The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Local Hour: Today's Crew Fixes Yesterday's Show

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

After yesterday's show, full of hot takes and reckless accusations, some of today's crew called it "one of the worst days in show history." Today's group does its best to correct yesterday's mistakes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I don't need your political commentary here, I just wanted facts, I just asked for facts. Those don't exist anymore, but you got it Dan. Okay, I just, ha ha ha ha ha, We got a great show. You asked the wrong guy. Just keep your opinions to yourself for a moment and just find me the facts of things that he sells. You're like Jeremy Kimmel? I mean, what is he doing? Honest to God.

It's a monologue, Dan. I mean, people are confused here, seeing you in a baseball cap. I don't recognize what's happening around you. You do look 15 years younger, and because of Ramadan, it looks like you have lost a good amount of weight. You look leaner, too. When you say people are confused,

is that a euphemism for I'm confused? No, I wasn't confused and didn't think of it at all, but Chris Cody mentioned to me, he said everybody over here was confused by you in a baseball cap. Just multiple comments from the room. Amin's in a hat. I mean, it sounds like he thinks you normally look like crap

like you're wearing a hat. You look a lot younger. Oh, did you lose weight? Cause you were looking really pudgy before. Now you're looking a lot better. Is it Ramadan? What's going on with you, Amin? It does sound like all those things, doesn't it Billy?

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Trump merchandise for 2024, NFTs, watches, and of course, the Trump Bible. NFTs? I'm so pissed because when they made the Gulf of America proclamation, I was talking to someone, I'm like, dude, I wanna sell Gulf of America maps. Because this is a grift that people will buy maps

that say Gulf of America, but I need to be the first to market on this, right? But then I was also thinking, if I print up 20,000 Gulf of America maps, I need to really be certain these are gonna sell, because that is an investment that is going to lead to me having 19,800 Gulf of America maps in a garage somewhere and a loss of $40,000 that I do not have.

Billy, they're buying them up like hotcakes, man. The thing then also is I was thinking, I'm like, well, I'm not a cartographer, right? So how do I go about making a map because the earth is cartographer, right? So like, how do I go about making a map? Because how, like, the earth is the earth, right? Like, it's not like, this isn't like a copy written thing where like, if I just trace someone else's map, they would know.

Like, you know what land masses look like more or less, right? Unless like, and here's the thing, maybe there are cartographers that are out there, they're like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna add an extra little bump to Florida and see if then someone has this bump on their Florida and then they know that they're just copying my map.

So these are all the thoughts that went through my head when I was like, you know what, I can get in on this grift and make like a quick buck and just get in and get out and just sell these maps. But then I was like, there are a lot of downsides here that could lead to me having over 19,000 maps that I traced someone else's intellectual property land masses. And then I'm in a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars on fictitious maps just to get in on a grift. So I didn't do it. You know what's funny about that is the shape of Florida and having a little bump on it, it fits. This is the Dan Leventor Show with the StuGuts Podcast.

I feel like we need a new phrase for selling like hotcakes. We need something to replace hotcakes. I don't think that anymore that hotcake sales are representative of the way that things sell the most. And so I'd like some nominees from folks on something that sells, because it's an outdated phrase. And when did anyone call them hotcakes? What year are we talking about? Well, here's a suggestion.

What about selling like Flapjacks? Greg's right. The thing that I wanted to get to with you guys today is Jessica and Amin stomping in today saying, and this is saying something right here, that yesterday was a show for all time with bad takes. That it is one of the worst shows we've ever done based solely on the opinions had on the show.

One of them, and it didn't make anyone's top five list, was Tony saying LeBron has more protection than the president. That wasn't even on the list of like bad takes for all time. So Jessica, I mean, the floor is yours. Do you want to go first? So the take that made me the saddest was about Righteous Gemstones.

That made me sad that you guys didn't appreciate the art that was the first episode of the new season of Righteous Gemstones. Also, you made false claims that it was the most expensive episode they've ever shot, which Danny McBride said is not true. They filmed it in 10 days. Bradley Cooper didn't get paid anything.

He had never seen the show before. He was just coming in hot and he was like, I'm gonna be Elijah Gemstone's Gemstone and the entire episode is about how this family's entire fortune is based off of a grifter, a Bible grifter. And if you didn't catch that, it's not really a spoiler. The whole show's a flashback.

Catch that. If you didn't really catch that. Didn't catch it, okay, missed that, okay. Just missed it. I mean, it, okay, missed that. Okay, just missed it. I mean, it's giving you like a origin story about this family and how this all began. And it was perfect for tying it into how they exist now in the show.

So the entire episode being set in World, excuse me, Civil War era America in the South, the gemstone patriarch, the original gemstone, if you will. I didn't know that, that Bradley Cooper had never watched the show because I was staggered watching him how he sounded like Danny McBride's character. The way he was dismissive,

the way he's kind of like, all right, he's clearly not sincere in any of this. It was, it made me respect Bradley Cooper as an actor even more. I was like, wow, he's really nailing this in the same way that when they do the flashback episodes and prior seasons where they got that, the little kid playing young Danny McBride,

how he nails it, I'm like, oh my God. And the little girl that plays young Judy Gemstone, like, oh my God, they're doing such a great job. These kids are really good actors. Watching Bradley Cooper do it, where it's not overt like the kids do, where they are just younger versions of the characters they're playing,

where it's just, hey, this thing runs through the family. This attitude. It's a wonderful show. It's a wonderfully artistic show. As people complain about being able to do comedy well, they skewer religion in a way that is amusing. But that's why we had the worst takes in the world. That was one of them.

I think that one made me the saddest because I appreciated that episode. I was like you, Dan. I turned on the episode and I was ready to see what Uncle Baby Billy was up to. I was ready to see what Keef was up to. I was ready to see what all my favorite friends, the Gemstones, were up to over this long hiatus.

But 10 minutes in, I realized, okay, this flashback is not gonna come to present day. This is just gonna be like one big flashback episode. I'm along for the ride now. And I was waiting for them to sort of like tie it all together. And at the end of the episode, they did. They landed the plane and I was like, I see what they did with this.

And it made me sad to hear that you and Mike both didn't like it. I was in it the whole way. As soon as I saw, oh, it's Bradley Cooper! And then they're like, okay, he's doing a Danny McBride thing. Okay, oh, this is how the whole, when he switches the name, like, this is how it starts. Cool, I was in it the whole way, and like Jessica, I was sad, and I was angry,

and I was ashamed, Dan, ashamed. Because typically, to pull back the curtain on this show, someone has ridiculous opinion, there's gonna be one person who backs up their ridiculous opinion. Cause we yes, we have. Oh, I don't, no, no, no. Hold on.

You're not flying in and explaining the show to people. You can have your righteous gemstones opinions without showing people the entirety of the show. Is that my gemstones opinion that is righteous or is it a righteous gemstones opinion? I didn't watch the show because there was no dissenting opinion yesterday. So like I got home and I was like,

I guess just universally everyone thought this episode sucked. So I didn't watch and I'm like, I'm gonna watch season, I'm gonna watch it eventually. But like when I got home and I had free time, I was like, am I gonna dedicate 39 minutes to this, that everyone was saying how bad it was? Like, why would I do that? No one loved it.

And then I come in and I'm like, hold on a second. It was amazing. That is not the opinion at all. I also, I heard you guys say like, you didn't, you liked the episode, but not for the premiere of the season. When would you rather have in the middle of the season? I do not put Mike Ryan's words on me. I do not want those words on me.

This is a show that I like a lot and admire that it's as ambitious as it is and that in their fourth season they would do that kind of zig when everyone's in on we'll eat up whatever you're giving us because we believe that this is the best of what max s offer this is the best of what creativity has to all your accused any of what of just one in the spend the east deals money uh... i accused any mcbride in the streaming age of making a statement by going well a field of what it is that they normally do,

taking out all of the characters that you've grown to love and starting the fourth season with the surprise of Bradley Cooper in what I'm assuming will be a season that has a whole bunch of cameos from people who do actually appreciate the gemstones. The statement is, I make a really good show. That's the statement he made. Not like, oh, okay, how can I let HBO in the world know

that in a streaming age I'm going to zag? No, he's not doing that. They're telling the story and they're telling it beautifully, especially knowing that this is the last season. It's not like they can get to this in season six. This is it, ladies and gentlemen, so he's going to empty the chamber. We'll get BJ pole dancing eventually.

Yes. Apparently he did all his own pole dancing stunts in this season. Wow. And trust me, when I turned on HBO Max on Sunday night, Max, as the kids call it these days, I wanted to see that pole dancing. And I realized instead I was gonna get Bradley Cooper

in a period drama that I was not expecting. And you know what, it was excellent. It was great, they nailed it. Instead of castigating Dan Leventhal, why don't you get Tim Balz, who plays BJ, huge sports fan from Chicago, get him on the show as a guest. That would be fine.

Yeah, why don't you do that instead of castigating? Look, I don't want a Gemstones episode that doesn't have any of the characters in it, it's okay. No, and it sets it up with the characters, it sounds like. They've done flashbacks a bunch of times on this show. They have? Have you seen it or not? No, I haven't.

You guys ruined it for me. I came in and I was like, this show was bad. Everybody thought it was bad. Why am I gonna watch it? So we're 10 minutes in and you guys, this one television take is why it is that we had the worst show in show history yesterday? We wanted to start off easy.

We wanted to start off with a little warmup routine here. Like the hot towel on first class, right? This isn't the meal yet. Let's get to the meat and potatoes here, Dan. I was so ashamed yesterday. You were so reckless that you, you're Dan LeBattard. You have a platform that echoes across not only this nation, but internationally.

We talked about this the other day. You're an international icon, right? And for you to sit here and use that platform so flippantly to baselessly just completely dismiss that Ray Romano impression, I was flabbergasted. That guy nailed it. And you're sitting here killing the callers and killing the fans and the listeners who are trying to help contribute.

And I was getting ready, like Billy saying,y saying getting ready oh my god this gemstones episode must be terrible i was getting ready oh man dan said these calls are terrible and i said whoa let me buckle up for how lame these calls are and then i hear that ray remont oh my god and you thought that was lazy and bad and not funny and all that? Hit me again. He's not looking at you. That's why I said hit me again. I was looking for Miranda.

Miranda was good too. But that wasn't yesterday. Yesterday was Ray Romano. Damn. I'm going to ask this. This is the first time I've ever asked you this question. Ma! Dan! I'm gonna ask this, first of all, I'm gonna ask you this question. The creative community around our show

used to be something that was so competitive that that would have been a 68 seat in a tournament because it's not quite good enough. Get out of here. Not quite good enough. I agree with, like in general, your point is not wrong, but the last few weeks, they've turned it up, is all we're saying.

You're hitting them like they're still down, they're trying. Maybe it's you. 305-486, that's a very hard opinion for you to come by there, Billy. Very unpopular. I'd just say maybe it's Ray Romano was liked and you didn't like everybody loves Raymond and there's a bias here, an inherent bias against our audience and now you're taking it out on poor old Ray Romano was liked, and you didn't like everybody loves Raymond, and there's a bias here, an inherent bias against our audience,

and now you're taking it out on poor old Ray Romano. Do you also have something against Al Michaels and Kermit the Frog? Maybe it's the voice. You don't like this high-pitched voice. Maybe it's a 305-486-gotts if you wanna do better than the callers have been doing recently. Miranda?

Come on. Hey man. Is that bad too? Come on. I had a crush on Kermit the Frog when I was guys. Hey, man. Is that bad too? Come on. I had a crush on Kermit the Frog when I was little. Really? Yeah.

Well, Miss Piggy won't appreciate that, so. But yay! You had dreams of little tadpoles? Oh, cute. Billy, you got in with really like you were interested and then you lost all interest. No, I'm not. I mean, I did you not? I mean, he has a great Kermit. I try. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it goes. What does the future hold for business?

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Don LeBattard while I was gone a third Zagacki was born and I think I heard correct me if I'm wrong here Jeremy trying to partake in a fourth Zagacki and I am here for a future where I am surrounded by a chorus of clucking Zagacki Stu Gatz you know what it means when of clucking Zagakis. Stugats. You know what it means when you have four Zagakis, Dan. I don't. You don't have one. This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats. What other bad takes did we have yesterday?

Okay, sorry. Clearly I was building up to this point. Dan, you can speculate how, oh, it's a wonder that PEDs aren't more prevalent in basketball the way we know it is in football and baseball. What you cannot do unequivocally is put someone's name on it

who does not have any history of it. I get what you're saying but Dan you got to remember you're not Fran Lebatard or Dan Lebowitz. You're Dan Lebatard. There's a 20 under that. The show has been on the air for 20 years. You've been in the media for longer than. When you even ask questions of that variety you are creating Something slash giving voice or gas to something no matter how unfounded it is So you cannot say well Shail Sonnen said it if Shail had just said it if it had just come out He was this week's guest on Andrew Schultz's show

then he was this week's guest on and show to show maybe as an unopening a newsworthy lane you're talking about the i'm leonis states it's it's a timeliness question where i can uh... ask questions in uh... we're gonna we're gonna agree on this part right we're living in the skeptical age right the age of skepticism and so if i just make it hypothetical athlete X, I don't even make it LeBron and everything you know, I simply say to you, what do you think is more likely that an athlete would try and defy age through science at the end of his career or that one athlete

had a career that defied the limits of the human body unlike any we've ever seen in terms of mileage and how his body holds up for 20 straight years I'm assuming he did Karim have more minutes? I'm assuming LeBron James has played more minutes than anyone else Which do you think is more likely? I think if you put it as a hyper if you frame it exactly as you frame it there That there are people could say we know who you're hinting at There are people who could say, we know who you're hinting at, but I think you stay on this, albeit very close to that line,

on this side of the line of, okay, you can have that conversation. If I preface it though, if I'm prefacing it with all that you know about me and my admiration for LeBron, combined with, hey, I'm not accusing anyone of anyone here, I'm trying to have the macro conversation around America's giant biggest athlete

for the last two decades, using him as a vehicle, as we talk about Moe Vaughn over here and Echblad over there, using him as, here's, you've got this unprecedented thing. Can you guys explain to me, America, why this is the line too far on your skepticisms? Like, when I'm not even, I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm just wondering why this is the place too far on your skepticism like and when I'm not even I'm not accusing him of anything I'm just wondering why this is the place that you get this offended

I'm offended because you said it then because you and as you say my admiration for LeBron you think it absolves you What it does is it puts more credence in what you're just throwing out as a question But for people to say well Dan lebetard has always said nice things about LeBron and how he's coming to take everybody's stuff and now he's asking whether he's doing PEDs. But I surely, now I'm just telling you how it received. You're not, I know you're not sending it out that way, but the message is being received that way

because of who you are. It would be like, Dan, it would be like if I all of a sudden started talking about J. Cole having ghost writers. But Amin loves J. Cole. He's just asking the question, how can this guy keep being creative and writing like this without ghost writers, right? If I said that, given who I am to that person, then it allows people to say, wait a second, I thought this is just a barbershop conversation, but this guy who has all the credibility is bringing it and giving it credence. And so when you say America and skepticism and where's our skepticism and all that,

yes, it's right to be skeptical about things. But also we live in an age where cockamamie statements have been given credence by people we deem credible, right? It's cockamamie. But this guy's talking about it, so it must be true. Some people might say the 45th president of the United States would not be president if it weren't for credible news organizations during the Republican primaries when it was just a clown show giving attention to it

as opposed to letting it be a clown show over there and we talk about the real candidates and most likely a farce a guy just doing it for publicity would not have risen to the highest office in power that's the problem and the craziest thing about it the craziest it, you want to know what a good take was yesterday?

Mike Ryan of all people said it. He said, you know who's the happiest person right now? Aaron Echblat. There is an athlete, a white athlete I might add, who has been ruled a champion using PEDs. If this had happened to Jason Tatum, is that black good? Give me, yeah, he's good. He's above average.

Okay, so like Derek White, Chris Schaap, Drew Holiday. Drew Holiday. If it came out that Drew Holiday was on PEDs, you know how many asterisks we would have threw on the table on the Celtics Championship? No, Tatum, Tatum would have, if you do it with Tatum, the others there wouldn't be asterisks.

There would. Jalen Brown there would be. There would, there would because this is something that is, like it's one thing to be caught juicing, it's another thing to get caught juicing and you're the defending champs, right? This guy should have been the center of the conversation, particularly in your local hour

Where we're supposed to allow local athletes a little bit. Let me bring something up here talking about some other guy Let me bring something up here because If I were to do things the way that you're alleging that I'm doing them by coming this close to the line on wherever it is You crossed it you didn't come okay, so wherever it is that my credibility resides What remains of it. The idea that we are talking about 20 years in the oldest player in the league still dominating the headlines when he's out, we talk about him and how Luca's going to do with him out. It's just crazy that at this age, he's doing these things, and because Tom Brady has normalized it. I'm trying to have a conversation with you

about skepticism, with him as the avatar, the way he is for fatherhood, when all of a sudden him and Stephen A. are arguing, or wherever it is that in the modern age, you give relevance to and power and Currency to these people we're witnessing something that has no precedent for the human body And I'm not even questioning it, but I'm asking why there aren't questions about it. That's the same thing Like asking questions about why we're not asking questions is the same thing as asking

questions in the ear of the listener. You might not have that intention, but by bringing it up and saying, hey, that's pretty suspicious. We've never seen anything quite like that. Why aren't you guys asking questions about it? Why aren't you skeptical? Makes me go, oh, should I be skeptical? I guess I should be skeptical.

If I were doing this, the way that Amin is accusing me of doing it, I would just look at the camera and get the clicks of making the accusation in some framed way that would be smart. I'm not doing that, I'm simply presenting you with an unprecedented athlete doing unprecedented things at the end of his career and asking why it is that everyone who is watching this would say to me

if after the fact it actually happened, well, yeah, of course. Well, yeah, of course. Like that makes sense that that body would work more than any human body ever and oh, it had some help. And that seems like a legitimate question to me. You're, you just accused me of accusing you. I'm not accusing you.

I understand your intellectual curiosity about it. I'm telling you that there is, in the same way that when we did the, when we talked about the Britney Spears documentary three or four years ago or whatever, whenever I came out on Hulu, and there was a scene where she's being mobbed because she went to Starbucks.

And everyone was like, oh my God, this must be so awful for her. And I'm like, no, yeah, you're Britney Spears, you don't get to go to Starbucks anymore at that point of her career. You don't get to do that anymore. Steven A. Smith talks about, I can't go to the movies anymore.

He hasn't been to movies in so long, why? Because he said, if I walk into a movie theater, it distorts the reality of what this experience should be. The experience should be, oh I'm ready to watch Captain America, whatever. And instead the experience goes, Stephen A. Smith is here! Hey man, you think the Lakers are gonna do it? So you, I don't know if this is ignorance or humility, Dan you are not in a place where you get to innocently ask that question, even as I know you innocently asked it,

because it comes out innocent here, and by the time it goes into that little camera right there and into that microphone, comes out into the ears and the eyes of people, it loses its innocence completely, and it becomes a prompt to question LeBron James's Whatever he's doing right and that question. Why would you why why do you why do you think that? It's a difference between when Chael Sonnen

noted dumbass Says it alleged Alleged dumbass and when Dan Levitt are Dan always says good things about LeBron. Wait why would he bring that up? No he didn't side with him on cookie gate either. So now we're back to back on these and now it's like maybe there's motive some are saying. He went out there and he took shots at the heat. He accused him of stealing his cookies and now all of a sudden he's on steroids.

Having said all of this all of you would bet yes. Everyone would bet yes. Bet yes on what? I'm confused. Whether he's done it or not. But we're on a major podcast, on a major network, accusing someone of doing something that there is no. Not accused.

He didn't accuse. Okay, asking why we aren't accusing someone of doing something is, I don't think it's our place to do that. Unless there is a legitimate conversation about it stemming from someone with legitimate eyewitness accounts or whatever investigative story there is. Hold on a second. Does J. Cole write his own songs or not?

I think that's really what's been lost on this. Cause you go to Dreamville Fest and you have this relationship with J. Cole and here you are saying he has ghost writers. Is that so or is that not so? He must have ghost writers. I must, right? Like that seems like it would be the natural progression.

But I think Dan, like the thing about it all is. Okay, so he does. He must, I mean, clearly. I never thought about it before right now. But if this is a lie detector, I'm not gonna guess. If he brought it up, I believe it now. Evasive. J. Cole has Ghost Rider.

J. Cole took a bigger hit, I think, right there because of his friendship with J. Cole than LeBron did in whatever it is that we're talking about. That kind of proves his point, though. There's nothing wrong with Ghost Rider. That was the point. Britney Spears, great artist. Chris, when you ask if you have to bet or whatever, here's the reality. There are things that I want to be first at being right at or early on being right at, and then there are things that I'm perfectly fine.

This is not one of them. I'm perfectly fine being wrong if it turns out. Right, because we're jerks. If we're wrong, we're jerks. That's fair. But this one will never, like we can agree, this one will never turn out. Because he's more protected than the president

You're Tony yesterday This one like I mean it's proven that today I mean it's gone after me harder than he went after Trump or Musk like I mean is proven that today Hey, I put it on the sheet. Well, he believes he can make a difference in this case Other cases, you know, I don't have credibility when it comes to talking about the president of talking about an old dark right i have credibility when it comes to talk about our sport and especially about how people talk about our sport and when you hear like

rich paul you know going on uh... was in a few whatever and and saying kind of the things he's saying i see it as this is the reaction they are defending this thing that they feel like they are under attack from, right? And so you are basically rolling a grenade into the middle of the aisle and say, but I didn't pull the pin.

It's just a grenade. But you're giving, you're arming people with the tools to begin an assault. The thing though that, okay, and so you're holding me responsible, I understand. You did it all the way to the primaries. You're holding me responsible for, if the question gets poisoned once it's out of my hands, you're giving me a giant media responsibility there. Because you put the question out there.

I did put the question out there, but I'm about to explain to you, okay, in the content age, I'm about to explain to you okay in in the content age I'm about to explain to you the whys of it I'm super interested in the reaction I'm super interested in the macro conversation and the athlete is I can change it by the decade it doesn't matter whether it's Lebron I remember the way people behaved when we turned turned it mcguire and so so into the people that we turned them into and then over the last twenty years everyone from lance armstrong

to bury bonds to everyone else has been some form of a lot and so this guy who is managed over twenty years to be a pillar that i've never seen in my journalism career not just uh... did an international icon that has done almost everything the right way, also has, as scientific fact behind him, the fact that his body has held up better than any human body has ever under these conditions. And so I ask of America, not LeBron, why don't you ask why? Like what happened over the last 20 years on this stuff where we just weren't curious

about that and Tom Brady and all the stuff that allows these people to age 10 years beyond previous facts. Dan, you talked about McGuire and Sosa yesterday and how they had the andro in the locker and that reporters were doing interviews at the lockers and we could see the andro in the background. And then you root how could we not know. I think there's a massive difference between you root, how could we not know? I think there's a massive difference between those examples

where they're literally like, hey, this is the thing I take, it's right here, versus you're just looking at it like, that doesn't look right, right? There's any, look, I could play this game for a lot of athletes. You really believe Michael Jordan got beat by the Pistons and then said, all I have to do is lift weights,

and then all of a sudden, he's indestructible and awesome. Wait a minute, are you asking that question now publicly? I'm not, I'm countering your reckless. By the way, this is the most offensive part. We have a button right here, where is it? That says- Put it on the the pole did Michael Jordan take PEDs. Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call

reckless speculation. You can't even blame Chris for not putting you have the button in front of you at any time you could have hit that button and then that would have it still would have been reckless but at least given the acknowledgement hey guys we're gonna play a little bit outside of the sandbox today. Nobody called for it, nobody, you guys just went along with it. That's the part that was disappointing then,

is that there was nobody who was like, whoa, what do we do, hit that button if you're gonna say that. If Stugats had done that, if Stugats was the one who, I asked the question, why isn't anyone asking the question we would have roasted him we would have put him up we would have hung him up in effigy we would have sent him or even worse we would have sent him to the penalty box right we had this conversation or y'all had this conversation and not once did anyone point out yo at least play the sounder

if we're going to do this. I think on the opposite end, and it was another argument that we had yesterday, and it's kind of tied in here, was when we were talking about Laramy Tunsel, and the whole argument was basically like, well, no one really cares that he, you know, smoked weed now in 2025, right?

And like, that's kind of where we are in sports. Like, no one really cares if people test positive for PEDs and get suspended anymore. No, they care because the guy got suspended. Yeah, but no one cares about it. Well, I'm sure Panthers fans care about it. I mean, but there's not the outrage. There's not the outrage when Manny Ramirez got suspended

or when any of the bigger names in baseball got suspended. We're now 10 years removed from the shock value of, oh, the people that we really like use steroids and they're cheating and there's this purity in the sport. Now there's just kind of an assumption like, eh, maybe there's something going on there, but I don't care, because it's a sport I like.

So LeBron, even if something was going on there, is not gonna get suspended for anything. It would be the biggest scandal in the history of the sport. It would be if it came out, which the NBA has not incentivized for it to ever come out. And that's why people don't really care to look into it because it's just like, eh, maybe everyone's doing it.

Because there wasn't that like naivete that there was at the time of Mark McGuire. It was like, whoa, the best player's cheating? How is that possible? I think, sure, like there's a purity and an innocence that was had in 1998 that doesn't exist anymore, but still, it is still shocking nonetheless, if that happens.

I don't think it's, ah, so he did it. But only if it's him, right? Like if Tyler Hero gets suspended for P.E.T.s, he'd be like, eh. Bobby Portis got suspended, and we're like, basically, you're right, Aaron Egbert, apparently we were, the Stanley Cup champ. Tyler would be like, eh. Bobby Porter's got suspended, and we're like, ugh, basically, you're right. Aaron Egbert, apparently we were, ugh, the Stanley Cup champion. Tyler'd be like, why isn't he thinking more?

He's still kind of schooning. Well, also, Tyler's not a defending champion, and somehow we just avoided talking about that for some reason. I wonder why that is, right? So then it was maybe because you're banging a drum, accusing us of bias. Journalism stuff.

You banged a drum? They did give you a jersey. You guys all on Roy. Roy, how did you not know? You went to their building and you banged a drum. Did you ask any questions or you just have to keep it? Did you have locker room access? All of a sudden they look at you up,

they give you that jersey, they say here's the drum banging practice, here's some four VIP tickets. The rest of the people have to pay, that's another thing. We did that again. Journalism, die. Right there. Do you guys have any other bad takes from yesterday?

Yeah, you know what, Dan? You were the only one who was right on one of these takes. Which is Laramie Tunsell. We just brought it up. What? No, everyone was losing their minds in pearl clutching over the idea of weed like 10 years later. Like, oh my God, a guy smoked weed

and oh my God, he has to fall down the draft. Greg said that, still, this is 2025. He was like, well, you know, you should, when you see that, you should be questioning a guy's mental health. It was like one of the wildest 2012 conversations about this type of thing that we've ever had. And Dan was the only one steadfast in, that was a pretty wild thing when you have a guy that talented that he would drop down the draft just because he was smoking a little weed.

Let me, let me, let me go first to the Greg corner. I know what Greg's doing there. Greg was playing 2025 language bingo. So it's like a mental health. That's what you cause you guys blame everything on mental health. Anything that- What do you mean you people? You people, your generation, you're with your TikToks and your algorithms

and your mental health is this and mental health is that, right? So we're not gonna jump on Greg for that one. There's something else that Greg messed up on yesterday. That'll get that, we'll get that out on the list. I'm a little confused by the strategy today. We came in saying yesterday was the worst show we've ever done, so we're relitigating all of the takes

from yesterday again. We're doing it right. We're doing it right. We're fixing it. Billy, we're doing it right. We're fixing wrongs. We're righting wrongs. That's what we're doing. I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow's show

where we talk about what we talked about today. No, well. Mike comes back and he's like, that Gemstones episode sucked and you're wrong. Oh, no, no, no, no. All right, so the Laramie Tunsel thing. Mike comes back and he's like that gemstones episode sucked All right, so the Laramie tonsil thing again, oh my god Mike Ryan had two good points yesterday We can see here. Just text Mike Ryan and tell him what I know because he had so many awful ones But somehow two gems came out and this how I know is accidental He never went back to them in the middle of that conversation. He just was just talking.

So you're accusing him of accidentally making good points. Yes, that's exactly what I'm accusing him of. You're also reviewing the show like a restaurant critic or like a film critic. Are you taking notes on the- This would be a pan. What are you talking about?

That seems, that part seems obvious. Dan, you know what it feels like when I'm in a room with my kids and I say, okay, don't mess anything up. Don't touch anything. Got it, Dad. Turn around, walk out, walk back in the room. I'm like, what happened?

I was only gone for a couple of days and this is what you guys did? And so when I say I could do this every week, but I don't because it's not that interesting. Oh, I'm here though. No, I would be here for about 10 minutes of a mean show ombudsman just tells us all the things we got terribly wrong.

We're 23 minutes past 10 though. Okay, we already have someone who does a very good job of it. His name is Juju Gotti. Catch him in the post game show. But when I say that yesterday was one of the all time worst episodes from the things that were said. Now it might have done well ratings wise, it might have been entertaining, but like the things that were said. Now it might have done well ratings wise, it might have been entertaining, but like the things that were said.

So the Laramie Townsend thing, I'll tell you what was wrong, Jeremy, and how Mike Ryan of all people had the right take. It's not about our sensibilities towards marijuana. You've hit him with two of all people. Because I'm staggered. Tread lightly, I mean, you're not gonna be on the show for a year.

You have hit him with Mike Ryan of all people twice in the last 10 minutes. But we can sit here and talk about the sensibilities towards marijuana. But the reality is Josh Gordon was one of the best players at his position in NFL and his career was destroyed. And as Steven A. Smith said, stay off the weed.

Remember that? It wasn't about whether marijuana is good or bad. I believe by 2016, 2017, we all had figured out, okay, this is a big much ado about nothing in terms of the impact of this product on people. It's actually less detrimental than alcohol. Then when I was a scout and we would find out when we do the intel reports on guys,

we were more worried about the alcoholics because of what it does to your body. With the marijuana smokers, we were just worried about, are you smart enough to not get caught? Because the testing is not, you know, not that rigorous if you know what to look for. And so when you see Laramie Tunsel with the damn thing, the gas mask on, the question isn't,

oh my God, he smokes weed. It's this dumb ass is gonna get caught and suspended. And so when you're talking about spending a top 10 draft pick in a sport where they really really value their draft picks really it's not like the NBA we'll do it again next year you cannot risk it because if you take him that high and then this dumb ass gets suspended because he couldn't stay off the weed they still took him at 13 of course because there's a risk reward at every stage. Like the lower the risk, the more, like, okay, I'm willing to.

What is your objection? My contention that leadership risks unpopularity. What is your contention? So that was all to lead me to that point right there. Dan LeBataard, you want leadership to risk unpopularity. I don't remember. It must, it must. It must, yes it must.

I don't remember you sticking up for Nico Harrison when he risked all the unpopularity. I don't remember your staunch defense of him saying, hey guys, maybe he knows something that we don't know. Hey guys, maybe Luca is a lot worse behind the scenes than we're realizing. That is an interesting one because of how rare it is that you get just a universal consensus

that you can't find a dissenting voice on any sports argument. There was nobody doing that, not just me. But he didn't, excuse me, he did do the thing that you asked leadership to do. He risked unpopularity to make a decision. Risk it better. To shake. Get more draft picks. Hey friends, it's Jarrah Bear here and I'm here to tell you all about Boost Mobile, which is now a legit nationwide 5G network.

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