The Josh Innes Show - A Rare Good Segment on Sports Radio

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

I was listening to the crappy local sports talk radio in Detroit. Usually, it's dreadful. But, some angry dude called up with some racial thoughts about the Lions and it made for some super compelling content. Let's discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, everybody. Welcome in, all up in this podcast. Glad you guys are listening. Appreciate you all that. You guys are great. You know, I was listening to sports radio here locally in Detroit the other day. And it's fascinating when you hear topics that you know are somehow racial, despite the fact they shouldn't be racial. And I was fascinated by this conversation that was being had, not because the conversation was that interesting. The conversation itself was whatever. But the reaction to the conversation from callers was fascinating. And generally speaking, nothing fascinates me on Detroit Sports Radio or most sports radio because most sports radio is terrible.

But I was listening to this guy and he called about Jameson Williams, who took a bad penalty that ultimately cost the Lions a point. Now, did they win or lose the game because of that? Probably not. But it cost them a point on Sunday night football because it moved the extra point attempt back to like 48 yards in the wind extra point was missed and there it went so let me get into this whole thing here i'll do that after these words so we live in a fascinating world and the fascinating world is no matter what your political beliefs are if you are a white guy there are going to be

people who assume that any time you are critical of anything a black player does specifically if it's like kind of a not close to the vest, kind of outlandish thing that a black guy does, then you are a racist in some way. So I'm listening to this show yesterday, and the show is hosted by this white guy that's been in the market for like 25 years, 40-something-year-old dude, young-minded guys, not some old dude by any means or anything like that. And then his co-host is a black guy. And then the board-op producer dude, that's the third mic, also is a black guy. So it's two black guys and a white guy. They're talking about James and Williams. Now, Jameson Williams is a receiver for the Lions.

He's kind of, you know, he gets himself into some issues, not huge issues, but does dumb things. And that's the criticism of him is that he does dumb things. And on Sunday night football, he scored a big touchdown early in the game and it got him on the board and they're all hyped up. And he's the guy that did the move where he jumps on the goalpost or jumps on the base of the goalpost and hugs the poll. And they call a penalty because it is a penalty if you touch the goalposts in any way. That has been well documented. These are not the days of being Tony Gonzalez. You know, those days are over.

You're not going to be Tony Gonzalez who's out here, you know, dunking on the goalpost anymore. Those days are over, and people know that. And you can do virtually anything you want except that. Well, there are criticisms of Jameson Williams, and they come from a lot of people because the guy does dumb things. super talented just does dumb things now this guy called black guy called and you could tell the direction this was going to go because there are certain crews of black guys that call sports radio stations and they think that if a white guy says anything about a black player that is perceived to be more black than the other black players if that makes sense again these are basically

this guy's words i'm not making this up i'm not plucking this from the air this is basically the words that this guy used. Because there's another black guy on the air. This guy calls up, tells this black guy that basically he said, you ain't black enough and you ain't from the streets and you don't get it. Like there are always going to be, well, first of all, he starts the conversation with, there are two Detroit's. Once you start getting someone that starts a conversation with, there are two Detroit's. You know which direction this call is going to go. And this is one of those dudes who basically believes that any black dude who's like not acting like based on the perception of being from the streets black guy and it's like a straight

lace you know a Russ Wilson white guy is probably a black guy is not a is not down and then guys like James and Williams are down and that's why white people criticize him because he's down to which the white host comes back and says well I'm critical of uh of both you know if need be I'll be critical of white dudes black guys whatever and again the guy had irrational points that were stupid and misguided. But once you get irrational, stupid people on the air making misguided statements and views, like, you just let them go at this point because interrupting them serves no purpose. So I'm listening to this guy on this call. And he's like, well, why aren't you guys critical of when Amunross St. Brown jumps over a guy in the end zone and does the Superman

celebration? Or when he does the Trump dance, why aren't you guys critical? And they're like, well, sir, because we don't care what you do in the end zone as long as it doesn't result in a penalty. And doing the Trump dance in the end zone is not a penalty. And jumping over another player is not a penalty. So like, again, this guy is irrational. He's got an agenda. He's got an axe to grind. We know what his ax to grind is. His axe to grind is that there are white dudes on the radio and black dudes who aren't the level of black he needs them to be that are being critical of the guy who is, they consider more down with the cause or whatever the hell it is. This guy who feels that Jameson Williams is getting criticized because he's like real

black and guys like Aminrah aren't. Therefore, the white dudes and the sellout black dudes ain't criticizing him. When in reality, if Amin Rae St. Brown generated a stupid penalty that cost them a point, I guarantee you this guy on the show would have criticized him. But like when you get these people that call these radio shows, it is, it's just wild, like that people have these viewpoints and they just keep rolling with them. And you can interject. and say, hey, here's what I meant, here's what I said, the reason why, like, the reason why we're not being critical of these two dudes for doing what they did. And, of course, you could tell by the tone of like, well, he did a Trump dance and no one said

anything, because it wasn't a penalty. Like, this isn't hard. It wasn't a penalty. But the argument is, well, this guy ain't down enough, whatever. And then it was actually fascinating. I never find these shows fascinating. I'll listen to them if I'm, you know, walking Ross or whatever, see what the people locally are saying about sports.

They're not very good shows. They're dull shows. Like, the afternoon show is the best of them, and it's fine. But, like, I'm listening to this in most days. It's just nothing. It's the domain host says something. The dudes in the studio repeat everything he says, and they laugh, and that's it. But this dude, the black dude in studio, starts getting really worked up because he's thinking exactly what I'm thinking is.

Basically, they're saying that you're a sellout and other words that I won't use, but you are a sellout, basically. And they start going at it. And it was compelling. And, like, very rarely will I ever say that something is. compelling, on sports radio particular, because it never is. It's mostly trolling, bull shit, low-hanging fruit, call-baiting shit.

That's mostly what you get from sports talk radio. We talk about that all the time. But when you get a guy that calls up and, like, you can tell instantly he's a fucking moron. And you can tell instantly that these guys are going to run laps around him. And you can tell instantly where, like, the tone of the call, it is fascinating. And I was captive. by it. Usually it's background noise in the car. I'll hear something that annoys me and I'll yell at the radio like a lunatic. That's usually the extent of it. But I was listening to that and was genuinely riveted. Like I was genuinely listening to this and I was, I found it compelling and interesting and I enjoyed it. So that was on 97 won the ticket. I don't want to promote them in any way. But I was interested. And I'll give the host credit. Because me, I would have started just getting more combative to make it interesting. He just sat back and let the guy

ramble on and ramble on and ramble on and anytime he'd interject the caller would be like why you interrupted me and like it was well done rarely do I say these things on sports talk radio particularly shit I've heard here is is well done but it was very fascinating but like everything like like it like the kind of reactions are certain players that get that kind of reaction from certain people right like shudur Sanders right there is a certain group of people who are believing that Shudur Sanders is being shut out because he is too black, right? And there's a group of people who will always believe that no matter what happens. They will not look at the facts or the dad or whatever. It's just this guy's getting shut out because the white people hate his dad or

whatever, and that's why he ain't getting to play, right? And then you'll see people who are going to elevate every single thing Shudur Sanders is going to do because they believe he's getting black bald or whatever being cast aside because of his dad or that he's too black or he's too cocky or he's too confident. And like you saw it this weekend, there were people sharing videos. One of them was Josina Anderson who shared a video. Like it was so ridiculous and the comment on it was so ridiculous that you would almost think it was the onion. It was like a third and whatever it was and they needed to convert. So Shudur Sanders throws a screen pass. Not even a screen pass. It was a short pass, you know, five, six, seven yard pass. If the guy who makes the catch

doesn't break a couple of tackles and pick up seven more yards, eight more yards for the first down, fourth down. But the way people talked about it was, man, look at the poise of Shudur Sanders. He's in the pocket and he's making big plays. That was impressive what Shudurr Sanders. I mean, let me tell you something. What Shadur Sanders was able to do,

I mean, that is, that's next level. And you're like, are you fucking with me? Like, you're clearly trolling me right now. There's no way you believe that this was anything special or anything interesting. But, like, that is the way of the world. Right? There will always be groups of people that just believe that the criticism somebody is getting

is not only just because of their race, but because that they are too much, they're too flamboyant or too gregarious or too outgoing. There will always be people who are going to defend an AJ Brown and think that any criticism AJ Brown gets it's because it's from a bunch of white dudes that don't understand and a bunch of black dudes who have sold out. That is always going to be the case.

There will always be that hardcore group of people for any outspoken or any controversial black player. and I heard that on the radio. There should be nothing controversial about saying that a guy taking a stupid penalty that ultimately costs you a point was stupid. And when you lose the argument when it's, well, what about the guys that did the Trump dance? Did you want them to be penalized for something that is not something you penalize people for?

Don't do something stupid. Like, there is a rule. The rule exists. You don't touch the goalposts when there is a touchdown. There, period. Like, I love Joe Horn. Joe Horn's one of my favorites. Joe Horn taking the cell phone out of the goalpost is brilliant and it's funny and it's great and we all laugh at it.

What if it costs you a point in a big game? There's a selfishness that comes to that. But it's almost funny because the guy talks himself in circles because he's like, well, why don't you criticize these other black players? Oh, is it because they act white? Like, no, they just didn't do stupid shit. And, like, they do nice things. They seem to be good community people. Why would I just criticize these people for no reason?

Like, I don't just go on the radio and criticize people. So I thought that was interesting. Very rarely, as I said, very rarely do I listen to sports radio and go, huh, that was compelling. Because nine out of ten times, nine and a half, nine point nine out of ten times, it is low-hanging fruit bullshit. But I found that to be interesting. More to come.