Transcript of Zaslow Hates Gus Johnson | Hour 2

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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 all Do you guys want to guess who was the Chargers quarterback the last time they started 0-6?

I was gonna guess Stan Humphries.

I would say it was Jim Harbaugh.

Dan Fouts?

It was Jim Harbaugh. It was not Dan Fouts. I mean, what kind of guess is that?

Philip Rivers.

Why would I— why would I give that and that's the answer? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Funny name.

A number of people have been sending us Luke Windsor. He is somebody who discovered, pointed out, and then illustrated that Obama and Kevin Harlan sound somewhat alike. I did not think that those 2 people sounded alike before hearing from Luke Windsor. You know, sometimes I do wonder, am I Barack Obama or am I Kevin Harlan? Live from the United Center here in Chicago where the Minnesota Timberwolves are taking on the Chicago Bulls, which of course I know all about Chicago. Did you guys think that Indiana-Ohio State was made better by Gus Johnson just screaming throughout it?

No.

Sees a sideline throw over the middle.

No.

You don't like Gus Johnson?

No.

Really? I don't like Gus, man.

No. I mean, calls field goals good when they're not good, calls touchdowns touchdowns when he's out of bounds.

Calls everything over the middle.

Everything is screaming. No, Gus Johnson's not good.

He makes everything better.

No.

You hit a corner 3 and he'll say, from the corner of Stockton Way and Carl Malone Drive!

Haha!

From downtown Hialeah!

You hate Gus Johnson?

Oh wait, who said hate?

Like, why did you do that?

Because of the disgust on— the disgust. I think you did use it.

He just said it!

He said hate. Yeah. Run with it. I don't enjoy hearing him do a game. No. Oh, so you hate him?

No!

I didn't say that I hate him. All right, Dan.

He hates him from now on.

That's what we're running with.

No, he's— no, it's, it's just, it's just screaming. It's just screaming every play. It's all it is. And by the way, I'm right.

Excitement, man. The guy's excited. All right. He wants to share his joy and his enthusiasm with you. You, you, you lowlife who's sitting there and want to be angry as you're watching games.

No, that's the whole point. I don't want to be angry while I'm watching the game.

You're getting, you're getting angry at Gus Johnson? You're getting angry at Gus Johnson? I didn't think it was possible to be angry around a Gus Johnson broadcast. I didn't think it was possible.

Okay. No one's angry and I don't hate anyone.

You're belligerent right now.

You have disgust on your face. You do.

Stop yelling at me.

Because he has a joie de vivre.

I want to get to something that happened after the BYU-Notre Dame game in a second, but I need some clarifications from the group here on is Greg Cody appearing on our show this week?

Why wouldn't he?

Is he boycotting the show because he's mad at me? And I was surprised at how mad at me he was. And I don't know what you guys know here.

I know what I saw on the program, and you guys are hooking it up and laughing, and I'm like, this guy is upset, and you're not doing it any better. Then you bring David Sampson in with his fake legal advice, then you bring in Sampson— I mean, uh, Zazz doing this fake judge thing, and everyone's piling on old Greg Cody. And I said, who's out here looking out for Greg Cody? Nobody. Shame on all of you for picking on an old man who had a written agreement with this man right here. This man, Dan Levitard, stands before us.

Yes, I do.

With a written agreement saying the exclusive home of all his writing shall be on the Greg Cody Substack. And what does he do? He sells him down the river immediately.

Why?

Because Greg wasn't paying attention during the segment?

Wow.

Hello, I'd like to introduce you to Greg Cody. He doesn't listen when he's not being talked about himself.

He was being talked about, and we were talking about his Substack. And just to give everybody some of the backstory here—

Have you spoken to him this weekend, by the way?

Well, I had to go to what was a retirement party to him, and, and when I got there, he waved his hand and the back of his hand at me. He was not happy to see me there. I had to brave a whole lot of traffic. He is genuinely furious, and he's threatening to boycott the shows this week. Mike was worried because he says we've got some plans with him outside of the show this week that he's participating in, and just so that the audience knows what the backstory is here. The written agreement that Ameen has mentioned has not been published yet in any form, any place, to reveal that it is a written agreement. That column, I was informing Greg for the first time in that column. He did not ask me for that. I was informing him that that would be the exclusive home of my writing. But then Tony said, what about me? Will you write for my Substack? And I said, in front of Greg Cody, I said that, Yes, I would, that he hadn't asked.

Boom, there he said it, right? He said, they're talking about him, he's paying attention. Tony says, what about my Substack? You think Greg Cody's gonna keep paying attention to Tony's Substack? He doesn't care about that. And you know what you did? You know what you did, Dan Levitard? You reneged. And when you renege, you know what that makes you?

Sheesh, I don't like this.

Someone who reneges.

That's right.

You better be careful.

I don't like this.

HR and the entire Brain Trust is sitting right there.

I can feel, I can feel the fear from everyone around here right now. I want to get back to the story though. Is he coming in or is he not coming in? Where are we? Who has he relayed what to? Because he was threatening to boycott the show this week because I did write one thing for Tony, but then Tony, there was a second article that appeared on Tony's Substack, and it was with a different byline. I think it was Land Debitard. It was the name of the byline. And I did not write something for Tony, though I did find it suspicious how vigorously he was interviewing me for something about my love of baseball. And then the next thing I see is something appears on Tony's Substack written by Land Debitard.

What's Substack?

Love that guy's work, by the way. You guys ever read that land? You know about that land, man?

So who's in the right here, and do you guys expect Greg Cody tomorrow, or do you not expect Greg Cody?

I don't know, you boys better clean it up though. There are things that are happening that are bigger than both of you, and every time that this Greg Cody can just decide he doesn't want to come into work because his feelings are hurt— let's be pros.

Well, the written agreement is only ratified when it's published.

Correct.

It wasn't published.

Nobody has seen this agreement.

That's not how agreements work. I don't have to publish my contract to let people know that I have a contract. All I need to do is have the writing in my possession. If he can produce it, a timestamped, date-stamped document in which Dan Le Batard claims exclusivity to the Greg Cody Podcast— the Substack, excuse me, featuring Greg Cody— then that's the agreement. He doesn't have to put it on the internet. He's got it in writing!

When did you give Greg this column that you wrote?

2 weeks ago.

Have you ever written a column and 2 weeks later it's still not out?

Just magazine stories. A long time ago, I used to write magazine stories that would take a couple of weeks to publish, but that is not the way we normally do things.

What's a magazine?

Put it on the poll @Le BatardShow. What's a magazine? Yes or no? Because yes, those have died as well. But I was under the impression that the agreement cannot be put in place until someone other than Greg Cody has seen it. Like, it's got to be Greg Cody, and there has to be a second witness to this agreement. And I'm going to say again, this is something I volunteered to Greg Cody. The part that— there were a whole bunch of people at this retirement party, okay? Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Barry came up to Greg Cody and said to him, I think you're making a terrible mistake. And here's the terrible mistake that I think Greg Cody is making. I'm doing this for free. I'm not getting anything out of this. I'm just doing him something that is a solid to bring attention to his Substack. Why wouldn't he want a teammate, Tony, to also have attention brought to his Substack? Why would he be so selfish that he would not allow me to do this one or two times for someone else before I become his exclusive home? when he publishes what I've written.

Hey gang, let's take a time machine back years and years ago where a young Daniel Levitard, scared at his first job at the Miami Herald, doesn't know which way is up, which way is down. And then here comes wise Greg Cody, not because of some compensation package or whatever. He says, hey, this kid's got talent and I'm going to look after him and show him the ropes and give him the confidence that he needs to become the great writer that he becomes. And guess what happens to that young Daniel Levitard? He grows up and he becomes more popular and he gets a TV TV show and the radio show and all that stuff, and old Greg Cody's there cheering him on the whole time. And what does Dan Le Batard do to pay him back? Complain about not getting paid for a Substack column.

No, that's not the—

How dare you? How dare you?

No, I'm not— that's not the part I'm complaining about. The part I'm complaining about is that he doesn't want to share me with a teammate. That's the part I'm complaining about.

What has Tony done?

I didn't go to Greg Cody's mortal enemy. I went to a fellow coworker here who, in front of Greg Cody, requested the help.

It's not like he gave it to Dave Hyde.

Yeah, yeah, that would have been fighting words right there.

Yeah, but doesn't that matter? Like, does it not matter at all that Tony is a teammate of Greg Cody's? It seems like I didn't— I obviously didn't think I would be doing something that would fill him with such rage that at his retirement party he would give me the back of his hand when I got there.

Tony gets your work and puts it out. Cody gets your work and is sitting on it.

You—

he, he's literally wasted your time so far.

Guys, this is a very complicated thing. The internet isn't just, just post it. You gotta have times and windows. You're riding trends. Sometimes there's a hotter topic going on. Don't pick on Greg Cody for having a strategy for the rollout.

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Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down or letting your worst hitter bat first. Or like going for 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go. It wouldn't make any sense. So don't let the team down when it comes to Jägermeister. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast-Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

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Dan Levitar, you are a fool.

You're nobody.

You are an infant. You are nobody to me.

You have no thick skin.

I literally put together a freaking stage for your toenail.

Nobody cares.

I am your career right now, pal.

Look at me.

I am your career. No.

Greg Cody, you Have messed with McDavid, and now you're messing with me, and I'm more dangerous, pal!

This is the Dan Le Batard Show. Did you guys see how bad AJ Brown was yesterday? They kept throwing to him. They targeted him a ton, and he seemed like someone who couldn't catch the football. They badly need him to be somebody who can catch the football. Drake Maye has fixed his problems. Vrabel said after the game that they were lucky to win that game against, against the Jets. And A.J. Brown, I think— I don't know how many drops he had, but they targeted him a bunch. What did he end up with? Did he end up with just 2 catches, 3 catches, something absurd like that?

You know my theory on huge-bodied wide receivers playing on the outside. Your shelf life is a little shorter. DK Metcalf is also falling off a little bit this season.

You say that. Matthew Berry gave you some good advice telling I'm not telling you to take Bernard, but he did have— didn't DJ Metcalf still have 11 catches yesterday? He had a good game, actually.

He had a good game, yeah.

But he has fallen.

Yeah, he's had a tough first season.

So who are the big-bodied exceptions to that? Because what Mike is mentioning, the route running and all of the strain on the ligaments—

Like all-time you're talking about?

On the limbs, yes. Who is the big physical receiver who lasts a ton of time?

T.O., probably. Yeah. But even Calvin Johnson was like, I'm, I'm out. It's just harder to do when, you know, you're falling down a lot and that's a lot of weight falling down on your frame.

I imagine that Puka Nacua, who has had the first 5 years of his career have been more prolific than any wide receiver ever. I imagine that the way that he plays football will shorten his career, even though he's not what you would consider one of these big-bodied types. He just plays such a physical brand of football that you're going to clearly be somebody who wears down over time.

By the way, this is not unique to just big-bodied receivers breakdown. It's a very physical sport and you have to be basically a Hall of Famer to have an illustrious Davante Adams type of career. It's a very physical sport.

Can you guys look up for me? I can't believe I'm forgetting this because it wouldn't have been Mike Evans. Somebody passed Terrell Owens. Oh, it was Keenan Allen. It was Keenan Allen yesterday who passed Terrell Owens. He's another big-bodied type who is— I think you don't think of him as a big body receiver.

I'm talking about I'm not talking about tall guys. I mean, Mike Evans is a big body, but he's not ever going to be confused for a body guy. I'm talking about guys that are carrying around like an extra £45 of muscle.

Oh, wait a minute. You're making a distinction I'm not making because I think of Keenan Allen and Mike Evans as AJ Brown, even though AJ Brown is more sculpted out of rock.

I don't because I have eyes and I've seen them without their shirts.

Like, you're talking about guys who look like bodybuilders.

I'm talking about Roy Williams. I'm talking about DK Metcalf types.

I'm talking about—

T.O.

is the ideal bodybuilder. outlier, but like David Boston, you have these guys that dominate the sport, but it's a shorter window of time because their frame is carrying around so much extra weight.

Remember how exciting it was when the Dolphins traded for David Boston?

So you're not putting Brandon Marshall in this group, or you are putting Brandon Marshall in?

Marshall, I guess, could be discussed in there, and he was probably one of the outliers, but no, like I'm talking about guys that look so different at the position. Keenan Allen does not look different from other guys at the position. I'm talking about guys that have tight end bodies.

Okay, but Man, oh man. So you're doing muscles instead of thickness.

And that's exactly what I'm doing because muscles are heavier and Keenan Allen's neither muscular nor thick. He's just a tall guy.

Put a poll up at Le Batard Show. Is Keenan Allen thick at Le Batard Show?

How many Cs?

Well, you're going to take thick now. He's older.

I've always thought of— I thought that both Charger receivers that Justin Herbert started with were both Mike Williams and him. And Mike Williams is another muscled guy.

Mike Williams, the Mike Williams that's no longer in the league?

Yes.

I'm thinking about Vincent Jackson, rest in peace. Guys that are just really muscular at the wide receiver position.

You're really just doing arms.

Why is this so hard to grasp? I'm doing guys that look like crazy physiques that are just like really muscular. They have muscles on their lower body too. They don't skip leg days.

You're doing guys with muscles? Is that what you're doing?

That's what he's doing. Keenan Allen has that shoulder. You guys have seen him shirtless too since Mike is giving you his bona fides on people he's seen shirtless. When Keenan Allen was shirtless, see if you can find the video. I think we have a video of that, of Keenan Allen shirtless, so that people can see that he's got some sort of thing. Have you seen this, Alex?

No.

He's got a flank of some sort on his right shoulder.

I don't like it.

That looks like the beginning of an alien head that is popping out because, because that sport does terrible things. What is that? To the bodies. Yeah, I think that's a dislocated shoulder, right? That's something that was a dislocated shoulder at some point.

Is the word vestigial— am I saying that right?

That's smaller. That's, that's too large to be a vestibule. Is that what you're looking at? Is it a vestibule?

It looks like a tiny human is trying to climb out of his shoulder.

Just the skull, by the skull. Yeah, just like rock it out. Trying to pop out of the top. It's, it's not, uh, it's not a normal thing. Free your mind!

Like Quattro, but on the shoulder.

That's an old reference right there. You're doing Total Recall. You're doing Total Recall running. You're doing 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

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I'm excited.

I don't think game time has ever been advertised, uh, quite that way. I mean, what happened, uh, this weekend with Matt Ishbia, the owner of the Phoenix Suns, and the back and forth that I guess he triggered with Kevin Durant, who doesn't mind, uh, public fights at all? Uh, what was the starting point on what Ishbia did and why he did it?

Well, the starting point was an interview he did on CNBC, and I think we have Do we have the tweet or the clip? I don't know which we have.

We have tweets.

Tweets. Okay, there we go.

So he said, and you can read it right there because my eyesight is shot, but basically Kevin Durant says, #BlameKD, even though KD stayed on top of his game at 36 and got you back this culture you love so much. Matthew acts like I got arrested for DUI or something. Back to Threads.

That's after Matt Ishbia's interview said, I kind of just threw money at the problem, when talking about acquiring Kevin Durant.

It's true.

He says, uh, bringing in major— oh, super talented players like Kevin Durant doesn't necessarily lead to championships, right? And so Kevin Durant here sees this quote.

What was wrong with, with, with what he said there?

Well, I think the implication is that it's Kevin Durant's fault.

No, that's— but it's not the implication.

It is, kind of, because here's, here's the deal. Why didn't the Suns work, right? It's a very simple answer. Because the NBA collective bargaining agreement makes it very difficult to improve your team if you spend past a certain limit, and Matt Ishbia didn't understand that. It was a financial restriction that made them fail. It wasn't Kevin Durant, right? They could have spent that money on almost any 3 players and it still would have had the same problem of—

Correct.

So Durant is sitting here and saying, wait a second, right? They ask you a question, why didn't— like, what have you learned or whatever? Why is my name coming up? Why am I the name that comes up in this? And I understand why Durant would feel a certain type of way because he could have easily answered that question without ever bringing up Kevin Durant by name or by explaining it's not about the players, it's about the rules and our ability to work underneath them.

So you think if Ishbia would have said, instead of saying bringing in guys like Kevin Durant, It, you know, by, by bringing in high-priced players, you know, I thought that was going to lead to championships. You don't think Durant takes the same offense?

Because I do. If he had said, uh, spending top-heavy on my roster isn't the way to build championships, I don't think Durant would have taken offense.

He would have come out and said, I know you're talking about me.

I don't think so. I like— I think it's, it's very obvious. And by the way, Durant's response, Dan, that's not just a, hey, I've been a good guy, show up, and why are you guys putting it on me. His response is very pointed because Matt Ishbia is saying, oh, how much he loves the culture now and all that stuff. He's like, yeah, I mean, you guys are acting like I came in here and I was getting DUIs.

What does that mean?

He's talking about Dillon Brooks, who is a guy that the Suns and Matt Ishbia praise a lot for the culture change that he's been for that organization. So what KD is trying to say is like, the guy that you're praising a lot, he actually brings baggage to the table. Meanwhile, all I did would show up and do my job.

And Dillon Brooks wasn't going to let that slide, Dan. Dillon Brooks then went on his Instagram and wrote, thanks, Matt, you know, HBO, for cleaning up that stench in the locker room before I came. Hashtag culture. I'm looking forward to Suns-Rockets.

Kevin Durant is in late-career persecution mode and will hear the slights whether they're there or not. But in this instance, if you're talking about the mistakes that Ishbia made and throwing money at a problem. There's one name I can think of who he's talking about there that the audience is going to receive as that's a criticism of. There's not even a second name. I'm not, I'm not doing Bradley Beal there. I'm not doing any other name other than Kevin Durant. Ishbia tried to make a splash as a new owner by winning the sweepstakes for Kevin Durant.

Splash.

I understand why Kevin Durant takes that as you're naming me while not naming me. And I understand why Ishbia also says, hey, I didn't blame you. I wasn't blaming you. I didn't say your name. But who else is it going to be? Bradley Beal?

Well, he did say his name for one. And for two, again, the idea isn't about throwing the money towards a certain player. It's about having a top-heavy payroll. That's what he did. But like, to me, that has nothing to do with the names involved. It has everything to do with how your salary is structured. That was why they didn't win. That's why they failed, is because they didn't have a proper regard or respect for the second apron and the restrictions that come along with it.

They were the greatest disappointment in the sport after everything that Ishbia did, which was an assortment of new owner mistakes. Mike, you seem distracted back there.

Yeah, I'm getting— the whole Jalen Hurts reporting over the weekend was weird. Um, Schefter once reported they're not giving any consideration putting him on IR, and then hours later he's put on IR. I know Michael Robinson had a regrettable moment on television. But this has been something that Jalen Hurts has been dealing with for some time. Uh, per Tom Pelissero, Jalen Hurts was told by doctors to not sleep after his initial diagnosis of a superficial blood clot while in London. Hurts stayed awake for roughly 36 hours before starting against the Jags. Remember, he made plays down the stretch. So it was too dangerous for Jalen Hurts to fall asleep, but apparently not dangerous enough for him to play a football game.

So I've told you guys the story before from Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, who was in such pain, okay, after a game that he was taking pain medication and trying to rest/sleep while standing up on a staircase. Okay, so he was sort of standing up on the staircase and trying to rest because they told him not to fall asleep. And that evening, he called Dr. James Andrews and said, look, I'm having some real trouble here with what it is that I'm dealing with. And he's like, you need to get here immediately. You need to get— and he's like, what do you mean immediately? I'll just— in the morning, I'll handle it. Is that okay? And he's like, yeah, but you won't have a leg if you wait until the morning. You need to get here. You've got compartment syndrome. You need to get here immediately. And then Jason Taylor later on played with a catheter, because these guys are crazy and warriors don't think of consequences. He played with a catheter, a pick that ran into his heart that was concealed from the opponent and played an entire game that way, even though you were messing with his heart.

He's a warrior, but goddamn medical staff, coaching staff, come on, man. Come on!

That's fireable.

Yeah.

Sirianni knew that, and it's easy because considering the Eagles' season this year, if he knew that information and he still played him, that's fireable.

That's kind of why— I mean, I don't want to say the report's not right, but I don't know, we believe that actually happened. He was forced to stay awake 36 hours and then play football. Like, that happened? Really?

We'll hear more reporting on it, I guess. But it— they are practicing medicine after all. And remember how the Chris Bosh blood clot thing started? It was reported as a calf strain. These things aren't easy to detect and diagnose immediately, so I can see how they get themselves in this situation. But if I tell you just in a black and white fashion, it's too dangerous for you to sleep, You gonna play football?

Against the violent Jags defense, uh—

It's anybody, Dan.

Yeah, agreed, but—

I wouldn't do it either way.

Against the Dolphins, I wouldn't play. Well, maybe. Okay, I take that back. All right, I went too far. No, no, no, no, I've gone too far.

Dan Levitar!

God, I would love to see that interaction. Lord, let there be a day.

Hey, Oprah!

Let there be a day. Oh, The Color Purple!

You like these glasses?

She would see these glasses, she'd be like, this is someone I'll take a picture with. He looks sophisticated.

I love Big Game, Not a Big Game.

Jonathan Sasslow! She would say that to me instead of me having to go up to her and say I'm a big fan. She'd be like, I love Big Deal, Not a Big Deal.

Huge fan of your work.

You're a one-time or two-time championship broadcaster?

Two, Oprah, two.

You think Oprah would say like, hey, know about that book club?

Well, and I would say, yes, I do, Oprah. Yes, I do.

Have you seen Weapons?

But with the kids! This is the Dan Levitan Show. The part, though, that I want to examine is, uh, what you do in the case In the case of Chris Bosh, I've told you guys before, having done some reporting on this, that, uh, the doctors of the Miami Heat and the NBA, all of them said Chris Bosh can't keep playing. We cannot have the liability that risks him dying on the court. But Chris Bosh found a doctor who said he could play. because he wanted to play. We're talking about Jalen Hurts right now from a career-threatened perspective, and I think we need to be talking about it from a life-threatened perspective, because I don't believe that that's a sport that you can continue to play with the dangers that we are talking about here. Uh, Tom Brady got his job in the NFL because Drew Bledsoe's lungs were filling with blood after a hit that he took, and Drew Bledsoe lost his job on the spot. Everything about the culture, everything about the economy that is around these guys puts pressure on those people to play no matter how little sleep they've had, no matter the amount of pain they're in, to use medication to numb the body's screaming, even though the screaming is the siren and the warning.

And so I just don't think that this should be discussed as a football issue. It should be a life issue. But, Mike, you said Michael Robinson and had regrettable comments. What were those comments?

You played the clip for me during the break. Uh, I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit, but he, he was kind of getting at, well, this Jalen Hurts, uh, superficial blood clot— have you Googled superficial blood clot? It's really not all that serious, and maybe Jalen Hurts doesn't want to be there.

He was saying it's an excuse that, yeah, Barkley and DeVonta Smith are out, I'm not going to allow you to blame me for how we're going to—

A lot of regrettable things, and maybe it's too kind to say this is explainable by something, pulmonary embolisms that are difficult to diagnose and treat initially because it could always be a lot of things. But that sports market, that position, a guy that's played well in 2 Super Bowls with a lot of— with the walls closing in on him, a lot of bad takes were flying. And this seems like a regrettable instance in which he was allowed to play with it because they didn't fully know what was going on. It is a life thing. 2 high-profile things happened in basketball with Chris Bosh and Victor Wembanyama. Victor Wembanyama is one clot away from having to reevaluate his career entirely. If he's put on lifetime blood thinners, that's a wrap. So the fear here is if Jalen Hurts does not recover from this treatment, these 3 months, and something pops back up, he'll go the way of Chris Bosh, which is— that's something that will end your career.

And Chris Bosh very recently had a life-threatening instance And, you know, like, the wild part is Chris Bosh, remember, he went and tried to get 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th opinions.

He found a doctor. He found one that went to the Heat and was asking them and the NBA to please allow him to play, and the answer was no.

And so, you know, again, Hurts is pretty young, relatively speaking, in his career and has been successful team-wise, obviously. a Super Bowl, been to another Super Bowl. The idea of like, hey man, it's a wrap, you can walk around and be a regular person again— like, not on his terms, not on his timeline. For sure he wasn't thinking about, hey, this might be my last time playing football. That's the tough kind of cognitive dissonance that's probably happening. But at the same time, I think we all agree, oh, they're warriors and all that stuff. Nobody needs to die for this game, man. Nobody needs to die for it.

No, I just know it's, it's hard to diagnose. I do think that Chris Bosh participated in activities. I think you He partook— he definitely partook in some All-Star-related activities while he was dealing with what was initially reported as like a calf injury.

But it wasn't physical. It was just shooting. And what it is that we just heard there where Jeremy is saying can't do anything physical for 3 months, that doesn't sound harmless. Like, that doesn't sound— we're in the Wembanyama stages of this, who's even younger than Jalen Burks.

Well, that's, that's, that's a byproduct of the blood thinners.

If you get a cut, So you can't really play football, but he can't do anything physical for 3 months at all, which effectively obviously ends his season and I think begins the conversation of, is he ever going to play again? Because the sport is dangerous and there's blood all the time in that, in that sport. You can't be worried about bleeding out because you're on blood thinners.

Not to mention internal bleeding too. Like, at least the external bleeding, you could see it. Internal bleeding—

There's plenty of people that do the 3-month treatment and don't have another one pop up for the rest of their lives. If that's the case, if he's lucky enough to fall into that class, then he's fine. He obviously cannot— it's not a conversation. He can't play any sport, let alone the most physical one in our country, on blood thinners.

Bosh recently suffered another pulmonary embolism. That's what it was at the beginning of this year. And he basically said it was a reminder that he has to be consistent with his medication because that's what life turned into for him. He was only 3 years older than Jalen Hurts is right now when those clots came along. He had a much more, I guess, much more established career because he had the Toronto run and then here in Miami. But it's only a 3-year age difference from 31 to 28 where Jalen Hurts is.

Jalen Hurts' health is obviously the most important thing to discuss. But today, like, the Eagles franchise is now in a tailspin. been as a result of this. Like, it is— it's a total disaster as a franchise.

And they won the Super Bowl recently with an All-Pro at every position along the offensive line. And we evaluated Jalen Hurts as a quarterback. We spent a lot of time discussing his play and whether he was a product of the people around him or whether he himself would be a good quarterback anywhere that he is. But when When you say health is the priority and then end up fairly immediately after that on— and also the Eagles season is a disaster and it's a calamity for the franchise. It obviously is. And we're speaking like experts here because we have the 2 instances that we know of. But I can't trust the diagnosis on any of this because everyone is incentivized to mask, to get the player on the court, on the field, to, to tell him don't sleep for 36 hours because the upcoming game is important. And while we pay lip service to the idea, obviously his health is more important. It's not like people act like it. Like, if you're— if the reporting on this is accurate, where you're like so worried about something that you don't— we don't want you to fall asleep for 36 hours and then go play Jacksonville.

You guys, you guys made the correction of Dan, football is violent with anybody.

Yes.

But Jacksonville hasn't allowed a 40-yard rusher before yesterday. They injured Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase. They made Drake They made Deshaun Watson look incompetent. Like, the, the size of these human beings— I, I really do, I keep mentioning this and you guys tell me that I'm a downer for doing it, okay? They are going out of their way to make the quarterback play a different position than everyone else. How many bad calls were there this weekend where you guys were like, really? On 3rd down you're going to call roughing the passer? On that? What is that that you're calling on roughing the passer?

Love the officiating.

All of the rules are different, uh, Zazz, for the quarterback than they are for anyone else playing football. They're different. And yet the quarterbacks can't stay healthy. None of them can stay healthy with an assortment of injuries. And I think it's at least in part because these 330-pound human beings on the defensive line are more athletic than anyone you've seen at that size.

Let's just be careful to not tie this We don't know what happened, and this pops up in all walks of life. It happens with people that aren't outside.

Yes, but what we do know that happened according to the reporting is that he was asked to not sleep for 36 hours.

That is true. That's what Tom Pelissero said, and I do think it's an interesting— who knows? One of the sad things about this is Jalen Hurts misses an opportunity to change a narrative that was around him, and that's a pretty courageous final act this season for Jalen Hurts. He was told not to sleep for 36 hours. He still played, and he put together a pretty good game against a tough defense and had what should have been a game-winning drive.

He was playing against what I believe to be the most violent defense in the NFL.

And he delivered.

And then Cam Little came out and kicked a 70-yard field goal. He kicked a 60-yarder this weekend, didn't he, that they made look easy at the end? In fact, I thought the entirety of the end of that game was Houston being scared of a 70-yard field goal at the end. Do you remember how it is that the clock was being managed at the end of that game? that game where Houston wanted to make sure that there was no time left, no time left, because of Zazz's frustration with Jacksonville only has to get to its own 35-yard line in order to try a field goal.

I missed that game. I was watching You Can See Everything.

Oh my God, that movie is so good, Dan. So good. Dan, have you seen it?

I have not.

What? What are you doing? What are you wasting your time?

It just came out.

No, no, no, no. I'm about to go see it for a 3rd time today.

Give me a couple days.

It's a 3-hour movie. Give me a second.

Flies by. Yeah, absolutely flies by. Dan, spoken by the guy who falls asleep routinely in movies, did not fall asleep. Not one bit. Didn't even yawn. I was so locked into those dead mako shark eyes that woman has.

So Elizabeth Holmes is her name. She is the founder of Theranos. She is now in prison. Theranos was a made-up organization that pretended that it had inventive evolutionary ability to take a single drop of blood and be able to analyze the entirety of your health. She's clearly and obviously a fraudster who has been imprisoned. Nathan Fielder only makes interesting, unusual things. Jeremy has said that he's going to watch it for the 3rd time today.

Yep.

Mike Ryan was watching it instead of Jacksonville-Houston on Sunday morning. You went to the—

I went to a theater to catch it.

Was that a 9 AM show?

Well, I knew this was going to be a conversation piece, and I'm a big Nathan Fielder fan, And I saw it, I thought it was, I thought it was good. I'm out of the 3 of us that have seen it, I'm probably— well, not probably, definitely the, the coolest on it. But I think my, my relationship with the movie was affected by the, the crazy praise that's being heaped upon it.

Let me tell you something. I woke up Sunday, opened my texts, I got the We're in the Movie text, and here comes Mike Ryan saying that movie wasn't all that.

Come on.

And I was like, what are you talking about?

But then, you know what, that's an unfair—

I said, I said, I said, you know what, maybe Mike's right because I haven't seen it yet. Went to see it, came out so blown away, but also so upset. But then I realized, you know what, Mike Ryan's a genius. He's cornered the market on, I'm gonna take something that's gonna be universally loved and I'm gonna crap on it. Not because I'm trying to be a contrarian, but what he's done is actually improved the watching process for all of us. 'Cause now when we go watch the movie, we're like, oh wait a second, this is great. What was Mike talking about? I was expecting something terrible.

Don't, don't make this what I did with Spider-Man. I thought Spider-Man was bad. I think that— I think this movie is ambitious and, and really, really good and genre-bending in ways that we're We've grown accustomed to him from him, but I didn't think it's matching the hype of Letterboxd all-time best-reviewed movie.

I haven't wanted to go to the movies and see a movie for a 3rd time since I was 13 years old and The Dark Knight came out, where it made me go the next day and see it and then go again. And that's exactly what's about to happen. I'm gonna go this afternoon and I'm gonna bring a little notepad so that I can take notes and talk to my wife about it.

Oh, I took notes all throughout the movie on my phone. Took notes. I didn't care who was next to me or whatever. It's unbelievable that they gotta go. You know what? Get out now. Go watch it. Go now, leave now! Come on, come on! Please!

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