This hour of The Dan Le Batard Show covers a range of sports and media topics. The hosts discuss Michael Wilbon's decision to step away from Pardon the Interruption for health reasons and how rare long-running daily TV partnerships are.
They debate retirement at 65 and play Is This Journalism, judging a press conference question about Bill Belichick's personal life. Andrew Hawkins joins for the football edition of You Know About That, where he argues the Ravens would struggle without their star quarterback and that the Cowboys underachieve.
The conversation closes with debate over quarterback injuries and whether NFL rules and player size are to blame.
In this episode Dan Le Batard, Andrew Hawkins
This Dan Le Batard Show episode on Michael Wilbon and NFL quarterback injuries was transcribed with the same technology behind HappyScribe's AI notetaker.
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Synced: the text now follows the audio.
A season of chasing: one Sunday to become a champion. This Sunday, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship returns to homestead Miami Speedway, where Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and their fellow contenders look to finish the season on top. The pressure, the rivalries, the trophy they all want—it all comes down to South Florida for a finale you won't want to miss. After a season of battles, the sport's best have one final chance to leave their mark. Who will rise to the moment, and who will leave Miami with a trophy?
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You have heard me talk before about some special relationships in entertainment that people have with the product that they're consuming in sports. And pardon the interruption, is one of those products where you get very used to the familiar intimacy of the rhythms that you're used to, so that when I used to do pardon the interruption, I'm walking in and we're assembling an assortment of different devices so that people know that I know that they don't want me there, that they want Michael Wilbon, or they want Toni Kornhäuser, and anything less than that isn't going to be what the audience wants.
I don't believe that most people listening to this understand what goes into doing a daily show for 25 years, but Michael Wilbon yesterday decided to step away for his health from pardon the interruption, and he is such a maniacal worker that you must know that he must feel really bad when in 2008, I remember he had a partial heart attack and was at work a few days later because what he does is he works, so he must feel really bad in order to step away from that show.
But how many shows do you guys think ever, history of you watching things, goes for 25 years with the same people? Because we've been talking around here for a while, the people who make it look easy, wherever it is, television, sports, those fields are too competitive for them to actually have it be easy. It's not easy. They make it look that way, but they make it look that way because of the amount of effort and work that they're putting into what it is that they're doing. Seinfeld was not the number one show for as long as it was because they weren't working 100-hour weeks to make it look like that.
Are we including the nightly news shows?
I guess it's a little bit different, although not that different, because the sports machine does provide every day and every week so that the people doing the work, the news is carrying a lot of the lift. But I wasn't thinking of daily news shows. But even those don't have anchors very often that have been in place for 25 years. It's really unusual, I would say, for two people to be on your television together as an item for 25 years.
Iced tea on SVU.
Oh, good answer.
That's good.
How did you guys receive the news yesterday that Wilbon was stepping away for a little bit?
The part that was most interesting to me about it was other people's reaction, where apparently, like you said, this has been an issue for a while and he's refused to deal with it. I saw people who were happy that he was doing this, that he was stepping away. That's the part that was most interesting to me.
Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I mean, it's to your point, when you're in this business, you hear about the legend that is Michael Wilbon and the way he works and the way him and Toni have built what they've built with pardon the interruption. So for him to step away, for me, it was like, wow, this must be serious.
So give me not just sports television, because I haven't thought about this before right now. Give me history of television. Two people working together for 25 years. Because even the Good Morning Americas, they have turnover every 10 years.
The news game.
There's Kelly Rippen football America. You lose somebody to death, or you lose somebody to retirement. Just there aren't very many relationships that I can think of that are daily on my television for a quarter century.
I know it's fiction, but pardon the interrup excuse me, Always Sunny has that where you've got the gang who's been together for 21 years? As far as a sitcom is concerned, I don't know a sitcom that's been running longer than that with the same initial core.
Ironically, Aikman and Bucc have been together 25 years.
And Ernie Johnson was on with us yesterday, and he was saying that he just knew it was time after 37 years. But even that show has had an assortment of turnover. Has Shaq even been there 10 years yet? Has it been 10 years for Shaq?
14?
Has it been 14 years?
Holy crap.
That sounds right. Yeah. That's crazy.
14 years.
Well, no, it couldn't have been 14 years. He was still in the NBA. He was in the NBA 14 years ago. So maybe just short of that.
Yeah. 14. That can't be right.
Pat Sajak and Vanna White.
That's a good one.
Bert and Ernie. Bert and Ernie.
Howard Stern show.
They're still putting it together.
Robin.
Robin and Howard Stern have been doing it for a while.
Do you think if we sat here do you think if we sat here for a while, we'd be able to come up with history of television, 10 tandems, 10 pairings that have been on television together daily for 25 years? Because Always Sunny is a daily lift, but they only have a program once a week.
Seasonal.
That they're making, and it's also seasonal. I also don't think that many people sort of understand just how much ESPN demands of days where you're not getting a lot of days off if you're doing what they're doing. It's going to be 225, 250 days of daily television that you're making. And while it might not seem a lot to you guys who are hearing it and saying, "What's the big deal? It's just a half hour of television," there is a reason that there aren't many of these that exist.
But also like these duos on SportsCenter or ESPN, like Dan Patrick and Keith Ullmann, they weren't working together for that long. Were they working together for a couple of years? Wasn't that long?
Oh, but I remember when I met Bohmani and we didn't know each other at all. He's like, "Yeah, we're not going to really be able to be friends." Nature of television. Just the nature of ego and television.
Why would he say that?
I mean, he understood television. It's just not a it's just a normal thing in television.
I'd want to be friends with the person I'm working next to every day, though.
There's a lot of temptation, ego involved. There are a lot of dangers involved. There's a reason that Toni and Mike are a special kind of marriage, because it just isn't you have to be Toni and Mike call each other 14 times on a football Sunday. They're calling each other all the time, saying, "Did you see this? Did you see that?" Because if they weren't.
Because Toni doesn't text.
That's correct. That's part of it. Yeah, it's probably landlines. And we've made the joke at Kornhäuser's expense for a while that the moment that he retires, he's just going to wander over to a corner of his house and talk to a plant about his sports opinions until the plant dies. That he's going to need to give somebody his sports opinions. I was on a text string with Wilbon and Kornhäuser where Wilbon was saying that the heir apparent to him is Frank Isola, that if Toni Kornhäuser were to ever retire, that Frank Isola is the guy that he would want to work with.
And so I started insulting Wilbon, saying, "What about me? What's the matter with you?" And the most absurd part of that hypothetical was Toni retiring. There's no chance of that happening. They will keep doing PTI 10 years after his death. They will just cover him in a balm.
It would have to be a scandal.
In a balming fluid, and they will just play a soundboard with his sayings on it because Kornhäuser's never leaving that show. But it did hurt me for Wilbon to know that he was stepping away for a while because it must be something that he's taking very seriously if he's stepping away, because he loves to work. But those guys are now old. Wilbon's the young one, and he's approaching 70. And I don't know how all of that ends, right?
Because they just signed an extension, and I don't know what the graceful way is for both of those guys to tap out and say, "Look, we had a good year." I got to think that 25 years is the last of their milestones, right? You think they're going to go to 30? Can you imagine?
I think they could go to 30.
They can go to 30. I like 30.
I don't imagine that there will be a lot more milestones.
My original thought was like, "Ah, está viejito." That was my honest-to-God thought. Like, "Oh, man, he's getting older."
Mine too.
Me too. Because when you look at it, man, I grew up watching you guys on PTI 25 years ago, right? And now I'm looking at it like, "Oh, man, Wilbon's got to step away because he's been pressured. Hey, you're not doing as well health-wise. Let's focus on that." It's the moment of, "Oh, man."
Well, let me put this in context for you. My father has worked all of his life, right? And he was really enjoying, okay? At 57 years old, he loses his job, loses his identity, comes to work, and they've just thrown all his stuff in a garbage can. And he's looking around and being like, "I'm the worker. I work. What do you mean I don't have anything to do?" So my father and I do a television show, and it's a magical sort of eight-year run. And at the end of it, my father, who is younger at the time than Kornhäuser is now, says, "I can't do this anymore.
I'm not coming into work daily anymore. This is not how I'm going to spend these years of my life." 65 is retirement age, and Wilbon is past 65 years old now. And I don't know why do you guys have any idea why 65 is the retirement age? Do we know? Anybody got any?
The beginning of the end? Days of our lives is a soap opera.
I think that we I think if we were to do things differently than how it is that we have been indoctrinated, most people would say, "I don't really want to be working in a job that I don't love until I'm 65 years old, and now I don't have any of my youth to enjoy the rest of my life." I think people retire at 65 because the man in the corporate structure makes it so that you're a sausage inside the machine that is going to get ground up, and the machine needs you until you're useless at 65.
Yeah, unfortunately, people don't actually get to do that anymore because the economy's even worse than it was when we installed the Social Security Act of 1935, with FDR as our president, when we actually made a shift away from rampant lack of regulation and threw some regulation in there and actually helped everything for this country like we should do on this election day.
Holy crap. I just got a text. It's election day.
What?
It's the wild.
The holidays should be about the people you love, not mandatory work parties where I pretend to care about someone's kitchen renovation. Now's the time for those unexpected holiday side quests and enjoying a great-tasting light beer. Last year, mine was my cousin's garage, a Miller Lite, and a four-hour debate over the best Christmas movie. Dan would make it a segment, then argue the other side on purpose. Best night of the season. Tis Miller time! In that garage, I felt great. I took a sip, I looked around, and thought, "Yeah, this was the right call."
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One Sunday to become a champion. This Sunday, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship returns to homestead Miami Speedway, where Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and their fellow contenders look to finish the season on top. The pressure, the rivalries, the trophy they all want. It all comes down to South Florida for a finale you won't want to miss. After a season of battles, the sports best have one final chance to leave their mark. Who will rise to the moment and who will leave Miami with a trophy? Want to add to the action?
Check out DraftKings for race winner bets, head-to-head matchups, and more. Get your crew together and settle in for the season finale. Watch the NASCAR Cup Series Championship at homestead Miami this Sunday at 3:00 PM Eastern on NBC. One race to go, everything to race for.
Dan Le Batard.
I got a Slater scoop.
Chris Curty.
He does.
This is the Dan Le Batard Show.
Let's do is this journalism. Do we have a good topic for our wonderful little game show of is this journalism? Because I know you guys wanted to play it yesterday with Jim Harbaugh, but that's not what we're going to do right now. I don't know if you have heard or read anything about the Bill Belichick relationship that nobody's been talking about for a while. Things have gotten quieter there. Do you know anything in the way of updates on this?
The last update I got was the last time I was doing this show, which was, I think, at this point, years ago.
Hit it, Roy. It's time to play is this journalism.
I prepped back here, and I was like, "Guys, follow me." You guys just left me out there to hang right there.
We did it. You did a great job.
I mean, that was let's play is this journalism.
Is this journalism.
This is piss poor by you guys. Zaz, take it over.
All right, Dan. So Bill Belichick, he's the head coach of North Carolina football. And at his press conference yesterday, because there is word now from TMZ that Bill and Jordan are no longer a couple. So Bill Belichick, at his press conference yesterday, was asked about the current state of the relationship.
Good morning. There was some national reporting over the weekend about the relationship status with Jordan Hudson. I wondered if you had any comment on that and what it might mean in the world.
Do you work for a tabloid now?
Unfortunately, we all do nowadays.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll keep my personal comments and relationships to myself. That's all right with you.
All right, journalist asking a personal question.
I like it. That's why UNC played so well last week. He's back coaching football, guys.
Would you say is that journalism?
Yes, that's journalism. In today's day and age, I got to know that. There's implications on the field with whether or not you and Jordan are still together. That's incredible journalism.
Incredible journalism?
Incredible journalism. He's asking the tough questions that you wouldn't work your balls off enough to ask, Dan.
I wouldn't? I wouldn't have been asking that question. You just said, "Uh-oh," though. Why did you say, "Uh-oh," in the middle of that?
I don't know. It's a good question.
Just something you feel like it felt right.
It felt right. It's like when I go, "Mm."
Belichick made this relationship material, did he not? He made this material for all of us.
Pablo kind of did. Pablo made it. And how does Pablo feel about destroying true love? That's the question I'd like to ask Pablo. Where's Pablo Otori? You destroyed true love. You went over to Maine or Nantucket or wherever it was where you got the ring camera, and you decided to walk into the Airbnb and be the funny guy. Put up a ring, and then look into the ring camera like, "Oh, look, I'm here at the same place." That was Pablo's fault. Completely destroyed a relationship. How do you feel about that, Pablo? Look at this. Pablo recreated that video.
Oh, my favorite audio.
For what? Just a couple of claps?
Oh, just lay out. Listen.
Couple hands. That's good audio.
Here come the birds. There they are.
Do you guys realize that we played that for a couple of months saying, "Hey, that looks a lot like Bill Belichick?" No, it couldn't be Bill Belichick. Our is this journalist.
I knew that barrel chest.
Our is this journalism was talking about that for months, wondering how that guy looked so much like Bill Belichick without actually being Bill Belichick, because it couldn't possibly be Bill Belichick, right?
Man, remember that first time we saw Pablo in there?
Oh, what a time.
Ruined a relationship. Hope he's happy.
Pablo Otori was doing a lot of reporting around that, and Bill Simmons said that that wasn't journalism when I believe that a legendary coach having a relationship with a woman who is 50 years younger than him, who was also controlling some of the details about his coaching life in a way that none of us had ever seen a coach never mind this coach had never seen a coach. I believe this does qualify as journalism, though not what Hawk said where incredible journalism.
It meets the lowest possible standard of where journalism resides today and barely climbs over it. That had to be a hard question to ask Bill Belichick in that setting, although not as hard as it was for Bill Belichick to get the question in that setting.
I love when you set it up with like, "I'm only asking this because it was widely reported nationwide."
Yeah.
He's so afraid to ask it.
He couldn't quite go all the way in, which then would have for sure made it incredible journalism. I don't know if it was better journalism than the answer Bill Belichick had. That was incredibly witty and quick.
It wasn't witty or quick. What's the matter? What's your standard for witty and quick?
I think it's witty to say.
What's your standard for a tabloid? What is your standard for witty and quick to make?
Because you're in a room, and clearly you're asking an uncomfortable question that we're typically if I make you uncomfortable, you get more uncomfortable to double down and go say embarrass you to say, "What are you working for? A tabloid now?" to diminish your role as a journalist. I feel like that was a pretty quick-witted answer.
It's a nice, quick, efficient answer, unlike Jim Harbaugh, if he were put in that scenario, he would go, "Keep working."
Yeah, we got to. It was.
You know what's on straight up. Now who's embarrassed?
Now who's embarrassed?
That's the question. Who's embarrassed now? That's like classic lunchroom, immediately quick. Let me put it back on you. Jim Harbaugh's still answering.
You have personally lowered all of our standards for clever and quick.
It was good.
By making that clever and quick. Pablo, is that the second relationship he ruined? Because Larsa Pippen and Marcus Jordan was another relationship.
That was first ever.
I think that that was the first relationship that Pablo ruined.
Hates love. Does he get credit for ruining the relationship between the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard?
Yeah, that's third.
Third relationship. Yeah, that's three relationships that he could have ruined.
Malik Beasley and Freedom.
Ennis Kanter? Also quick-witted. Shout out to Tim Daytoni.
Thank you.
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Dan Le Batard.
Yo, I'm not going to lie.
Jonathan Sassolo.
I look good, ain't I?
This is the Dan Le Batard Show.
Let's play Zazlo's game that I'm not a huge fan of, but Zaz.
Oh, you're nuts, Dan. Come on, hit it, Roy. It's time for another edition of You Know About That? You may be down on You Know About That basketball, but this is You Know About That football.
Totally different. Totally.
And with Andrew Hawkins here with us, it's time for the debut edition of You Know About That football. You ready, Andrew? Ready? Ready? Here we go.
I'm ready.
Brandon Iuk, who I mean has flown off the reservation, he has hired Drew Rosenhouse as his new agent to get back into the NFL. You know about that getting back into the NFL?
No, I don't know about that getting back into the NFL because once I left, I never came back. I don't think they wanted me back, but you know my last catch went for minus 14 yards? I know in the Ed Reed and the Troy Palamallo of it all, that gets lost, but my last NFL reception was minus 14 yards.
What happened?
It's RG3's fault.
What happened?
That has to be the record for last catch being negative.
It's not great. It's a record nonetheless, though, so we should absolutely acknowledge that.
I think Chris is right. My gap. Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show.
Worst career ending catch.
Has anyone other than Andrew Hawkins ended their career in football with a negative 14-yard catch? I'm trying.
Take a look. Not going out on top.
I'm trying to imagine. Explain to me the play.
So like.
Wait, wait, wait. Before we get to his explanation, what do you guys think happened on that? Tell me what.
Wait a minute.
Tell me what happened on that. Did he end up running in circles and then backwards and try to go the other way?
Because sometimes a guy can get tackled.
Pretty literally.
Five yards back, but his forward motion, it stopped, so they mark it like you made the decision to run 14 yards back.
It was one of those well, first off, I don't like how we want to double down into this. When I talk about catching the rock on Troy Palamallo or Ed Reed or Charles Woodson, we all just continued the conversation. The moment I drop a minus 15-yard catch is my last one. Now we're going to end the show with it.
Well, no.
But I'll submit. I'll give you what you want.
We're not going to end the show with it because we've got 17 minutes left.
Okay.
But give me time because I'm Roy, turn that music off and find, please, what it is that I asked you to find so that I can play it real quick for Andrew Hawkins and find out if perhaps on this play that ended his career because this is a shocking thing to admit.
Do you know about that over?
No, we'll get back to it in a second. I just want to use it and make it even more resplendent and more fulfilling by making fun of Hawk with it. I don't think I have heard of a negative 14-yard catch before.
Yeah, because you didn't play in the NFL, Dan. We can't all get out there and strap them up and go for minus 14 yards.
But my last catch in the NFL didn't lose 14 yards. My last catch in the NFL lost zero yards because I didn't have a last catch in the NFL. But I'm going to play some sound that makes me imagine what this play was for a minute.
Myra straight back to pass. Looking. Now stops throws. Completes it to Kilmer up at the 30-yard line. Kilmer driving for the first down. Loses the football. It's picked up by Jim Marshall, who's running the wrong way. Marshall is running the wrong way. And he's running it into the end zone the wrong way. Thinks he's scored a touchdown. He has scored a safety.
Is that what happened to you?
Put a dismount there.
Not quite. But I mean, here's what's going to sound really crazy. It was such a hard fought negative 14 yards. You talk about NFL effort. So the situation, it's the fourth quarter. We're playing in Pittsburgh. And actually, if you listen to Football America, they have this video, I believe, on Dave Damicek's Twitter page. But what happens is we're on the three-yard line. This is for like the go-ahead winning touchdown. It's an RPO. If you look at the video, it so clearly should be handed off.
RG3 instead throws me a bubble pass. Who's blocking for me? Well, another quarterback in Terrell Prior, who had a great year that year, but he didn't block on this play. And so I catch the ball, and I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to score. This is my hometown team, Dan. This is how I'm going out on top, baby." It's what dreams are made of for the little 5'7" guy out of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. I catch the rock. Immediate defenders. I spin one off. Now I'm like five yards behind a line of scrimmage. I'm like, "I'm going to reverse field." I start going that way.
More defenders. Nope, got to go back the other way. Well, only way to continue to go back is to retreat. And so I get grabbed, flung around. It would have been fine as a minus 7-yard catch to end my career. I have too much balance. He flings me, and I land on my feet another five yards back. So now I'm at 14 yards. They grab me, suplex me, and that's how we both lost the game. And also, I lost my will to continue to play professional football.
All right, back to You Know About That. Hawk, you know about Monday's press conference for the Green Bay Packers, Matt Lafleur, in response to the new allegations, the old but new allegations against running back Josh Jacobs.
Did we get any Iuk thoughts? This is why I don't like this game.
He said he didn't know about that. He didn't know about it. He didn't know about getting back to the NFL.
Yeah, you didn't know.
The answer was you didn't know.
Or you don't know.
He didn't know.
I just told you what I didn't know about. That's it.
Matt Lafleur said they're going to allow the NFL to do its due process and would anticipate Jacobs being a member of the team moving forward. You know about Matt Lafleur not caring about these allegations?
I don't know about that.
Wait a minute. That's you just sitting it out because you're a coward.
I don't know about him not caring.
You're spinning.
Now wait. You just said.
We're going to have to coach you up on how this segment works, buddy.
Yeah. We don't ask you questions. You don't want the truth too.
You know how bad this segment was when people did know about that? Now you're just asking him for stuff.
Usually, a meme just says yes. I got another one. It flows way better.
All right.
I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better.
But we can't discuss Iuk and Jacobs better than that.
Sometimes it's the person who asks the questions. If I can't get good answers, that's on the person asking the questions.
I'm saying yes no matter what. Let's go.
All right, let me try again. Let me try again.
Okay.
Hawk, you know about Lamar Jackson being done in Baltimore?
This is really hard to say no one, but I'm going to say yes just so we can continue the game.
If that's what you believe.
Is there a follow-up, or do I have to tell you what I know about that?
I'm asking if you know about that. Do you know that?
Yes, I know about that.
All right.
I know about that.
So now expound.
Okay, if the Baltimore Ravens part ways with Lamar Jackson, this franchise will never be the same. They're done.
All right.
Their championship caliber franchise is gone.
Write down a note for next time. Don't play. You know about that with Hawk. I got one more. I got one more.
Well, wait.
I thought that was good.
Hold on. Let's stay here for just a second because yesterday.
Oh, I didn't know about that.
Let's talk about this for a second because you have a very extreme opinion. You're saying that the Ravens, if they lose Lamar Jackson, are going to crater as a franchise.
I do.
To never be good again. That seems absolute in a way that has very little nuance in it.
Yeah, never. Maybe not like in an infinity and beyond kind of way, but I do believe that if you part ways with the level of talent Lamar is, regardless of the recent injury history, I feel like it will set the franchise back into a place that we have not seen, the Baltimore Ravens franchise, since their inception.
Well, they won't have a quarterback, and they've gotten to a Super Bowl. They've won a Super Bowl without having a quarterback, and they've won another Super Bowl with a quarterback that we spent years arguing about whether he was elite or not because he's Sam Darnold-ish. But let's entertain what it is that Hawk is saying there for a second. Yesterday on the show, I was not agreeing with the framing of the show, saying that Baltimore had the decision to make as it regarded Lamar Jackson's career.
I'm like, you guys aren't paying attention to how Lamar Jackson negotiated that contract and what he got in that contract. Lamar Jackson's going to have the choices at the end of this season.
All the cards are with him. So there's not really a positive for the Baltimore Ravens franchise.
And so what do you think is going to happen there? As Zazlo was wondering yesterday whether Lamar Jackson had played his final game as a Raven.
The only way would be if Lamar got to choose his destination and in turn, also negotiate his new version of whatever contract he wants with said franchise he wants to go to. But even within that, there's no way, in my opinion, that the Ravens, if next year Lamar is not their quarterback, they're going to get the due compensation for the level of talent Lamar is because Lamar holds all the cards. And this would be them just trying to take that on the chin. And I don't think they'll jump back from that, not only in the play of Lamar and who he is as a quarterback, but also the way it sets him back from the way the contract is written.
That's how you play the game.
Damn.
See, if you would have said that after he said what he said, we'd be good.
He needs reps. We got to teach him.
I never even heard of it. We played five new games that I've never heard of in my life.
Finally here, Hawk. You know about Jerry Jones on Dallas Radio saying he likes the current direction of his team? You know about that?
What do I say here, Dan? Help me out here.
Yes and.
Yes, yes. And I think that is ridiculous. The Cowboys are done. You like what you see? You like the direction of this team? They just lost to the Arizona Cardinals. They talked about the Cardinals potentially losing every single game this football season. Had they played better than that? Absolutely. But the Cowboys are supposed to be a Super Bowl contender. All those moves they made in the offseason, and this is the defense you put out there? Dak Prescott is at the twilight of his career. You have two number one receivers that you lucked into.
You shouldn't have a George Pickens in a CD lamb. But yet you do, and even still, you underachieve. What the hell is your problem, Jerry Jones?
That's how you play the game.
That's how it's done.
That's how it's done. Quick learner.
That's what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm talking about.
You play the game. Yes. The Dallas Cowboys aren't the biggest disappointment in the league, but only because the Chargers exist. Otherwise, they would have to be the biggest disappointment in the league. And I don't know what you do if you are them. I've seen that people are wondering whether they're going to trade Pickens because they've got to do something. That defense is clearly not good enough to be talked about as a contender. They cannot win anything with that defense, which just made Arizona install Minshuh Magic as its quarterback.
How bad is your situation in terms of what your future is when you're choosing between Jacobi Brissett and Gardner Minshuh, and you're believing in the Minshuh Magic yet again?
But at least they're playing to be bad at this point. If you look at the Ravens, who weren't necessarily planning on that, they just signed Kadan Slovis to compete with Joe Fagnano and Austin Reed. They worked out Adrian Martinez, the guy who was at Nebraska for 15 years.
You know I have to root for a Martinez. Any Martinez or Gonzalez or Lopez that is playing college football or pro football.
Garcia.
Yeah, I've got to root for all of them. I've been talking about this, Hawk, and I don't know whether it matters, right? I really don't. We are watching the tattered remains of, for example, the Philadelphia Eagles. You got Baltimore on its third-string quarterback. Atlanta has had to play its third-string quarterback this year. We're not even halfway through the season, and the position that is the most important in football and maybe sports has a problem that half of the guys can't play it well, and the other half are going to get hurt.
What are you going to do when you already are halfway through a season, and the team that we're talking about as being the best, Chicago, has lost starting time of Caleb Williams? The only reason Chicago has those two losses is because Caleb Williams has gotten hurt.
I think that's okay. Is that bad? Is that a bad thing that guys are getting hurt in a game that is violent and physical? They tell us coming in, there's a 100% injury rate. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. And honestly, the quarterbacks, as much as we want to change the rules, as much as the game is played differently now, and as much as the TV contracts and the viewership point to it, we got to make the quarterback the main point of every single show. He has to be the star. They're not immune to that statistic.
Well, but this is why I would say that it is bad, okay? There are very few teams in the NFL you know to be good. And the ones that you think are good, Trevor Lawrence always plays. Josh Allen always plays. You're talking about Baltimore becoming immediately irrelevant because the two-time MVP is no longer available to them, and neither's Hundley. It's not even just that Lamar Jackson's not available to them. That's a list of slop. That's the worst quarterback room there is in the league when you're trying out those guys.
Kadan Slovis?
Because you can't replace the MVP of the league.
Yeah. So what do you think the cause of that is? In your opinion, quarterbacks are getting hurt, star quarterbacks aren't in the lineup. It's obviously making the Ravens and the Eagles and these teams with star quarterbacks not in the lineup less favorable to watch. Why do you think that is?
It's a combination of we've got a number of athletic 350-pounders running around out there. So quarterbacks are, even as you change the rules, they're dealing with athletes that are about 100 pounds bigger than the ones that you dealt with 30 and 40 years ago. And there are weight classes in sports for a reason in the combat sports. The reason there are weight classes throughout combat sports is because someone your size is not allowed in an octagon with somebody who's 100 pounds heavier than you.
But in this, there are weight limits in football throughout all of coming up till college. Until you get to college, there are weight limits among kids, I guess high school too. But yeah, the reason there are weight limits is because it's not fair to have people who are 100 pounds heavier than other people play violent sports against other people. Where else do you have it?
I don't think that's a bad thing, Dan. I'm obviously biased because I'm always the smallest guy on the field, but yet I come away with 20 tackles.
Okay, but you say that it's not you don't think it's a bad thing, but clearly, LeBron is on his podcast saying, "Yeah, injuries are a problem in our league. We can't keep anyone healthy. The Pacers have six healthy players, and the way basketball is being played right now." I believe that you don't like that Zaz was mentioning that Siakam makes $50 million, but I believe all the players the Pacers had out yesterday make about $200 million, and the players they played make $15 million.
That ain't good. If you care about Pacers basketball, that's not good. If you care about the Ravens, you have no reason to watch the second half of this season. Whatever it is you thought this season was going to be, it ain't going to be that. There's no reason to watch the Eagles the second half of the season. You thought they were going to be good. There's no reason to watch the Ravens the second half of the season. You thought they were going to be good. You have more bad teams in the league. You have more teams in the league you know are bad than teams you know are good. Yes or no?
Yes, but also on the flip side, the Jaguars are one of the best teams in the NFL. The Chicago Bears are one of the best teams in the NFL. The Seahawks didn't look great last night. The Rams, who we thought were going 17 and 0, aren't there. And I think that's how seasons unfold. From an injury perspective, I think if I was going to point to something that is probably more cause than just the game being big guys against little guys, it's that the quarterback makes so much money that you're like, "Okay, hey, I have to think about the future of the franchise and all this." But also, there's less money to go around to everyone else for whether it's weapons, whether it is offensive line.
And I just think as a whole, the skill has in some ways diminished in exchange for more games, in exchange for less time in an offseason, in exchange for all these things that typically would keep a guy healthy or keep a guy with a better chance of being healthy because no one's going to get out of this without injuries. It's impossible. You don't get out of the game without it. It's a part of it. It's what you sign up for.
Speaking of the Jags, I got a side of the day.
Start of the day, start of the day. This is the start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day. This is the start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day. This is the start of the day.
According to Daniel Griffis, Trevor Lawrence has been pulled early in eight of the Jaguars' last 15 games. Here's how much time was remaining in each game that he was pulled out of. Fourth quarter, eight minutes against the Chargers. Fourth quarter, six minutes against the Titans. Fourth quarter, seven minutes against the Colts. Fourth quarter, 13:51 against the Jets. Fourth quarter, 13:17 against the Titans. Third quarter, two minutes and 31 seconds left versus the Browns. Fourth quarter, eight minutes versus the Patriots. And this past week, third quarter against the Colts.
They're ransacking teams. They are more physical than most of the teams they're playing against, but they too are suffering from injuries. I don't know whether anyone cares listening to this, that the Jags have lost a left tackle for the season or a defensive tackle for the season. But whatever my appraisal is of the Jags right now doesn't matter eight weeks from now when you've got more than half a season left and a whole bunch of other guys are going to end up getting hurt. I think the more interesting conversation than the number of quarterbacks getting hurt is how is it that Josh Allen never does playing the way he does, looking for contact in your secondary?
How is that possible that the Bills have I was mentioning the Bears and the Jags are the most balanced best teams in the NFL, and the Bills are just a quarterback. They're terrible defense. That defense cannot win a championship, but they've got a magical quarterback who never gets hurt, who's impervious to injury.
I wish there was a stat to show that, not just in a hindsight kind of way. And we'll get there, but there are guys who are just more durable than other guys. It's just a fact of the matter.
Well, it helps when your quarterback is hit on the blind side by an untouched blitzer, hits his back, and just bounces off of him while the cornerback is rubbing his own body in pain.
It's hard. It's good.
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"Dan, what do I say here?"
We're lowering the standard for Journalism during this hour, and Zaslow plays a game with Hawk that, let's be real, probably should've been rehearsed.
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