The Dumb Zone FREE - DZ 11-14-25 PREVIEW | Nico is in good spirits and David Fleming on the 1952 Dallas Texans

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Subscribe to The Dumb Zone to hear the entire show - DumbZone.com or Patreon.com/TheDumbZoneWe speak with author, David Fleming, on the wildest football team you've never heard about. The NFL team that didn't make it in Dallas. Then, at least Nico Harrison is in good spirits. Glad he's happy ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Hey now, what you're about to hear is a free preview of one of this week's premium episodes of the DumbZone. If you would like to hear this program in full with the archive of all of our past episodes, you can subscribe at DumbZone.com. Oh, yeah, just so full of characters, I had zero idea until I read this book, that this team becomes the Baltimore Colts. And the Baltimore Colts of that era is legendary. They had Art Donovan, that Gino Marchetti, Johnny Unitas. Johnny Unitas wasn't here, but those other two guys were here, playing for the Texans.

And Art Donovan became kind of like a Bob Euker, like a very famous national figure in the 80s, or maybe he was the 70s. I don't know. The point is, though, he was actually like a great player, too. Bob Euker was a crappy player, but then fun. Yeah, just all. all the colorful characters on this team. I mean, I think that's, sorry. Go ahead.

Go ahead. I think that's what you forget is that the team was, even though they basically partied their way and spent their way out of the NFL in like five months, they were, it was the team was loaded with talent. They had like, I think more than a dozen people on their roster and front office who would go on to become Hall of Famers, either in college or pro football.

And you're absolutely right. Art Donovan was one of those characters, Juno Marquette, all those guys. Frank Chupuka, I know you guys were in Denver recently. Frank Chupuco, who is, was the original retired number 18 jersey in Denver, got his start with the Dallas Texans. This team is like the Forrest Gump of the NFL. They're connected to everything.

And I also think, I don't, I think one of the reasons why they've sort of disappeared is the NFL doesn't necessarily want people. I mean, Johnny Unitas, the squeaky clean Johnny Unitas, savior of the NFL Baltimore Coats, I don't think the NFL wants people to know that that team was born out of this, this partying, spending, disastrous, crazy season in Dallas just the year before.

Yeah, if it were just the partying and spending, you might be able to get away with it, but then when you say, well, why weren't people coming to the games? Well, the clan. We had to move them because of that. That's a less appealing story. Well, the business, yeah, the local businesses wouldn't support him. The local business people would not.

Despite the support for college football and high school football. Would not put money into this at all if you were going to integrate it. Right. And, you know, they say follow the money. But, Dave, I'm not sure if you're familiar at all with the origin of the Dallas Mavericks. with like Don Carter, Norm Sanju, but there was a time, they were very religious people. And there was a time where they had a vision for an all Christian basketball team that would be like outwardly such. And that didn't work out, obviously, but as it pertains to the Texans, they wanted their players when not on the field to dress in Western wear, like all the time.

So when going to games, when appearing in front of the media, they wanted them to have hats, bedazzled shirts, belt buckles, just some of the marketing ideas that sports teams had in the 50s. You must have uncovered some good ones with this thing. Oh, my God. And I think they spent half their money on these crazy marketing ideas. One of them was they were going to bring the game ball in every game by helicopter. Hell yeah. And they were also going to, they wanted the cheerleaders to bring, every time the ball went out of bounds, they wanted the cheerleaders to bring the ball back into the huddle.

And Giles Miller's original design, you know what's interesting is this team, I mean, the Cowboys stole the color palette from the Texans and have never really acknowledged that. But Giles Miller's original design for the pants, for the game day pants uniform, He wanted to have six shooters sewn in. So it looked like the players were playing with two six shooters on their hips. And, you know, you guys mentioned Art Donovan. They were like, hey, Art, we're going to try and we want you guys to wear cowboy hats and boots. And, you know, Art Donovan was from the Bronx.

He was like, he was like, no, I'm not doing that. And he basically threw all that stuff in the garbage. And that was the end of that scheme. Well, they may have been the worst team ever, but they're not beating the percentage of the lions and Browns because they did get one win against the mighty Chicago Bears. And, oh, there's another note I wanted to bring up. So in the epilogue, you were writing about different players.

Chubby Grigg was a player. Oh, God. Oh, my God, yeah. Okay, so let me read this. But this is a little comment on our justice system as well. So Chubby Greg is a player. White, though, right? He's a white player.

In 1977, so well after this is, he's well retired, walked into his 20-year-old son room in a tiny town in northeast Texas. His son had been expelled from high school because of long hair. He had been using valium and marijuana. And Chubby Grigg was at the end of his rope as to how to deal with this kid. He walked into his son's room, folded his child's arms across his chest, and shot him in the temple. Because he decided he's beyond, I can't fix this kid. As you wrote, he might have forgotten his own youthful indiscretions, Chubby Grigg.

Yeah, so he was helping him get sober and stay out of trouble. Nothing was sticking. He was 20 years old, so he said, you know what, I better just kill him. So now they have a one-day murder trial. The jury is deadlocked. So Chubby pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter. slaughter and took a five years probation sentence. So for deciding that I can't, rehab isn't working, nothing is working with this kid,

he won't listen. I will shoot him in the head. He ended up with five years probation. As long as you can hold off on shooting any other kids in the head, you're going to stay out of a jail. We're going to check on you, though. And he wasn't, the quote there is great too. Outside the courtroom, he said, I'll tell you, this whole world sure is different than it was. Like, you can't even get away with killing your son.

Well, he did get away. Like, that's the sort of thing somebody says in 1877. Is he upset that he got five years probation? Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Unbelievable. This is insane. You guys forget to the, I think the, the crazier part of that story was the biggest partier on the Texans was Chubby Great.

I didn't know what grasshoppers were, and I'm, I got a problem. Yeah, I mean, I was, he, so Chubby Grigg loved grasshoppers, cream to mint and like cream to, it sounds awful, like cream to cocoa. And he used to, he would buy 17 shots of grasshoppers and line him up on the bar. And then he would pick a teammate. And everybody, he was so crazy, people were afraid to say no to him. He would pick a teammate. And then that teammate would have to race him toward the middle. And whoever got to the ninth grasshopper shot would win.

And Chubby did this. When the team got moved to Hershey, PA, he did that, barfs everywhere, passes out, and they have to put him on a kid's sled and drag him through the snow through downtown Hershey to get him back to the team hotel. And then that's the same guy who's like, my son's out of control. I need to execute him because I have no other choice. His long hair is out of control. It's like, we already talked about this.

There's like 50 examples in this book where you're like, I can't believe this is actually true. Well, thank you for joining us today, Dave. This is an excellent read. It is a big mess in Texas. We always like to ask people, how should we buy it? How do they rip you off the least? Yeah, just go. I mean, it's available anywhere, audiobooks, e-books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

Did you say Red did the audiobook? Reddit? he did uh he well we we tried to get that done we couldn't but ret and i did a there's like an extra half an hour uh q and a between ret and i uh that's a bonus content for the audio book sweet that's a cool idea yeah is listening to an audio book reading a book no thank you wind in his sales yep thank you now uh dave i have a good friend he's blind um and that's kind of the only way he consumes your fine work so would you tell him get a braille book no i would thank him for listening to my book oh okay but he did not read it no but boy that's a harsh that's a really

extreme example but um i got to stick to my guns on this one i respect that dave thank you sir go pick it up great read give it as a gift good times we'll see you dave thanks guys go now you guys oh dan's the jerk he won't say look that's an actual author it's true writes words you got me it's true he writes words on papers um nico harrison as we According to NBA insider Chris Haynes He's in good spirits and planning to spend time with his wife and daughters

after being fired 11 games into his fourth season as the Dallas Mavericks General Manager Quote Haynes Haynes says he's in good spirits man He's going to take some time to be with himself and his family Just get away from everything It's been a tough situation What happened?

I think when you look at his tenure with the Dallas Mavericks, you had some good times, definitely had some bad times. He guided the team to the NBA finals. Oh, my. And they have visions of getting further than that, but ultimately his tenure is going to be defined by the Luca Donchitz trade and what he got in return, and other people will say, well, what he didn't get him returned.

So it was a tough situation. But something we saw coming definitely over this past week or so. yeah tricky situation again because i do think there's a racial component to this all up and down it does seem in the media like i'm not i'm not a part of a minority so i'm not going to judge people for sticking together but most of the people who are like kind of we got to see both sides when it comes to nico are other black men and media or women really i saw like jocina this great NFL reporter like well another one taking the fall it's just it's complete utter bullshit i have no time for it it's very frustrating well i want to be he's

been chris chris haines has done this for a long time because i'm i'm going to uh be racially i want to play both sides here because i think patrick dumont is as much or even worse of a villain than nico harrison is because patrick dumont is the end guy who had to sign off on this and you can say yeah but he thought because i'm reading this too he he he viewed nico as a basketball savant Okay. Well, do a little research, buddy. Ask a few other people. Like, before you make this trade.

But I truly believe Patrick Dumont was swayed by the, wait, you're saying I could pay $200 million less. I'm sure how we can get kind of a similar and we could still stay good. Well, let's do that. That's the decision that was made. There was nothing thought of about the people, the fan base. And because what Nico did and Dumont did, He didn't just ruin the Mavericks. He ruined, like, the city on a national map.

Because any city can become New York or Los Angeles, like, big, if they have a superstar like that. Like Cleveland was on the national map for years, just because it was LeBron. And nobody complained about Cleveland versus whoever NBA finals and the ratings are bad because this is too small. all markets. Well, see, only thing you know about Oklahoma City is that they have the thunder.

Nobody gives a shit about Oklahoma City. They wouldn't even know it was there. Not that Dallas is a small of a market is, but they're an inconsequential market right now. Yeah. Like, you know, Janus is a superstar, but Milwaukee is not. There is a level of superstar. Like Anthony Davis is a level of superstar, but he was never close to LaBron. Ron or Luca, you know?

For sure. I mean, there's, Yokic is a superstar, but I still don't. Right. He doesn't have the, there is. Luca did. Like, Luca somehow had that. What about Olivia Miles? What's that?

TCU. I'm still reeling over the gentlemen who are like, I know you guys have a big hole in your sports heart. Have you checked out TCU Women's Basketball? I'm a sit in the other day. We all heal in different ways. I know. I was also reading.

And I'm following them now. One of these articles talking about... They won by 70 yesterday, two days ago. For real? Yeah. One of the articles that was talking about that Chris Haynes had this information on NBA TV yesterday, they say after he was relieved of his duties,

Harrison humorously updated his Instagram biography to reflect his new employment status, which Gives are through the report that he's in good spirits after losing his job in a very public manner. See, that makes me sad that he's in good spirits. I don't want him to be in good spirits. I want him to be miserable

and suffering, and the problem is just like Patrick Dumont, he'll never be truly miserable in suffering. He won't feel anything like the 14-year-old down the street who cried the morning that, you know, the countless people that probably

cried, like literally cried in Dallas. Because he'll just lay on his big giant pile of billions and everything's going to be fine. And we've got to sit here and watch now. The Mavs desperately try to look around and find, like, would anybody actually just take Anthony Davis so we can be out of salary cap hell? I'm going to try to zoom out here for the 30,000-foot view. Just imagine it's five years from now.

nobody who's here other than flag and maybe lively will be here you'll be five years into a new GM you might be a couple years into a new head coach and I'm not going to put it out there like I did with Luca because it was way more data when I made this proclamation about Luca but flag is the truth that dude's going to be one of the best players in the game almost that's a perennial all-star probably a perennial first team all NBA player well again you Even if you got Anthony Davis at a young age. I'm saying, don't worry about all this right now. No, I think Flag is closer to Luca than Anthony Davis.

Okay. But somewhere in between there, right? Like, I think he can be an MVP candidate. There's no reason why he can't. And five years from now... And I don't... I'm almost sad that they got Flag. I know.

Because they're rewarded for... I am too, and also it pulls me back in a little bit because he's going to be awesome. But we're a long ways away from that. I'm just saying what they do with Kyrie, if PJ Washington's mad that they're chanting fire Nico, what happens? None of this, it doesn't matter. I don't even care for another two years.

But I could see a situation where in two years where all of the stench is off of this where they're still going to have that guy, and he's going to be awesome. So all we need to do is about 463 more of these, and then we'll check in together and see how we feel. Do you like that supposedly Cuban has mapped out a plan Don't care. Don't want to hear from him.

I kind of don't want to hear from Cuban either. We talked about it the last couple days. I mean, that's, I guess. Well, I mean, what's this guy's plan? Just remind me, who was the last GM that Cuban hired? It was Nico. Oh. So let's take his advice.

The dunza.