The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: The Meat and Cheese Delivery Service (feat. Jason Benetti)

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

"Hold for applause." Jason Benetti joins the crew to talk playoff baseball, Taco Bell, being reduced to rooting for "ATH," and penalty boxes. Also, Greg has thoughts on Nick Wright's thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stucats podcast. He is one of the best play-by-play announcers anywhere in sports. You can hear him on Fox calling college football, basketball, and NFL games. He's also the television voice of the Detroit Tigers who are up one-nothing because Scoobble is an animal. But Jason Benetti, among the sports that you do, baseball is your favorite to do. Which is the hard, I would imagine, I'm answering for you, but which is the heart? hardest to do. So I would say the hardest to do is the sport that I did like five times and I've never done since and it's hockey. The hockey announcers do the games from like the ninth floor.

They have no spotter. People are jumping on the ice in the middle of play as though there's no security. And like the lines change two minutes before the game. I have no idea how they do it. Did you notice, and I don't know if you were working at the time, did you notice that Jim Nance didn't know the names of some of the Baltimore Ravens players on Sunday. I did not see that. Did that happen? That was a thing. I mean, it's not his fault. It's because the Ravens were playing defenders that no one knew. That's an exciting time for a spotter. You know, all of us football announcers have somebody that gets paid to stand next to us, hold a pointer, and point directly at the board as to who's

on the field. So there's always somebody standing there going, this is the running back, right? just in case, because there's a lot of stuff going on, and we're all really bad at life. So that spotter, I can't even imagine the panic for the spotter at that point, like just pointing at walls in the booth, like pointing at the Cheetos bag that's half empty. I don't know. I don't know who it is. What do we do if the spotter points to the wrong person? Is it just a glare?

We fling the spotter out the window, I think, is really what happens generally. No, you kind of try to pump them back up and be like, we got the next one. Like, let's go. Here we go. It's, no, it's actually a really awful job. My spotter texts me routinely during the Super Bowl and says, please don't ever do the Super Bowl. Because he's nervous watching the Super Bowl that pointing at something wrong would be the end of his life. You are a kind and decent man.

What would you do if you were in my position and a producer ran in a hurry with a piece? piece of paper for you to read, and it was totally blank. It didn't have anything on it. He gave you no instruction. It was just a piece of paper that had printed poorly. So, funny enough, I had a stage manager at a basketball game, the person who hands you the cards, hand me a card that had my name on it and my partner's name on it. So I just turned to the camera. When we came on camera, I said, this is us. Thanks for joining us. So, you know, you just, I think you just take it And you go, I've been handed this note. We've had multiple problems with Benetti and his Wi-Fi.

That was a bit. That's what I knew. It was a bit. I was so sure. It's a great joke. Let it sit. Hold for applause. Jason, you're available to go to Saudi Arabia for a set?

That is not a question I thought that I was going to. seen, but sure. Okay. You know what? You guys take it from here. I'm going to get it. Minor penalty. Two minutes, asshole.

Wow. Jason, is the sample just too small on these expanded wild cards? Because there seems to be something to these games, not even making it to a third game since the expansion of the wild card round. Yeah, it's four of them since they've done it. I think part of it is baseball. really is a momentum sport, and then you have to go back and you do it tomorrow again. And especially, like, if you lose game one and you had to burn more of your bullpen

in losing game one than you ever would want to have burned, I think sometimes that will pop up in game two. I also just generally think, like, you end up with teams that are bad matchups for another team for whatever reason, right? So I think that's part of the for Lauren Dan is very hilarious, by the way. No, I contact Dan is a pretty, honestly, if hockey players had to look for Lorne after they were thrown in the penalty box, that would be an amazing benefit to the hockey viewing audience. Like, not only do you not get to go on the ice for two minutes, but you have to look

really sad while you do it. Yeah, if we don't believe you, you have to stay in that box. Convincing me you're upset. Right. Has anything changed in your behavior is what they should ask people as they come back from a hooking penalty? Jason, we all saw the Tigers, I mean, collapsed when it comes to division late in the season. They won yesterday. Like, does it matter at all once you get to the playoffs that they didn't win the division?

I think it matters to the fan's psyche more than it does to anything else. Like, those were two weeks that you just felt everybody in Detroit being like, man, what is going on? I mean, we, after the Wednesday loss in Cleveland, which was five in a row to Cleveland, uh, Andy Dirk's, my broadcast partner and I were talking about, uh, just in between breaks, ordering a really big pizza and watching AF versus the Astros. Like we were, we were reduced to rooting for AF is what we were. So I, I went and door dashed Taco Bell. I hit the button my guy to order a big bag of Taco Bell.

for us and watch AF. And I think this is officially rock bottom because I looked at the app and the dasher was on a bite. Like bike delivery Taco Bell after your team lost again in the playoff race, I think is pretty

close to the crater. What's your go-to-to Taco Bell order? Cheezzy Gritty to Crunch, Crunch Wrap, what are we doing? It's all the same. It's all a meat and cheese delivery device. I like it sliced in fours, so I go with the cassidias because there's a food court in college that had a Taco Bell. And like, I just

crushed casidias. Like, is this the steak one? Is this the chicken? I have no idea. But it's really good and makes me feel good. So, Jason, is it fair to second-guess managers when they take out their ace pitcher who's pitching a shotout and then the bullpen blows up, such as Aaron Boone to use a random example? It's a random example. I like that. It's nice to see random wheels of example. I think it is fair. I think I think it is fair, especially considering the, the way pitchers, especially in a wild card round, like your ace pitcher is your best bullet for sure. And I'm coming from the Terrick Scoobel angle. So like, I'm, I want A.J. Hinge to leave him in as long as possible because he is the number one guy on your roster to do damage to the other

team so i do get it like they spent a lot of resources on that bullpen the yankees did but if a guy like that who is extra special beyond the the level of really really good i just i i think it's it's a choice you make as a manager but i do think baseball is leaning a little bit more toward leaving your stars out there but i you know david cone said it during the broadcast and And I do think you have to weigh this. If they're going to go anywhere, he's going to have to throw seven times or so. So, you know, I do think that is a factor there, but you've got to get there. You have to get there.

Put it on the poll, please. Do you crush cassidias? Do you crush cassidias and also put on the poll? Is Taco Bell just a meat and cheese delivery service? Can you tell me the last time that you were at the center of something in baseball that felt as bad to you as scoble losing, flipping the ball through his legs over the first

baseman's head, hitting a pitch, hitting fry in the face, and just what seemed like, a total epic collapse on something that was a hopeful season for you. Like, when was the last time you felt exactly that in something you cared about in baseball? Because it looked like a total

disintegration. You know who I worked for before the Tigers, right? The White Sox didn't have hope, though. Like, it wasn't like that. No, no, no. I do. I do, I did. In 2021, the White Sox made the playoffs. And they started really strong. The second half was not great. They ended up going to the playoffs. They lost to the Astros in kind of epic fashion. Carlos Rodon tried to get out a start and the Astros won that fourth game it was. And then the next year, everything kind of fell off. The

wheels fell off. Tony Laruso got replaced. There was a lot of hope in Eloy Jimenez. Yohan Moncada, some of the young position, like Andrew Vaughn, some really good young position players, and you kind of watch it evolve into a corkscrew into the ground. That was slower motion. This I believe in substantially. Like the tigers, I think, really do know what they're doing, but they have young talent that is just kind of volatile, not kind of volatile. They're pretty volatile offensively, especially. Like you go on these runs and there's great numbers. And then suddenly everybody's really pitchable. And I think the last calendar year is a perfect example of what really young teams that

are growing into whatever they are can do. And it's just they rip at your heartstrings over and over again. But I do think there's a lot of talent on this team. And Terrick Scouble, like you said, he's an absolute beast. Like he is one of those guys that's just like, I'm going to do this. And you know what? Like in the middle of all that that happened, I think he went between. the legs because he felt like if I don't do it, nobody's going to do it right now. Like this has

to be me. And that was so out of character. But I think it's the beautiful psychology of baseball that your star in the middle of all this like no run support, blah, blah, blah. He's like, you know what? If I don't get this out, we're going to lose. And it's a window into the mindset of the team at that point. Can you tell me how rare it is or isn't that Scoobel would drive himself to the hospital to go see Frye after he's hit him in the face? Like how rare or not rare is that? In baseball? Yeah, I think, like, I don't think everybody's going to do that. I think everybody's going to send a text message. But Terrick Scoobel, in my experience, in a bunch of different ways, is like the most empathetic on-the-field monster you could possibly imagine. That dude is a legit,

good human being. He's done a ton for the Detroit community, but also just like, small things that I don't even want to share, but like I've seen him, like, we'll be going over to somebody to say hello or whatever, and he'll ask me a specific question about that person that he knows about that human being without even needing to have any idea who this person is. Like, he's a really thoughtful guy, and that makes a lot of sense. And I think, I think the best ones are the ones who have the switch that takes them all the way to the extreme on the field and the reason they can do that is the emotional understanding of how they got to be great at what they are. I want to play this sound from earlier of Nick Tuturo, and I want to get your honest, okay?

I'm going to give you a minute to process this so I don't blindside you. I want to know your honest rooting interest when the Yankees had three on, nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, because I enjoy when Yankee fans and New York fans suffer. And so this is exactly what I was rooting to happen. how do you not score how could you not score three singles in a row it's unbelievable

that same shit every year then you take out a guy pitching a shut out it's the most magical thing that happened at the end of that Yankee game were you rooting for it

so I will start by saying Andy Dirks and I were doing a bit in the booth before a game the other day about the overuse of the phrase, as they say by New Yorkers. Like, it's a grid system, as they say. Like, why did you use

that phrase? Like, there's no need to add that. I love the New York accent in general. So anything that causes it to go to 11 is something I am absolutely rooting for. I also happen to really like Alex Cora as a guy.

Like, I've done games with him. And I kind of like the Red Sox this year. So I, you know, I, those two things combined, had I, had I like, had that been cognizable for me at the moment, I would have rooted for that absolutely. And I think somewhere down deep, I just wanted to see the carnage because I like the accent when it's on tilt so much. So yes, I think the answer is yes, that would the desired result. I actually saw Nick Totoro after the game on the street right next to Yankee Stadium

yelling into someone else's phone just like that, who had just walked up and put the selfie video in front of him, and he just started yelling like that. Dan, if you didn't know, Nick Totoro actually named after front man of the Jonas Brothers, Nick Jonas. Why would I know that? It's not possible.

Where did you sleep last night? Where did you sleep last night? The Doubledtree Hilton, by myself. Leave me alone. Doing too many of the AI jokes. Benetti, you like to post a picture of a ballpark on socials and ask people the first person they think of. So I want to do this with you, play this game with you.

You give us the first person you think of when I say bat flip. Tim Anderson. When I say, over Batista. When I say underrated. Underrated Taco Bell Casidias. It's great answer. When I say Fenway Park. David Ortiz.

Tigers. Terrick Scoobel right now. Leadoff hitter. Overrated. Shortstop. Derek Jeter. Overrated. Lead off hitter.

Dan. lebitards comedic awareness after today's segment manager uh manager that's so generic uh terry bevington that's so generic yeah that's a terry bevington is the first that that's the first my mind is broken he is one of the best play-by-play announcers you will find anywhere in sports thank you for playing along jason i hope you go deep into the postseason sir thank you guys hey jeremy old buddy old pal Hey, Mike. I want to talk to you about Miller Light. You and I have bonded over these last few weeks talking about our shared love of Miller Light. That's right. A great partner of our show for practically its entire existence. It's been a partner of this show since I was 10 years old. And it's been around for 50 years. And they've been a part of our show for almost 20. We're approaching incredible partner status with Miller Light. I mean, to think that people were celebrating at my bar mitzvah with Miller Light as they were a partner of this show is pretty incredible. You're talking about the moments that are made better by making those times, those special times, Miller time. Jeremy, there's nothing like cracking open Miller Light with your crew. This football season, it's especially true. Whether it's a

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Don Lebertard. Quiet man. Yes. You know, I'm married man. I don't cheat on my wife, despite that gratuitous line in back in my day. Stugats. I wish you were here, my wife. I really

miss her. No, I don't. That's the thing about being married. You know, you're not allowed to say, I don't miss my wife. I've been gone two days. I've been gone long enough to miss my wife. I'm sorry. I call her. I'm on the phone with her for 30 seconds. You know, what am I? Hello. All right. All right. We'll see you. All right. And then, you know, I'm going to see her in two days. I was jumping Charlie. Good. This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stugats. We didn't do any impersonations that time. That is my failure, as was recognizing that he was going for a joke there. He did sit there for a long time.

I'm glad it was you. I thought the same thing. A few seconds in, I was like, I think he's doing a bit. I knew. I was able to tell. It's his fault. He sucks, not you. He's very funny.

Thank you, Billy, for the support there. I have to be positive. That was yesterday. Oh, okay, good. Oh, you do have to, wait a minute. Where's your mustache? Where's your Ted Lasso? Well, that was an extra.

That was an extra thing. If you were serving the punishment the way that you were supposed to today and you still owe us one. No, look, I can say this. I went above and beyond, as we discussed. I planted the extra trees also. So I'm four in the green right now. But also, I will say, Jeremy just kind of sauntered in here midway through a show and claims he's paying off a punishment, assuming that this is going to count as a full payoff for a punishment when he missed half of the show.

So if this counts for him, yesterday counted for me. Wow. I don't know what I'm saying. supposed to say to that outside of the fact that I'm here, wearing a costume, doing a punishment, and spewing out facts, such as Jason Benetti, you know,

named after Jason Dominguez. I don't know. I'm done with these people. I just picked... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No one understands it's doing. Well, that's the bit. It's supposed to happen. I try hard. Either do it or don't do it. Like, what you just did there. Like, just, I mean...

He lives in his own world, Jeremy, you know? Minor penalty, two minutes for boring. I mean... I'm like a sleep. Make the Joker don't. I lack of sleep. I've got a shameful admission from baseball and I can't believe I'm making this and I can't believe it happened to me because I am legitimately embarrassed by this. Now, I know who Hunter Green is because the ace of the Reds has been throwing 100 miles an hour for two seasons now. He is a pitcher who I have been following.

I did not learn until yesterday that he was black. I assumed Hunter Green was white because I've only been following him through box scores and I have not watched him pitch in a game for the Reds. I'm only following him through box scores. But I've been following him since the beginning of last season. And yesterday is when I discovered during the Dodger game that he was black. I love this game. It is a great game.

I love this game. We've got to play shameful admission more regularly around here. because I was embarrassed to say it now. I was embarrassed to feel it yesterday because I'm literally learning this, I don't know, 18 months ago, and the last time it happened to me was with Padre Shortstop, Khalil Green. Did you watch the whole game between the Reds and the Dodgers?

I did not. I just watched the beginning of it. Oh, what did you think Shohei was? Great at baseball. You know who's Japanese? Hunter Green had an SI cover. Oh, yeah? He was a prodigy. He was being compared to LeBron and Lee Jenkins did the story.

Is SI still a thing? I don't understand. Well, this was several years ago. I don't get SI and I don't get Deadspin. They're still working, right? But there's no one working for them? Do they still put out a magazine? They still have employees.

They just do things in the case of Sports Illustrated like also sell supplements. They're no longer what they used to be. They license their name a lot. A rarity in Major League Baseball today. It's happened a handful of times, actually fairly recently. but a player for the Guardians is making his major league baseball debut in the postseason. I made the mistake here of watching the Guardians yesterday and learning that they had three hitters, and I don't think I've seen this in a playoff team before, three hitters hitting under 200.

They, for the season, have allowed more runs than they've scored. Do you know how rare that is for a baseball team to be in the postseason with a minus six run different? been so much worse. Yeah. Imagine how many of them have Lisp. We were worried about that setup. You said you saw three haters. We're like,

uh-oh. Where are we going? We're going to batting down the hatch. It's been in one of those days. Hopefully, that's a hunter green path here. We're a societal shift. Pilots. Under 200.

Cody had a lot of thoughts on what Nick Wright had to say. Speaking of societal shifts that now protect Lamar Jackson instead of criticized Lamar Jackson. What, Cody didn't get any of those shots off while Nick Wright was here. But what were your... The hatch is this one. Who's on the great, Cody? The last one was a watch.

We're under warning now. Fast forward through this one. We're under warning. Don't worry, man. I am very tired of... Oh, boy. It's okay, guys. The government shut down.

Nothing can happen to it. I'm very tired about the criticism of Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, two great quarterbacks. Not pretty good, but great. But all you think of is, well, they never reached a Super Bowl. Go on. Won a Super Bowl, so how good can they be?

That is BS of the highest order. when you say that Lamar Jackson chokes, and that's what he was saying, it's still a small sample. He's 28 years old. He's got plenty of time to win a Super Bowl. Lamar Jackson is coming off the best year of his career last year. 41 touchdown passes, four interceptions. He's having a better year this year. He's scoring 33 points a game.

If his defense is even average and they're 3 in 1 or 4 and 0, nobody's talking. Nick Wright's not on recycling his old. bromides about how Lamar Jackson is a choker. Yeah, but you can't do small sample size, then give us three plus games of what Lamar Jackson is doing this year. That's what I'm saying. Oh, well, what he's doing this year? What are you saying? How about all last year? What about it? He had a great

season. He should have been the MVP. No, but we're far past the point though at Lamar Jackson where whatever he does in the regular season doesn't matter. Yeah, I think Josh Allen was a worthy MVP, and let's just say they had an MVP elimination game and Josh Allen won it. The problem with Lamar Jackson is

He doesn't get over the hump to have an opportunity to get over the other hump. Right. Josh Allen is labeled with a guy that can't get over the hump. And there might be some macro Buffalo Bill stuff too attached to Josh Allen. But it does seem like Lamar Jackson does avoid some of the same scrutiny. Like he's not even held to the same standard that Dak Prescott is. And I thought- I think that's coming to an end though.

Like I think it's starting to turn. Perhaps. I mean, look, the optics of being ruled out of a game in which he's not actively getting treatment for a soft tissue. issue injury. The optics of that were pretty weird and I do think that the tide is turning a little bit because this guy has to do something. Again, at no level of football has he won a championship. But I thought Nick, I found Nick's conversation, especially on the front end, a little illuminating because I felt it. There's two players in the history of this show that play that position, which if I criticize them, now I don't know what real engagement is on social media,

but I do get like the tinge of you racist. It's been Cam Newton and Lamarrow. Jackson, wildly popular players. Now, I don't necessarily understand the Cam Newton one, especially when I was criticizing him at a time that it was worth criticizing. Fall on the ball. It's right in front of you. But the Lamar Jackson stuff, I think I understand it better now because we were introduced to Lamar Jackson with a racial discussion, Bill Pollian, which, I mean, you can't ignore the race there. And I do think that there's been an overcorrection. And also, as Nick has pointed out in invoking Mina, and they're honestly others in the media spaces, I don't think they want to align themselves with people on perhaps

the other side. So they'll stay away from that because they can't necessarily see themselves agreeing with other people that are just doing like sports that may not necessarily have, well, they may not just be doing sports is what I'm trying to get at. There may actually be more to it for some of these people that are making those Lamar Jackson arguments, but I've always found it weird that we're so far removed from the Bill Pollian thing. I'm just trying to talk about this guy as a multiple time MVP that it's fair to say we're just doing sports sports commentating is about like hey why isn't this guy won a championship yeah but you you know and you're alluding to it and nick talked about it like when we're talking negatively about such a high

profile player like lamar jackson it is in the back of some people's minds where if they want to criticize it's like oh are people going to say that i'm being too harsh because he's a black quarterback i mean that's one thousand percent real well one of the reasons i lumped josh allen and lamar Jackson is that I don't think it's black and white here. I think that those two are victims of us being in the middle of the Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes era, just like a handful of really great quarterbacks were trampled by Tom Brady and New England during their dynasty. I think that it's unfair to find shortcomings in Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson because they haven't been in a Super Bowl yet when Patrick Mahomes clearly is dominating his era.

Well, but what do you make of, like, Nick brought up the point. Yes, Alan keeps losing to Mahomes. Jackson's only lost him once. And Greg, to your point, yeah, Brady, Manning, unbelievable quarterbacks, probably the greatest era in quarterbacking history. Brady got his, certainly. Manning even got his. Drew Breeze even got his.

Aaron Rogers got his. We're talking about Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. They've yet to even get to the game to have an opportunity to get theirs. Right. And they're both in their prime, though. like we're consigning them to the something's wrong shortcomings choke category prematurely Peyton Manning took a while to win a all the other guys did it when they were in their prime all the other guys didn't when they were in their prime hell Rathusberger did it as a very young

Is Lamar Jackson a Lobo? He used to be yeah he's a long time he's an all-time great lobo to be honest with it See that's good journalism right there that's why you're biased oh yeah the point is if If Lamar Jackson is available in the first second round of my fantasy drive, I'm going to grab them without hesitation. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.com.com. Okay, flights on air Canada. Oh, wow. Myorka, that's new. Oh, nice. Vienna is a classic Mozart, palaces and schnitzel.

Now you're cooking. If you're hungry, deli brings the heat. Heat. Cartagena's got sun and the sea to cool off. So does Martinique. And that French cuisine? Book it. Yes, chef.

Wait, what about Lyon? Choose from our world of destinations if you can. Air Canada. Nice travels. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from winters, I started wondering. Is every fabulous item I see from winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.

Are those from winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress, that jacket, those shoes. Is anyone paying full price for anything?

Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners find fabulous for less. Don Libetard. Surely every time you're watching this, you recognize that your wife is last. that she married, she married Larry David. I do, yeah.

One of the great characters in the history of television, in my humble opinion. And to my credit, my personality... In my humble opinion, followed by, to my credit. To my credit. It's amazing. It's just amazing. It does predate curve your enthusiasm. Stugats.

Oh, wow. I'm not going to say Larry David patterned himself after me. All right, put it on the poll, please, Jude. You did Greg Cody, copyright being an asshole long before. Larry David. This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stugats. One of the things that you've heard me be exasperated about for a long time because we all have our opinions and we think we know football and we know ball and we don't know ball because when Brocka Meyer for the Hurricanes gets a bunch of penalties as the center and then Mike

comes out and says, well, he graded very well. One of the things that that we do that is lazy and it's ignorant is we made Peyton Manning a choker. He won a championship one year when he had nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions. It's the worst version

of Peyton Manning they've ever been, they've ever had and that's the year that he won a championship. There are a lot of things that go into winning, but it's not escapable. That Zaz is correct when he says, Lamar Jackson can't prove anything during the regular season other than we'll make the last

game, the big game, because he had a bad one. If he'd had a good one, it wouldn't have mattered. It's a bad one, so we say that's a big game. That's what we're going to do to him until he starts playing in the Super Bowl. Like, it's not even, he can have, I'm sure he's had a good playoff game that no one remembers because it doesn't matter. He's got to get to the Super Bowl, because when you're the quarterback and you're the MVP, that's where the line gets put. He was solid in that Bill's game, right? I know he made, I think he made a mistake there, but that one's kind of remembered for Mark Andrews, not making

the catch. But how many points did they score in that game? That was probably the most that they've had in terms of like, they've well, is it historically. I'll look it up right now, but that game's remembered for Mark Andrews botching. Right, but the point I'm trying to make is he couldn't have had that great a game if they're scoring 17 in a playoff game. But the

standard, listen to what Mike just said there, just so that we have an accurate appraisal after you saw what happened to Tyreek Hill's leg. Lamar made a mistake there. Look at all the plays in the game. Well, the Bills Force three turnovers. And if he's got a turnover, that turnover is going to stick to him because he's not a player who turns the ball over in all the other games that we're saying aren't big game. I think that was the first time in a playoff loss that his team scored over 20 points. So it wasn't as bad. And again, like it fell on. He did have an

interception in that game. But that game is remembered from Mark Andrews not making a catch the way that Dalton Kincaid didn't make a play for Josh Allen in the following game. Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. A generation later, we continue, and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and other victims of this, we continue to put too much emphasis on, did he win a Super Bowl or didn't he? Is Aaron Rogers an all-time great? Because he only won one Super Bowl.

How about we judge careers by something beside that? He's an all-time great, but as a four-time MVP, everyone listening to this, say that Aaron Rogers is a winner underachieved. That was a two-point game. 27-25, Lamar Jackson had two turnovers, an interception and a fumble loss. Yeah, it's not good. And the part that I would push back with Alan and Lamar Jackson, both

of whom, of course, have not won. When Jackson is losing these games, their offense is not great and he does not play well. When Josh Allen is losing these games, he ends up being out-duled by the other quarterback. Like, Alan is still having a monster game and

just, oh yeah, he wasn't as good as Mahom. When he loses some of Holmes, it's like you left 13 seconds on the clock. How dare you? You didn't get an opportunity to get the ball back or Dalton Kincaid. He's performing. You get the throw off in the game against the Ravens while Lamar Jackson has two pivotal turnovers. Josh Allen has none and that's the difference.

Right. And I would agree that relative to their greatness, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have both underachieve to this point. I'm also not ready to write off Lamar Jackson and consign him to the Choker failure. category because he's 28 years old and he's in his literally in his prime it is curious though because there is a empirical drop in performance from the MVP in the league of the league that will have questions surrounding him until he wins a super bowl it's not even going to be getting to a super bowl he's placed the bar in an impossible place for for a guy who was thought to not

be a quarterback when he came out of Louisville. Is it fair to say that I am now satisfied with the level of Lamar Jackson hasn't been able to do it discourse because I've been waiting to just have this show, hey, let's talk about it, let's talk about the racial aspects. I think like now he's in a position that John Elway found

himself in. At least John Elway got to the game, though. Lamar's got to get to the game. That's fair. I want to play some sound here that we made fun of a while ago when Ron Washington appeared at an introductory press conference. for the Angels, and I want to have a conversation afterward.

Ron Washington has been let go by the Angels. Bruce Bochy, a champion, has been let go by a multi-time champion, has been let go by the Rangers. But here's what Ron Washington had to say, and we made fun of this press conference when he came in all gangbusters talking a big game, and then, of course, the Angels end up going, as they always do, 70 and 92. I've always been a part of winning. I don't know anything else but winning. We're going to be a body.

we're not going to talk about it. Our whole focus is going to be to run the West down and you can take that to the bank and deposit. So it didn't last very long with the Angels. And the thing I wanted to ask you, because they're talking about Albert Pujols as the next manager possibly

of the Angels. We just got in basketball to doing this, where we give unqualified people who we thought were smart players, the top job with Steve Kerr, Derek Fisher. We just started doing that in basketball. Baseball's got a long history of it. Baldelli was managing the twins, and baseball does it all the time.

Football doesn't do it, right? You're not allowed to go straight to the top spot. Dion was the guy. Well, but Dion, people laughed at the idea of Dion being an NFL head coach without any training. They're doing it at HB. CUs, sorry. Wow, no wonder they question you on Lamar. Racist.

Yeah, really? Lisp. What? by invoking the fact that these are the schools that are so... Don't get defensive. You're the one who struggled with HBCU. Okay. But Deshawn Jackson, Michael Vick, Dion Sanders, as you outlined before, they're giving the opportunities to players that haven't had head coaching experience and just getting them right to that top position to hopefully launch pad them to get that top position.

Because a lot of the guys, they don't want to be, they don't want to do the Jason Taylor thing, which is toil away as a position coach. A lot of these guys who have had borderline Hall of Fame. careers. They want to go right to the big job. So what's the difference there, though? Why is it? I don't feel like people question. Like I say Albert Pooholz, manager of the Angels, and everybody's like, okay, fine. We do that all the time in baseball. I was surprised when Derek Fisher and Steve Kerr were immediately offered five-year, $25 million contract. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're going to make that person the head coach of your team when he's got no experience in

coaching? I think there's a split difference where basketball kind of finds itself in the middle, where it can be surprising or not. J.J. Reddick almost put his credentials on display. Jay J.J. Reddick just got an extension after one year. They ran a pretty good offense under J.J. Reddick. And with baseball, I think the reason you see it more often is it's not like playing one individual position necessarily changes what the schematic side of the game is. So if you were a random NFL quarterback even, what's to say you know how to coach the defensive side of the ball and run a, full system where if you were a major league baseball catcher, you know everything that there is

to know about the scheme going into the game and you have your position coaches who are working with these guys individually. There's not as many things. There's not plays that you're running outside of, hey, lay down a bun or put on a hit and run, which also don't happen. Oh, but as complicated as football is, I believe that most of the people analyzing basketball don't have any idea what they're actually watching in terms of how much is going in to the scheming of everything that they're doing. It's not as complicated as football, but I am confused. Baseball, you got it. I happen to feel like, and Boog Shambi has disagreed with me on this, but I believe Boog could manage a major league baseball team. I think he has enough knowledge of the metrics

and the strategy that I believe that he would be a good manager strategy-wise. But I don't assume that because Derek Fisher and Steve Kerr were good, smart players, that they can be a good head coach for a basketball team. But everyone seems to be an agreement that if I made your football coach right now, somebody who was the head coach of the team, even though I believe that person could be a delegator, I believe I could make Dion Sanders my game day coach of an NFL team with no experience, and let him delegate to the offensive and defensive coordinator

and all of his line coaches and everything else, the game day stuff so that he could be a face and a voice for a team, without having to be anything other than the guy roaming the sideline sort of making fourth down decisions. But is football that much more complicated than basketball that you guys just say simply, I would not allow an Albert Pooholz to go straight to the front of the line, head coach of my team with no training.

I would not trust that. I think it's clearly, with basketball, the player, he's on the floor. he sees everything that went on during his career. There wasn't anything happening that he wasn't aware of. When with football, outside of your position, there's definitely so much happening that you are not aware of. And we've seen some recent examples of former players who were elevated rather quickly and it didn't work out.

I mean, heck, you can go back, it was a while ago, Mike Singletary, disaster with the 49ers. But even more recently, Antonio Pierce with the Raiders, one and done, really bad. And last year, Drodmeo with the Patriots, won and done. Jeff Saturday. Jeff Saturday was a joke. Like, people consider that a joke. And, yeah, you don't have the example of it working. So the more high-profile examples, like you lay out right there.

I think Singletary had some experience. He was coaching on staffs. It wasn't quite like that. But you're only scaring more people away from taking that chance in the NFL. And also, the scrutiny and the attention that comes with the NFL of sport in which, more than any of the other sport, the people on their couch think they know what they're talking about. because it's king's sport here? I can be an OC.

Jack Del Rio, how much coaching did he do, assistant coaching did he do before he got a head job? It is curious to me that people would think that Albert Pujols would be good at that job, even understanding as much about baseball as Albert Pujolz. I mean, if you're a bilingual player that already has the credentials in a clubhouse that you do by just simply being Albert Pujos, If you're willing and able to be a communicator with the rest of your teammates and you're someone who hit 1,698 home runs in your career, then that's the perfect spot for you is Major League Manager already. And you can take that to the bank and deposit. Hey, Jeremy, old buddy, old pal. Hey, Mike.

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