Transcript of The Infamous NFL Double-Crossing | Hour 3

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

You're listening to the Dan Le Batard Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports app, now live in over Folks, listen up. Win a trip for 2 to Miami to hang out with the Dan Le Batard Show.

Enter the Weekend Observations Picks Contest presented by Miller Lite by October 26th for your chance to win. Must be 21 or older.

Visit draftgangs.com for details. If you are not following what's happening in the WNBA and specifically in Atlanta, okay, because Atlanta as a sports market has had a whole lot of failure. And if you've been following our show for a while and know that Renee Montgomery is somebody who we care about around here and who has gone into ownership with the Atlanta Dream, and I have very minimal, but some understanding of how hard it had to be for her to be a Black lesbian woman who is coming up through sports and trying to get into ownership and power while fighting some of the—

Issues.

the civil rights stuff in Atlanta that was being fought when our country was and is fighting all around her. I cannot tell you how happy I am that Renee Montgomery and the Atlanta Dream are enjoying and suffering from the growing pains of our stadium scheduling makes it so we don't know if we're going to play in a 3,000-seat arena or a 17,000-seat arena. Our, our league is still young enough that we have scheduling issues when we important games against the NFL or the start of the NBA season that makes it so the story gets dwarfed that Atlanta acquired a genuine superstar in Angel Reese, who is more physical than just about anybody in the sport. And she was available cheap because Chicago doesn't know how to run its franchise and gives up a bunch of players it shouldn't give up. And now the Atlanta Dream are on the precipice of something that is a giant sports moment from a team and organization that is a symbol for strength in this country. When you think about what happened in Georgia and stuff, this is about to be, or can be, one of the great successes in Atlanta sports history.

And it is only some about sports. It is an unbelievable story that Atlanta is this close to the championship because they got a superstar player who's more physical than everyone else because another organization didn't know how to harness her strength.

They acquired her for very little this past offseason. And yes, Chicago is apparently a lousy organization in the WNBA, but I do wonder how that came about. Like, did Renee Montgomery— is she just in her office one day and decides, let me call Chicago and see if they want to trade me Angel Reese, you know? And they do. I just, I wonder how that came about.

Let's call her. I know she's very busy. Let's find out how some of that came about, because I also thought, because this is a smart person And she is surrounded by smart people. I thought that they checkmated Enos Kanter Freedom with all of his gimmickry by just saying, hey, you can be in a suite with a lot of protection. He doesn't want to be in a suite with a lot of protection. He wants to be in front of the cameras and pretend like he's being kept out of the stadium because he's doing this fake freedom fighting. And so they said, well, no, we offered him a suite and he didn't want to be in a suite. He wants to be in front of the cameras agitating. He wants to be closer to the court and the cameras. And I just thought that they checkmated him. And he's like, he's doing a big show of, they're not allowing me in. Well, no, they gave you the— you got a suite. Like, they were— you, you got a really sweet deal. You don't want that. They surrounded you with security because you said you were so afraid of what might happen to you.

And no, you just want to be near the cameras and you want to do nonsense and you want to bring attention to yourself while— I'm going to say it again because of how rare it is. While these women are trying to win a championship and they don't know which stadium they're going to play in. And the nights that they're playing, it's getting dwarfed by the men's sports because of the scheduling conflicts that there are with SOMBER, that there are with— they can't find a place to play because they still have to fight for their championship wherever it is that they can find the spaces to fight for it because the league is still growing. And in this case, they've just outgrown physically some things that they have a fan base that's too big right now. Keep in mind, Atlanta loves sports. loves sports and has had precious little winning. When they get close to a Super Bowl, Eugene Robinson, the man of the year, is caught in the street right out here trying to find a sex worker for $50, and they lose the Super Bowl. This is—

You got to be the only person invoking Eugene Robinson right now during the WNBA.

They're 2 games from one of the great moments in Atlanta sports history. The Atlanta Braves have underachieved with one of the great pitching staffs of all time.

You think Atlanta's reputation is that they love sports?

Put it on the poll.

Does Atlanta love sports? I know every market has its sports fans, but Atlanta is much maligned for the type of sports town it is.

No, Atlanta has been betrayed by a whole lot of losing and has been beaten down by a whole lot of losing. This— look, Mike, they can go from a 3,000-seat arena to a 17,000-seat arena because this is what you need to create a fan base that sticks. We weren't talking about the Panthers. We weren't awed by any Bill Zitos the last 30 years. Like, you need the feel-good in order to get the stickiness that creates a fan base that will stay with you through through some loyalty. This has the chance to be one of the all-time Atlanta sports stories. They have not had very many. Atlanta as a sports town has been losers because their teams have betrayed them. The Falcons have almost never been relevant, and the one year they were, they were up 28-3 in the Super Bowl. It's an all-time gag job.

Whatever. I don't like hearing boys talk about the WNBA. Leave it to the experts.

Well, I heard we now have this Bo Camper sound that made—

Oh yeah, we have it.

Made Chris Cody aghast.

Is it all it's cracked up to be?

Jeremy heard it and he doesn't have eyebrows anymore.

I can't believe this.

Okay, so just let's, let's paint this picture here real quick because Chris Cody is driving into work and he still listens to AM radio. And the way that he prepares for the show is by listening to the Joe Rose Show. Joe Rose has been on in this market for, I'm going to say, 7,000 years. He was the tight end for the Dolphins in 1981. He caught Dan Marino's very first pass. And this—

The first touchdown pass.

First touchdown pass.

Mm.

That is Joe Rose.

It's good.

And he is talking to—

Yeah.

A player who played before Joe Rose. Okay. Kim Bo Kamper is from a different time. He is a human being who is very strong. There are very few instances in my life where I have hit an athlete in the chest and had him knock down my hands with his logs for forearms and just uncommonly strong. And Chris Cody has decided that his form of entertainment in the year 2026 of our Lord is to listen to the Joe Rose Show and have Joe Rose ask Kim Boakamp questions about the WNBA. Now, this is a recipe for disaster in a number of different ways. This is what Kim Boakamp had to say this morning that left Chris Cody driving to work with his mouth wide open on WQAM. I'm interested to see what this girl's saying about the NBA too. I mean, it's always like that information. Comes down from that. You are—

you don't like Monica McNutt?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is old school Kim Bocamper in here this morning, and, uh, not ready for this stuff. You're not a McNutt guy? Uh, no, no, no, no, no.

You prefer the name?

I prefer— I don't know what her name is. I don't care who it is. If I see long hair that's not on a man, and I don't want to hear what they're talking about— talk about the WNBA, but don't talk about the NBA. I'm gonna tell you, boy, Paul, you're stuck in the past. Oh man, I'm just—

look, I'm, I'm fired up for the start the NBA season, man.

I'm looking at all the shows, I'm looking at the bald girls. You know what, I gotta just tell you, you're lucky your 2 daughters weren't like big basketball players. They'd be calling your ass right now. Dad, what the hell are you talking about, man? What happened?

See, Joe Rose is like the Jeremy of that show.

Yeah, that didn't feel like Jeremy to me.

Uh, that, that felt like, uh, Joe I mean, grading on a curve, it was, it was, it was in perspective. The Jeremy of the show.

I mean, he was laughing at it, you know, enjoying it, but also—

A little chuckle fest. He was also aghast.

Was he?

That's crazy, right? I just, I just feel really bad for Bo Camper because he already had to close a couple of those restaurants and now Chris just put the nail in the coffin.

Coffin corner.

Death box. Can we just play the sound again of Zaslav trying to talk and the strangest sound I've ever heard emerge from one of us, and it's being said by someone who sounds like a truffle pig and often doesn't notice it. Give me the context for that sound, please.

Crazy sound. Like, I, I knew it when it came out of my mouth. It's a crazy sound. How did—

can you recreate that sound?

No, no. There's no way you can do that on command, right? Give me the context for that sound.

I'm so happy he's not on Guttural Noise Island anymore.

Butler walked—

The pop is nuts. Was it your lips?

I, I made a bubble.

Butler walked.

That's crazy. I think I'm proud of it.

I believe that that's the sound that makes when someone's hamstring pops. Not that sound, just the one where you hear the pop. Is it possible that that's the sound of a vocal cord popping?

I was making a good point too.

Were you? Yeah.

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What's up guys, it's Amin, and you know me, I love me some movies. And I'm really excited about this new movie coming out called The Mosquito Bowl. It's the incredible true story of 4 college football stars who walked away from NFL careers after Pearl Harbor to go enlist in the Marines From Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis comes a story of brotherhood and sacrifice. 4 men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield. The Mosquito Bowl, in theaters October 30th. Dan Le Batard.

I don't think it's strange for me, but like— Mike Ryan.

Oh, boy.

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

What is the latest, uh, Aikman and Buck news? Because I've got a whole bunch of people texting me. They love this, uh, this gossip.

So there were reports yesterday with more details of what took place before the Monday night game last week, where we had learned they got into a, a huge argument and then had to go on air. And apparently it got so bad that some people around the situation thought that they were going to come to blows. that they were going to actually fight. And Troy Aikman yelling at Joe Buck, you know, it's ultimate betrayal. Joe Buck—

That's the quote?

Uh, yeah, I mean—

The quote is ultimate betrayal?

Oh, maybe someone else said— maybe someone else quoted saying what he did to Aikman was the ultimate betrayal. That, that may be it. I apologize. But Joe Buck was like, are we really gonna do this? And they had to be separated. And man, like, I'll tell you, I don't think it's crazy what I asked last week When I asked, is it— is there a world where they don't finish the season together? I don't think it's crazy, Dan. We're only in Week 7.

Yeah, but they are being paid a great deal to get to the Super Bowl, and then Aikman is a free agent. You want to make logic— logical decisions here about your career, not emotional ones. Like, you, you don't think that he can eat 3 uncomfortable months, 4 uncomfortable months?

They almost got into a fight last week.

Okay, but that becoming public takes some of the steam out of it. Like, my guess is that all of that is something that they're going to do much more quietly. It doesn't— that doesn't need to keep escalating from here. Whatever it is that was bothering Troy Aikman, he's gotten off of his chest. Uh, that— a fight would not have gone well for Joe Buck with Troy Aikman, especially if Troy Aikman is also rabid. Like, it's not, it's not just that Troy Aikman is, you know, unbelievably physically fit at his age, like loves to take his shirt off and show you that he's still got a six-pack in his 60s, but also is somebody who appears to be really mad about money. And when you say ultimate betrayal, where's some of the reporting coming from on this? Because the fight over money at ESPN has just sort of become— it's just sort of begun.

Also, we should note To throw some more context on this, right before the show started, CBS announced J.J. Watt has won that job, a multi-year agreement to be the lead analyst at CBS. So if we're playing a game of musical chairs where Troy Aikman goes, one chair just got taken away.

Has J.J. Watt been good enough for you to get that particular shortcut or does it not matter?

Fine. I don't know. Maybe it takes time for a voice to feel like it's attached to a big game, but some people that just comes very naturally and you don't hold that against them. I think he's still working through it. They obviously seem impressed enough with the job that he's done. It just seems like every other game, right? Like, I don't think of JJ where like, oh, this is a great call, or he said something that was so profound. It's like, that's kind of like that droning where I'm just watching it on the red zone. It's like, okay, JJ's got— he's there, but whatever. It's got to be tough to work out the chemistry and be in the situation that he's put in.

This year, I'm reading from the New York Post, which aggregated the story from—

The story originally started with Dylan Byers of Puck News. He says this has got some details in it that the soap opera people are going to like because it reports that Aikman felt double-crossed.

Uh, yeah.

That they cut this deal in May and put it in a drawer. ESPN didn't tell him. Joe didn't tell him. CAA didn't tell him. And, uh, and so ahead of the game at SoFi Stadium, Buck finally snapped after weeks of Troy becoming increasingly cold, difficult, short, making comments. And then he basically said, dude, are we really going to do this? And Troy's position was, you bleeped me over, according to a source who told Puck and Dylan Byers of what happened here.

I feel like that's a fair read on it in terms of what happened. Now, you may feel like ESPN and everybody was well within their right to do this, but if you're a tandem and one person signs without the other one, that's, that's one of those—

Unwritten rules. Oh, no.

Yeah. And that too.

Like, there's a lot of unwritten rules here that are being broken.

No, Mike, though, the second part is worse than the first. The second part is worse than the first.

And the first part is pretty bad.

Yes, but the additional reporting of everyone knew but Aikman.

Yep, yep, that, that part is worse. It's all bad.

The betrayal though, that wherever hurt feelings are on 25 years, I think it's more there than the other. I would say that Troy Aikman, even understanding the business of this as Athletes often do more than others. Troy Aikman doesn't get mad if Joe Buck tells him, hey, I gotta do this. He gets a kind of mad. It ain't fistfight mad. Him feeling like everyone knew except him? No, man, that's what leads to 2 guys fighting, because it's those, those are details that advance the story somehow.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not simply one guy signed. It's that the deal was in June, that it's, it's months and months ago that all of this was agreed to, and Troy Aikman didn't know. And now he's out of a job, and now you can start speculating. Well, if Joe Buck wanted to break up with Troy Aikman and never have Troy Aikman find out about it, this is how you do it. He would hope for this to forever remain secret it and, and not have this part known because it allows Troy Aikman to be the victim here. Troy— Joe Buck can't be seen as the victim here. He got his and is going to get whatever partner he wants.

Yeah, there's no way he's a victim in this. The only way he's a victim is if like Troy Aikman clocked him.

That's correct.

Yeah, I know. This is— this one's pretty easy to read. I don't think we need all the details to kind of read read Troy's reaction to it and, and see where he feels betrayed.

It is interesting because, you know, their final broadcast together is going to be the Super Bowl. And in radio, when you have partners and one of them is moving on, or even if both of them are moving on, they don't normally let you do the final show. They don't allow you to. They take you off before that final show. And here They're scheduled to have a final show at the Super Bowl.

Yeah, that's— it's interesting that you say that because that is the rule. But also, you can't— you can't do that. But I do think it probably increases the odds a little bit of what Zaslow is saying in that, you know, we can't rule out that they don't finish the season with one another. It's just really awkward.

I don't think that we can rule it out, but I actually think— because you've heard me say some form of this for years— the broadcasters don't matter that much. They're interchangeable. They're disposable. You can watch the game, and you're gonna watch football games, especially if it's the only one that night.

I think people are gonna watch the Super Bowl.

No matter who's broadcasting that. That's not what I was going to say. You promised yesterday you were gonna interrupt me less. The thing that has the possibility of, you know, happening in the rest of the season is that you actually have a reason to tune in. just to hear if you can decipher where's the cold, where's the ice. Show me if there are places where they're not liking each other. There's actually a reason to tune in just for the broadcasters, and that's never so.

Put it on the poll. Are people going to watch the Super Bowl?

Yeah, that's a good one. So we've been playing guttural noises. By the way, maybe we were looking at the wrong Manning because people are suggesting that Eli might be in the Monday Night Football mix. So that, that's interesting. We've been having fun with the arch, the We've been having fun with the noises that have come out of that studio. We've played them a ton today. There was a noise that happened yesterday at a rally stop from the president of the United States that I think you all should hear.

90% of the reason I took the governor— Is that a burp?

I don't know what that was.

Did he like do like almost throwing up gag at himself?

There was a little pause. Do you have the whole thing to see how he tried to like get back on the horse afterwards? Even he, who, he doesn't really get rattled all that much while he's publicly speaking. He's proven that he can just power through just about anything. It took him a second here.

90% of the reason I took the governor— I took the governor, I put her over at the United Nations.

He was like, what was that?

Who said that?

Who did that?

The brief moment of self-awareness. Do what now?

Do what now?

Where's the gearhead hat, Mike? Go get the gearhead hat. Give us an update from the gearhead world. I got to get to the Grim Reaper, get in here right now. Get in here, Grim Reaper. No, we can do them both at the same time. Let's do them both at the same time.

Well, no, let's not. It's a sponsored segment. Which are we— which are we doing?

Gearhead.

All right, guys, the chase is winding down. The format's different. Before, they would eliminate some drivers as the chase went on. Now all 16 drivers have a shot at it, and it looked like Kyle Larson was going to be running away with this. thing. However, Kyle Larson wrecks out, and guess what's on the horizon, folks? Talladega. It's the last drifting course of the season, and you know what happens at Talladega? Anything can happen at Talladega. We, we can see dramatic impacts to this chase. You have guys like Tyler Reddick. Tyler Reddick just won a race finally again. He's been running better. Chase Briscoe's been running incredibly. Denny Hamlin's still in the mix but kind of drifting, and I was hoping this was going to be a magical season for him, Kyle Larson's control and death grip on this title has now eased some, and you head into one of the more random races of the season. I will be positively dialed because this is one of the best races of the year. And, um, we're running out of time here, folks. Homestead is right around the corner. Gearhead is presented by NASCAR.

Yeah.

Big track, bigger stakes. The chase heats up at Talladega. Watch the NASCAR Cup Series this Sunday, 2 PM Eastern on NBC.

You pay for the seat, but you only need the edge of it. Uh, why is it that that hat is in the shape that it is in? Uh, how are you feeling about—

Because there's only 2 races left, Dan. Oh, also an interesting thing happening to this sport. Uh, first NASCAR driver that was ever revealed to have CTE. The science is now coming to this. We all know the perils of that, but you know how they say with the offensive linemen, it's not the big knockout, uh, jacked up hits that get you all the time. It's usually the repeated constant hits. You ever watch a NASCAR driver in that car and you see their neck rattle, even with all the things that are protecting them right there? There are interesting things to be said about this. Denny Hamlin's weighed in on it. So more science to come there.

That is a tease. Some more science to come.

Check it out on Where's Pablo. On the edge of my seat.

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Der Blick auf großartige Unternehmen zeigt: Wachstum basiert auf Vertrauen.

Vanta hilft Unternehmen dabei, vom ersten Tag an Vertrauen aufzubauen und unter Beweis zu stellen.

Die marktführende KI-gestützte Trust-Plattform verbindet Compliance, Risikomanagement und Vertrauen. Sie hält euch dauerhaft compliant und amortisiert sich bereits nach nur 3 Monaten. Über 16.000 Unternehmen wie Lovable, Harvey und Clay vertrauen Vanta.

Jetzt mehr erfahren unter vanta.com. Dan Levitar.

The Packers win or the Bears lose.

Jenna D'Anzisolo.

Shit, do you wanna know how that— what were the kids doing? This is the Dan Levitar Show.

Let's cue the bucket music. All right.

I got the Raiders. Live dog against the Rams. Rams, that game can be compelling. Live dog.

I'm not keeping—

I like the Chiefs in that game. Oh wait, no, the Chiefs.

No, the Rams.

Yeah, I like the Rams. Woof. What a day from you. It's okay.

Jags. Oh, bye.

Perfect.

Good job.

The Rams, uh, by the way, are a 4.5-point favorite on the road at the Raiders.

This is karma for me.

Yeah, I've gotten 3 straight buys after I got the golden helmet and just forgot. So I like this.

It's true.

It's kind of crazy. Big day for you.

Why did you keep picking after you got the golden helmet? I'm an idiot.

He got the golden helmet and then the next week— I'm never gonna remind anyone they have the golden helmet. You gotta remember that. I got the Eagles.

Well, you're gonna want to put that back.

No, I would assume. Who do they play?

Um, the Philadelphia Eagles are Monday night.

Yeah, we're gonna put them back.

Barkley's gonna be back.

They're at home and they're a 4.5-point dog.

Oh, Big Apple.

So any New York team pick at your leisure. You can take basketball, you can take anything that you want, anything in New York.

Be careful here, Mike, because last week you had the pick of the litter on the service members and you picked the Coast Guard against MIT and they got annihilated. MIT, those nerds.

Took out the Coast Guard?

Crushed the Coast—

42-21, Dan. They doubled their score.

Mike, what did you do? Weren't they a big favorite?

They crushed MIT the season before. I'm really worried about the Coast Guard. Year over year, yeah, not good. I have the golden helmet of life, so I'll see you guys later.

That's true. Did you pick it?

No, we had it last week. Oh, okay, you took it from me. We had auto death swap. Zaz got auto death swapped.

I'm gonna Jane.

The underdog.

So you pick any underdog and that is your team for the week. We'll come I'm gonna throw it back.

That's, that's— I don't want to do that. Got the underdog.

Nice.

You got the same one.

Okay, great.

Awesome.

All right, you pick one and you tell us what it is. Roy, go ahead. Uh, and again, I should say the byes are Buffalo, Jacksonville Chargers, and Washington.

I had the, uh, oh, I had the New York Giants.

Okay.

I had the New York Giants. Giants.

Uh, so the Giants of JJ McCarthy are playing against—

Biggest underdog of the week.

Okay.

10.5 at the Texans.

Texans, 10.5. Okay.

Um, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

That's a stinky pick as well. Uh, the Tampa Bay Bucs. Why am I not seeing them on this?

Carolina Panthers.

Okay. Yes, they are on the road, 3.5-point dog.

I have a question.

Actually, I'm the commissioner.

I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take the Chiefs Chiefs, even though David already has the Chiefs. I don't think you can do that. First off, you're not the— Absolutely, yes I am, and I'm doing what I want.

I can take any underdog. That hasn't been taken.

The Bengals are a smaller underdog at Baltimore.

Yeah, I don't trust that if Lamar comes back.

I'm scared of that line. I've got the Raiders. They're a 4.5-point home dog against the Rams.

I'm gonna put that back. I'm gonna end up taking the Jets for my big All right.

I've got the Bengals.

They are at Baltimore. They're a 1.5-point underdog.

I think we see Snoop Huntley this game too. I don't think Lamar's ready.

I lose every week anyway.

Whatever.

So I—

yeah, that's true.

The Browns at Tennessee.

Cam Ward, 2 on the trot. Oh my God. So the Browns— 202 yards.

Pay me to watch that game.

So, okay, this is the problem I have. So the Browns are a 1.5-point favorite on the road.

Titans can't win 2 in a row.

Okay, but I don't want to have any interest in this game. What an awful game. You know what, I'm gonna throw it back on General Principle.

Just because you don't want to watch it?

I don't want to have to care about that game.

You don't want to watch Spiroditis?

Oh no.

Uh-oh, is that who I think it is?

Oh no.

Hey Dan, Dan, not a terrible helmet.

I like him this week.

They got a shot.

They got a shot.

Do you trust this guy?

I think they're live dog.

That's, that's head-to-head with Mike.

Oh no.

The Miami Dolphins have not had a lead this year.

They're due.

It's a live dog.

They're coming off of a bye.

Well-rested.

Woof. I want to get to some sound here that I have not gotten to. We've played an assortment of questionable sounds today. We've played an assortment of bad sounds today. I want to get to this story involving Robert Saleh and— because there are 2 sounds I want to play here before we get out of this hour. One of them is— I don't know that I've ever seen I've never seen a rookie after his first game go after a star the way that Jaxel Lundborg has gone after Luka Dončić. It's just— I've never heard— I don't think a rookie ever put his name on the sound that we're about to play. But Robert Saleh, for those of you who do not know this, this story, this story is not covered enough. Okay. because people don't care about the Titans, and people don't think enough about how emotions in the violence business can get so crazy that the Titans have an incident in which they have a defensive tackle named Jordan Elliott who is so rabid and angry that he does something. Like, let's talk about how this story escalated. He does something that Robert Saleh initially says, We Uh, let Jordan Elliott go.

He's got some personal stuff going on. That's the first thing that they say to us when they're discussing this story. They're filing it under personal stuff. And then the details start to come out. And he went to his car to go get his gun. Personal stuff is how they hid it at the beginning, because part of a coach's job is to conceal and hide some of this stuff. Then Robert Saleh, after some of this comes out, the Titans— this is under Cam Ward's future, and this very bad team is, uh, is coached by Robert Saleh. And Robert Saleh has to handle, I'm gonna say, a controversy that's not that common. I've only heard of this happening one other time in my entire career in football, where a guy's going out to his car to get the gun, and then you have to wave him. But what do you make of this sound from the Titans coach as he's got a press availability And he's trying to talk about something here, and he doesn't want you to know anything. And the way that he's handling this is curious.

This is a man who's a father. He's never committed a crime in his entire life, and he pulled a gun, uh, in the parking lot. And the first question that I think everyone forgets to ask is, why would a great man, a great father, a man who shows up on time every day, works his ass off every day, contributes the way he's supposed to contribute, And to me, those are small signs of a cry for help in terms of obviously there's something greater happening. And I thought the team and the NFL did an outstanding job with regards to pausing and asking those questions and checking every single box with regards to getting him the help that he needs. In the last year, the NFL has lost 2 outstanding young men to taking their own lives because they may have had help, they may have been crying for help, and everyone ignored it. I think it's important to note that you're not alone in this. And I'm not saying that's where he was. I'm not going to speak on that. But these kids go through a lot. And I will stand on the table for Jordan's character.

Unfortunately, rules are rules with regards to guns on property. And sometimes it's far greater than the knee-jerk reaction of kicking somebody and kicking somebody when they're down. My message to 31 other teams would be if you need a hell of a run-stopping D tackle that can help you on a playoff run, give me a call. I'll tell you everything you need to know about Jordan. He's a good man, uh, had a terrible lapse in judgment that I recognize as a call for help more than a, uh, than a criminal act. It's unfortunate the way it went down, but as, as far as Jordan's concerned, and I think people see it differently here than, than the knee-jerk reaction of the world.

I'm, I'm really confused with what he's doing there. Like, I saw, I saw a lot of Robert Saleh, this is a great leader, this is, uh, you know, what you do for one of your players. Why don't you just keep him then? He's a good character guy.

Rules are rules.

Okay, but hey, we have rules, but hey, if you want him, I'll tell you how great he is. Like, why are you not recommending him to someone else?

Real quick here, because I don't know how any of this escalated to this point, but when Robert Saleh is volunteering to you that people have taken their own life, is he suggesting for a moment that this isn't about an escalation where he wanted that gun for someone else? He wanted the gun for himself. And so the reaction to it is—

He didn't— he clarified later on. He said, like, I'm not saying that's what happened here. Um, so I also found it interesting that he weighed in on the 2 most recent incidences and said they were asking for help and they didn't get it, which, if I'm the NFL, I'd be like, what are you doing there? I do think that Rob Saleh should be commended for answering the question and trying to give a thoughtful answer. Was it perfect?

No.

I mean, it— like, but it's better than what most coaches have done in the past when this stuff pops up, and I do think that that's admirable, and I do think that is leadership. You can question some aspects of it, but that's about as thoughtful a head coach immediately after one of those incidents as we've ever heard.

You're right about all that. I just— I find it odd where it's like, this is not behavior we find acceptable, but maybe you find it acceptable, and I'll tell you how great he is. That's strange to me.

That's the MO for the NFL. Like, there's people that do terrible things all the time And that's ridiculous.

Well, but, but let's, let's examine a handful of things here, okay? Because none of us are our worst act, and in this particular case, what many of us know about this person is now only this. Like, you may know that he played defensive tackle for the Titans, and now you know, uh, at the very least, unstable. But Robert Saleh has more information here than we do, and he's telling you that this feels to him entirely out of character, and he's telling you that he thinks this person is otherwise sane save for some details here that we don't have that he does have about everything that happened here. And so when he makes the leap from there to cry for help, I'm left to wonder about the conversation we had 10 years ago with Stan Van Gundy about— I don't understand how in our sport when a guy has an Yeah. He has a ankle injury. We send him in for all sorts of therapy, but he keeps taking the basketball and kicking it into the stands and getting into fights with teammates, and we don't know how to handle the therapy of that. We don't know how to work with the mental side of what's wrong there that makes this person behave in a way that has no context for anything any of us have ever seen in this sport, which is someone's going out to his car to get a gun because of something that happened.

happened at practice. And so just like I was telling you guys the other day about, uh, where it is that Chris Finch said that Julius Randle was moody and LaMelo Ball is fun, I'm telling you that 1 out of 5 people in the world can be diagnosed as some form of depressed. If that's the case for society at large, it stands to reason that this is probably something that happens at about the same rate in sports. And yet you do not know it. You, you cannot sit here and say, go ahead and give me 1 out of 5 players that you think are depressed or troubled or, or mentally ill or anything else. When a guy goes out to his car and gets a gun and the coach's response is to actually care about the human being and saying, look, I've got to waive him because he went out to his car and got a gun, and if anyone thinks that I'm someone who tolerates the guy going out to his car and getting a gun, I've got a much bigger problem than the one I presently have. No matter how good this person is, he's got to go.

But to then vouch him and tell other teams like, don't fear the guy who goes out to the car to get his gun, it's an out-of-character act. What ends up happening with his explanation is it makes me ask more questions than I even had previously before any of this started, and he tried to file it under personal stuff. Like, I've now got more questions about what escalated that— anything that was happening there. What was he thinking? Is this how rage works, or are there more details here that we cannot treat with mental therapy or anything else?

You having more questions is why most teams point to a statement and that's that. And I think Rob Saleh tried to accomplish something and I admire the effort.

Yeah, but you also don't have as many details. Like, you admire the effort until I give you some of the details that perhaps make this more uncomfortable. The original starting point on this was personal stuff and now it's a coach vouching for somebody, but we don't have the details that he has.

I think I have enough to know that you can't— like, you have a workplace, you have other people. You have to understand that other people would not be comfortable With, with that.

That's the part that I'm confused about. So you can have a gun on the Titans facility—

We're out of time!

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