PTI - How Concerning is Justin Fields' Toe Injury?

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss Justin Fields, Dan Lanning's pitch to condence the CFB schedule, and the MLB Playoff race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. Great to be back. I missed our viewers.

I'm Tony Kornheiser. They're not here. We're on ESPN too. Oh, you think they can't find us? Because you got rapid ears at your house, Ralph Cramden. No, they can find us. I'm not sure they want to find us. Oh, that's bad.

I don't know they want to. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Yeah, welcome to PTI boards and girls. In today's episode, the Brewers Pass the Cubs and Caleb Williams gets subbed out, which makes it a tough day for the return to the man we have all been missing, Mr. Michael Wilbar. But we begin today with another setback at quarterback for the New York Jets. No, not Aaron Rogers. He's gone. This time it's Justin Fields who was carted off the practice field,

later diagnosed with a dislocated toe on his right foot, his plant foot. The Jets are listing Fields as day-to-day and expect him to be ready to go week one. Fields is a running quarterback, so a dislocated toe may mean more to Fields than to a pocket quarterback like Tom Brady. Wilbon, you love Fields. How concerning should this injury be to the Jets? Well, they should be concerned. Anytime your starting quarterback has a leg injury and a foot injury. And as you mentioned, a guy who can run 4,000 lards like Justin Fields, but he's still young. What is field is done, maybe 26-ish, and he's still athletic, and he still probably can get. over this more quickly than, say, Aaron Rogers, who's 438 years old, who you mentioned

earlier. And so, yeah, Tony, look, it's July. Can we pipe down? And by the way, people, you know, some of the reporting that I hate from really good reporters in every network and every outlet and every newspaper, if there's still remaining any, is that people are healthy now, and they declare players healthy now, as if there's not week one, in week two, in week eight, and week 11, players. particularly in football, get hurt.

That's what happens. You don't want to start that way with Justin Fields and the Jets, your franchise of your youth who seemed cursed. But let's just just pipe down and see where it goes and day-to-day means day-to-day. So I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and so I was in communicato. When I got out, I looked at my phone,

I had a text for my friend Adam. This is the extent of the text. I'm quoting it. Jets are cursed. It just doesn't stop. I had no idea. what he was talking about. Obviously, I do now. But I think that sentiment is shared by Jets fans all over that they are, they're a cursed team. Yeah. You know, you don't, you don't want to have

a dislocated toe when you use your feet to run and move around because you're that kind of quarterback. You obviously don't want to have something like that because there's no DH in football. You can't slide to another position. You've got to be a quarterback. That's what you are. I am imagining, Mike, that if it's less significant if you're an offensive guard. You know, you can live with the fact that one of your toes is broken. It's more significant, obviously, when you're a quarterback. And for those old enough to remember, and you are, and I am, and not many others, the great Dizzy Dean basically lost his career as a pitcher because of a broken toe. He had won 30 games a year or two before, broke a toe and was essentially done. I don't think that's going to

happen here. I think that Fields is going to be fine. But, But Mike, if you're a Jets fan and you remember just a couple of years ago, Aaron Rodgers, four plays, four plays, and he's out for the year. And you see a guy being carted off, you think you're cursed. You do.

You think you're cursed. Tony, carted off might be the most serious one. But it might have been a precaution. And there's so much you just don't know. And you're right. I love Justin Fields in any uniform. I hope he gets healthy, quickly. Let's move to Dan Lanning's.

suggestion to improve college football. The Oregon coach tells Yahoo that there's too much time between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the college football playoff. He'd like to condense things by starting the season a week sooner and the playoff

the first or second week of December. Oregon had a 25-day layoff with its playoff by last season and lost. Tone, do you see the suggestion is smart or self-serving? Well, I see it's both. I think it's smart. I think it's self-interested. I mean, again, he's got a team at Oregon that gets a buy and gets blown out, and he sees that the four teams that got buys, they all lost. So, you know, that's a very small sample size because it's the first year of the playoffs. So it may turn out that that's just superstitious and not just self-interested if five years from now the teams of the buys don't get blown out. But I do think it's smart.

to start the season early, to end the season early, to be like golf, to avoid the pillaging and marauding NFL. Because the NFL will schedule right opposite you. They will try to ruin your life because they're the NFL. They have obliterated the NBA from Christmas Day. So, yeah, if you can do that, yeah, it's smart, which leads me to this, Mike. If it's smart, they won't do it in college football. Because people who run college football, they're not smart.

because smart people would have anticipated NIL and the transfer portal and had a better plan to cope with it. Well, Tony, I would slide the season two, but not the way Lannie is going to do. And I thought of this weeks ago and actually talked to some people in college football about it. Start the season later. You're not going to – if I'm college football, I'm not going to give up December. You can schedule with the NFL. The day is long. Everybody has lights.

It's not 1930 in Wrigley Field. You schedule games in concert with the NFL so not to butt heads with them. And that takes, yes, our bosses, because ESPN and the folks at Fox, it's the same people. The partners are the partners in large part. So start the season later, started in September, Labor Day or later, Tony, and then stop giving away the Army. Navy Week, you can't do that. And the Heism Week, you can't do that. You got to use those

weeks for your games and not just have a day to watch I Love Lucy reruns. So you're going to have to, Mike. Better scheduling. If you do that, you got to be willing to go on a weeknight. You have to

avoid the NFL. You have to be willing to go on weeknight. Well, you can do Tuesday. You can do Wednesday. They're college kids. They're not going to class, they're professional athletes. Let's stop kidding yourself. Let's move to baseball. After wins yesterday, the Mets and Brewers are

now in possession of first place in their divisions. The Mets pass the Phillies who lost last night to the Red Sox and the Brewers passed the Cubs who lost to the Kansas City Royals. Well, on which team should be more concerned, the Phillies or your Cubs? Well, Tony, the Cubs, and by the way, I know you're trying

to get my goat. The Cubs and brewers have swapped places for three days in a row. So let's, you know, let's not get crazy. They didn't just pass them yesterday. They've been hot for a long time, as you noted, before I even went away for a few-day hiatus. But it's the Cubs. The Phillies are a veteran playoff team. They have a sense of who they are, what's going on all around them, what they can get out of certain people as we get down the stretch, you know, Bryce Harper in August. And they're a veteran team. The Cubs are not that. The Cubs are new to this stage. This is not

the 2015, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19 Cubs. Whole new team with no holdovers and they got to go out and get at least one starting pitcher and if they can get a bat at third base, Suarez, even though our rookie is playing pretty well. The Cubs need to do those things. Jed Hoyer will have to do that, Tony. And even then the Cubs won't know.

And they're in just a killer division, not just with the Brewers, but the Cardinals are not done. Cincinnati's not even done, and everybody's up against each other in the wild card. So the answer to that is the Cubs. I'm going to differ slightly because I'm going to say that neither the Cubs nor the Phillies give me particular concern. I don't think it's possible that Milwaukee can sustain the heater that it has been on for a while.

They've won 12 out of 13, 36 out of 4. That's the best in baseball. I'm not saying they peak too soon. I'm just saying I don't think they can keep that up. So to me, if the Cubs play the way they've been playing, they're going to go in and out of first place as well. And if I'm not mistaken, they have three games in a row in Milwaukee next week. So it's on their rackets.

They have a chance to get back into first place and do some damage there. I agree with you about the Phillies. The Phillies are a better team than the Mets. The Phillies have better starting pitching than Mets and ultimately starting pitching is the most important thing that you can have going near the playoffs. That came last night was sort of fluky. The Phillies were up five nothing looking to sweep Boston. They lose nine eight and eleven.

Mike, how many times is a team going to get nine runs from the fifth on? So I think they're both in good shape. I do. I'm not. I hope you're right. I want you to be right. Let's take a break. Coming up, should we expect a better second season out of Jaden Daniels or out of Caleb Williams?

And the Steelers will be wearing some real question with throwbacks, but will the Packers be wearing worst damn cheese heads? Whose idea is throwbacks? Do you like throwbacks? Sometimes I do, but often I don't. It depends on what they do. There are few, very few, marketing people, marketing people. It's time for toss-up, two men enter, one man leaves, finishes the show,

then faces a forlorn Friday without work and wonders whether he's used his craft as an escape from emotional intimacy with those who love him. But he also looks forward to watching the Nats and the Twins. What's first? Toss up, which quarterback do you expect more

from this season? Jaden Daniels or Caleb Williams? Okay, well, certainly the bears expect more from Caleb Williams. As we talked about yesterday on the show, they are expecting 4,000 passing yards and a percentage, 70% completion record. As you know, Mike, the bears have been in business for over 100 years. Not one time

have they had 4,000 yards from a quarterback. Not one time have they had a 70% completion record from a quarterback. So good luck on that. Jaden Daniels was better last year as a rookie than Caleb Williams was. He won the rookie of the year over Caleb Williams. He passed for almost 3,600 yards and that's 69% completion record. Look, I think it's going to hurt him if Terry McLaurin isn't there. I also think that will probably be resolved. So if you're asking me to answer this question, I'm going to say Caleb Williams,

because I think there's greater movement up for him that's possible than Jaden Daniels. And I also think, Mike, the league has had a year to look at Jaden Daniels, and they're going to come up with specialized defenses for Jaden Daniels. If the next question is, who would you rather have? I would still take Jaden Daniels, but it's by a very thin margin. Jayton Daniels is going to be hard for him to have a better year than he had last year. You mentioned what he had.

Let me just see C.J. Stroud on this, who was great as a rookie and had some backsliding. Because everybody almost has some backsliding even after a great rookie year. And even the people who played football who were all on the airways act like they don't know this. and they just want to go with the analytics and a forward projection. Stop. Jane Daniels likely to not have as good a year. And he might be better. He might be the MVP, but not likely.

Caleb Williams and people once again, you talk about 4,000 yards, Caleb Williams, with no offensive line and no coaching to speak of, threw for 3,500 yards last year. Two better games he'd have gotten to 4,000. with, let me say it again. No coaching and no line. He has a dramatically improved line. He has weapons.

He needs a coach who threw the first team out of practice. Good. That's what he ought to do. Thank you, Ben Johnson. It's called getting better. It's called coaching. That's what Caleb Williams is going to have the benefit of this year. I don't care whether he throws for 4,000 yards.

I want the team to get better and him to get better. and him to get better, he will and they will. What's next? Toss up worst throwback uniforms, the Steelers or the Packers? Okay, so I don't know how many people have seen these. I'm sure that everyone is going to see them now. They're both terrible uniforms. You cannot put the Steelers in canary yellow jerseys.

You have to have some black in those jerseys. That's what people associate with the Steelers. And that thing that design on the front chest of the Steelers' throwback uniforms, it looks like they have a backpack strapped to their chest. It's a very odd-looking thing. Now, I will also tell you the Packers is worse for this particular reason. It's blue. It looks like the University of Pittsburgh. The Packers are green.

What are you throwing back to Blue for? On the other hand, I do like the helmets, because the helmets are designed to look like old-time. leather helmets, and to me, that is creative. Whereas what the Steelers have done is they've taken their contemporary logo and slapped it on the back of the helmet. So it's not a throwback. They didn't have that logo in the 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60. You can't actually do that.

That feels like cheating to me. Tony, you got to, you just, you have me come back today off a little mini break, and you get me screaming about the brewers. You start to show with one set of cheeseheads. Then you include the Packers, the real cheeseheads. I'm going to recuse myself there. I'm not going to recuse myself from attacking the marketing people at 345 Park Avenue in New York.

Because they all should be fired. All of them. Anybody who came up with throwbacks for teams like Steelers, Packers, Bears, giants, whatever Washington is, teams that are 100 years old, They don't need throwbacks. They sell enough jerseys. It's a disgraceful money grab by the NFL, which, oh, they need more money to sell more jerseys to be like the NBA, who you talked about them crushing on Christmas Day, but yet they're imitating the NBA.

Let's have more jerseys. They both look like garbage. You want to do something nice with leather? Then wear the leather helmets. Put the leather helmets, cover the real helmets in leather, and wear the real helmets in leather, and where those. Marketing people get out. Get out. It's really nice to see that your time away has mellowed you and calmed you down and giving you the perspective to look at the things you've said before and perhaps back away a little bit. You threw raw meat in front of me. That's what you did.

That's it. Let's take one last break still to come. Dan Campbell ends Lions practice early for the second time this weekend. We will tell you why. And Bill Belichick, your boy, was at the podium today Did he have anything intriguing to offer up? Throwback. Like this jacket. There's a new jacket. Really? There's not a throwback jacket.

This is new. Do you like it? What do you think? What's a throwback jacket? I'm saying this a new jacket. I got new jacket, not a throwback jacket. Do you like it? Oh, I was going to say, yeah, I do.

You've had lots of new jackets. It's new to me. Happy time, people. Happy 24th birthday, Drake London. The Falcons wide receiver was the eighth overall pick in the 2000. 2022 draft out of USC. London had gone to USC to play both football and basketball,

where he played one season as a reserve. Last season, London caught 100 passes for 1,271 yards and nine touchdowns. In three seasons with the Falcons, being thrown to by five different quarterbacks, Marcus Marriota, Desmond Ritter, Taylor Heinecke, Kirk Cousins, and Michael Pennix, Jr. London has 241 catches for just over 3,000 yards, and 15 touchdowns. This season, Pennix will be the primary quarterback as the Falcons move away from Cousins. Do you think Pinnix is going to really establish himself and just leave Cousins in the dust to be released or traded?

You think Pinnock is that good and going to have that kind of early fall, Tony? I think he's going to get that chance. I mean, I think they're going to give him a long leash on that and get that chance. I do. Happy anniversary to Alex Rodriguez. and Jason Veretek. On this day, 21 years ago, Arod reacted to being hit by a pitch from Bronson Arroyo by jawing at the mound.

Veritech stepped in in front of Arod and shoved his mitt in Arod's face, setting off yet another bench-clearing Yankees Red Sox brawl. After this, the game turned into an epic. The Yankees were up 3-0 when the brawl occurred, but an explosion of big innings culminated with the Red Sox walking off Mariano Rivera 1110. after a Bill Miller two-run Homer. This was one of only four blown saves by Rivera that year when he led all of baseball with 53 saves.

Of course, the Red Sox came back from 03 in the playoffs against the Yankees, and they took down Rivera there as well. I mean, to those of us off of I-95 a little bit, Tony, it's what happened in October. That's all that I remember from 2004 with the Yankees' wrestling. I don't remember that whole thing with A-Rod. I'll try to bring it up with him the next time, you know, I'm hanging out in Minneapolis

and we're with his basketball team, the Timberwolves, didn't remember that at all. So I guess that's a good trip down memory lane for some people. Here's what you should ask him. How did the Mitt taste? Ask him that. I bet he remembers it. I bet he remembers it. We should note the passing of Hulk Hogan at the age of 71.

Hogan, whose real name was Terry Belaya, was the biggest pro wrestling star of the 1980s and beyond, Even non-fans knew Hogan by his golden hair, horseshoe mustache, and shirts that he would invariably tear off. The Hilturn eventually followed it in 2015. The WW fired Hogan following the leak of an audio tape in which he used the N-word, though the organization later brought him back as an ambassador. That same year, Hogan also won a huge judgment against Gawker,

which had published a sex tape featuring him. Yeah, Tony, that was after my wrestling obsession of the 1960s and 60s. 70s when I was a kid. And it seemed to me that Hogan completely ripped off a guy named Billy Superstar Graham, who you know if you were a wrestling fan of like the AWA. And then Hogan later in his years, as you mentioned, got involved with some stuff that seemed unsavory at best.

So, you know, not really a fan, but I understand he held a large position in wrestling when people obsessed over, like you said, the 80s and beyond. I will tell you this, by making no value judgments about what he has done, good or bad. But when he walked down the street, he's one of the five most recognizable people in the entire country.

Hulk Hogan. Everybody knew what he looked like. Everybody had a sense of him. Let's go to the big finish. Dan Campbell ended Lyons practice early due to several scuffles. Is that significant? Not in the least.

Bill Belichick spoke at ACC Media Day today. Your takeaway? My takeaway is that he's going to coach North Carolina, that all this other stuff is irrelevant at the moment, and he's going to be the biggest story in college football. The Rockies beat the Cardinals in Colorado's first shutout in 221 games. You impressed? Seems like teams get shut out twice a week in the rest of the league,

and Colorado's not on the short end on the good end of any end. It's a long streak. Acese fever tonight. Caitlin Clark out, still no timetable for her return. Your thoughts? She's the biggest star in the league, and she's on the show. Biggest star by far. Last one, Venus Williams, goes for a second straight win at the D.C. Open.

Do you like her chances? Not really against this ranked player. If I was there, I'd go see. I want to see Venus Williams play while you still can't. And Radar Kanu B. Osaka today. I love going to that tournament. I'd have been begging Mark Eind for some good seats if I was at home. We are out of time.

We'll try to be better the next time. I'm Tony Kornhijer. I'm Mike Wilbon. Off to a Monday, Knuckleheads. Thank you.