam Ward? And Edwin Pope turns to you and says, he sucks. It's not something that you hear.

I just don't get to be the one, and we don't get to be the ones who decide on this. The power gets to decide over time.

Well, except that the big winner in this episode, Jared Stillman.