The Josh Innes Show - Does Monica McNutt Know Barry Sanders?

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

The right wing media dudes have had quite a time ridiculing ESPN's Monica McNutt. If you don't know, McNutt works for ESPN and may have no clue who Barry Sanders is. But, I'm not totally convinced that's the case. Let's go to the tape! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we didn't get into this one yesterday because honestly I forgot, but the story of Monica McNutt at ESPN, allegedly not knowing who Barry Sanders is during a segment with Drusky. This is a question I have, though, why is Drusky funny and why is Drusky famous? I'm not trying to sound old or like, hey, I'm yelling at a cloud here, like, who is this guy? why is Drusky famous and like why is he everywhere why is he famous and what does he do that's funny and granted there's a lot of shit that the world thinks is funny that I don't think is funny like I'm not a conservative dude or anything like that as you know I'm somewhere in the middle of things but I feel like conservative people are obligated to like really like Shane

Gillis and really like all of these Joe Rogan comics kill Tony and all these dudes and I don't really like any of them. So whatever is kind of trendy and hot and like, oh boy, these are the hot guys. I don't really find them funny. So maybe I'm a bad judge of this at this point in my life. But why is Drusky famous? And what does he do that's funny? That is a legit question. I don't know the answer to. So please feel free to help me out. And why is he on every show all the time? Is he the guy that says like, I don't give a piss about nothing but like the tide or whatever. Is that one of his bits? Is he that dude?

Anyway, let's play a couple of commercials and we'll get into this Monica McNutt, Barry Sanders Jersey controversy. All right, so this thing was huge over the weekend. This Monica McNutt, she's interviewing Drusky on ESPN

for whatever reason. I don't know why Drusky is always on ESPN, but he seems to always be on ESPN. And he's wearing a backwards, Barry Sanders jersey. So like the Honolulu Blue, Detroit Lions jersey. It's on backwards, number 20, Sanders across the front. And this is the exchange that happens between the two of them. And actually, Stephen A is involved because Stephen A has to be involved in every single thing that's on ESPN. So this is Drusky, Monica McNutt, and Stephen A. Smith. Let's play that audio.

All right, so the jersey. Let's get into it because obviously this ties to one Shador Sanders who balled out in his first No, no, no, no, this is a, very sadden. I'm sorry, you apologize to that. Very saddening. But the tie, come on, the tie is the Sanders. Bear with me. Bear with me.

But let's get into Shador because appropriate that you're also a fan there, right? One, I find it really annoying when people say things like, obviously this jersey ties to one Shadur Sanders. Like, it's a way that not so smart people try to. to sound smart. They say things like, you know, well, it obviously ties to one Shador Sanders. Like, no, it just ties to Shedur Sanders. It ties to one Shudur Sanders. I hate when people do that shit. There's a lot of dumb people in the world that try to use big words and try to sound smart. Not that one is a big word, but it just made it sound so pretentious. Like, it obviously ties to one, Shadur Sanders, like, whatever. And then you sound dumb because it obviously doesn't tie to

Shadur Sanders. It ties to Barry Sanders. because it's a Barry Sanders jersey. Now, obviously right-wing dudes and like the anti-E-SPN dudes and the Clay Travis's and the outkicks and their legion of their army of people have now jumped on this idea that this Monica McNutt has no idea who Barry Sanders is, okay? And it's up for debate. It would seem as though she has no clue, right? But if you listen to it, again, I don't know that she does.

know who Barry Sanders is. And in fairness, Barry Sanders hadn't played in a quarter century. And, but that does, look, you got to know who Barry fucking Sanders. First of all, let's do this. Let's operate under the assumption she has no clue that it's Barry Sanders, that, you know, that he's wearing a Barry Sanders lion's jersey. One of the arguments people are making is, if you don't know who Barry Sanders is, you shouldn't be on TV. And I would agree with that, if you don't know. Like, I'm 39 years old. I was like 14, I think, when Barry Sanders retired. What year did he retire? Should I have to know that, Clay Travis?

But I think it was like 2000, 99, 2000, 2001, somewhere in the late 90s, early 2000s when Barry Sanders retired. If you don't know who Barry Sanders is, then perhaps ESPN shouldn't be for you. Now, I'm not a believer that to be on sports radio or in sports media, you have to be a sports wizard. I guarantee you, Clay Travis, is not a sports expert. and I guarantee you that his little guys, these Bobby Burricks and all these guys who write for Outkick, they are not stat nerds that know everything about everybody. They do not. I can assure you of that, okay?

They are very good at playing this role of attack dogs, and ESPN is super woke, and ESPN is terrible, and everybody's a DEI hire, and why does ESPN even exist if you've got people on the air? You don't know who Barry Sanders is. You wonder why your ratings are in the tank. This woman doesn't even know who Barry Sanders is. is, I assure you that Clay Travis doesn't, like, if Clay Travis had to answer current sports questions about certain things, he would have no clue. He wouldn't have the answer, okay?

It's not his number one focus, right? And that's the guy that hosted a sports show. That's a guy that still talks about sports on a podcast. So I don't believe it is a prerequisite that you have to know every single thing about every single sport. And also, what's the cutoff, right? Like, 25 years is a long time. When I got into it, I was 2005 is when I started doing, really, 2004 is when I started doing full-time stuff.

That means that 25 years would be 1979. Now, I prided myself on knowing the history of a lot of stuff because when you're a young guy, that's how you have to prove your worth. You know, a lot of times people will still come up to me and go, hey, Josh, how do you know these references that you're making? You're only 39 and that was from whatever. And I'll say because growing up in the media, I felt I had to be very well, versed on a lot of shit to get credibility because you can get snuffed out in this shit really quick. And just by nature, I learned a lot of shit because I enjoyed watching the E True Hollywood story or behind the music or shit on ESP and classic documentaries. And that's how I learned

a lot of shit and it benefited me greatly, right? But I feel like a lot of those dudes have no clue about a lot of shit, right? That said, I feel like someone who is arguably the best running back to ever play is someone that's you know if you're hosting a show on ESPN you should know but the debate is this the debate is whether or not she was just making a reference to the name Sanders like I've seen people comment that that are defending her because it's a battle between people here it's a battle between sides here the question is whether or not she knew it was Barry Sanders but wanted to link it back to Shadur Sanders because they have to talk about Shadur Sanders because ESPN

is a place that just only talks about Shudor Sanders. They talk about shit, like Shudor Sanders, right? Let's listen to it again, and you tell me if it sounds like someone who has no clue who Barry Sanders is, or if it's her saying, hey, reference to Sanders, whatever,

you be the judge. All right, so the jersey. Let's get into it because obviously this ties to one Shador Sanders, who balled out in his first season. No, no, no, no. This is, uh, De Barry Sanders. I'm sorry, you're talking about that. Barry Sanders.

The tie, come on, the tie is the Sanders. Bear with me. Bear with me. But let's get into Shador because appropriate that you're also a fan there, right? Is it possible that she just tried to make a shitty reference? And again, she says the tie. Now you can argue that maybe she just adjusted on the fly. And they're like, no, man, that's Barry Sanders.

And she goes, no, that's, I'm trying to just trying to say you connect the dots here. They tie in together. Like, I know that this isn't popular. And I know the popular angle on this is to jump in and be like, how do you have people on ESPN who don't know who Barry Sanders is. How? And you'd be right. If Monica McNutt doesn't know that he's wearing a Barry Sanders jersey, like I feel like dudes of a certain age can see any jersey and they will know who that person is. That's just what we grew up with. You'd know Barry Sanders. If somebody walked in at number 58 Chiefs jersey, who is that? Anybody?

It's Derek Thomas. And you wouldn't know it's Derek Thomas. You wouldn't question if it was Dave Thomas from Wendy's. You would know it's Derek Thomas. If you'd You saw that Randy Moss jersey, the 84 Moss jersey. You know that it's not Elizabeth Moss. It is Randy Moss. It's not Santana Moss. It's Randy Moss. So you know that.

And maybe I'm just being too kind to this person who I have nothing for or against. I could not care less. There are a lot of shitty people on ESPN. I don't watch ESPN a lot unless I'm gambling on the WNBA. That's very rarely. Last night gambling on the Bengals. I do not watch Sports Center. I couldn't tell you the last time I willfully turned it on.

Like I saw that like big deal, Rich Eisen hosting SportsCenter for the first time in 20 years. I do not give a shit. I could not care less. I will not turn it on. SportsCenter does nothing for me. First take does nothing for me. None of the shows on ESPN do anything for me.

And that's not, you know, me being right wing, angry media guy that gloms on and wants to be part of the ESPN went woke and once you go woke, you go broke, bullshit. That's not how I operate, right? I just don't find it interesting. I just don't care. I don't need it. I think that's the biggest thing that ESPN is dealing with right now is no one actually needs it.

Hey, you want to know what your team did last night? Like you fell asleep early? Go to the team's app and see the score. Oh, you want to see the highlights of the game? It's on that same app. You want to talk about your teams. Look for a thousand different podcasts. Your favorite team is the Cincinnati Bengals.

Go to Apple Podcasts and search Cincinnati Bengals and find 10 different podcasts you can listen to. listen to the local radio stations talk about it, right? You can do all of these things online and you don't need ESPN. That's the biggest issue they're dealing with is no one needs them. I don't need Stephen A. Smith's opinion on shit. There are people whose opinions I seek out and I find interesting and I listen to those people. Like when I'm in the car, I'll listen to podcasts about different shit, but I'll turn on 104 or 5 ESPN. I'll turn on the app when my friend Matt is on. I'll want to hear LSU shit. I'll turn that on. You know, I don't have to go to E. I don't need to. And that's the thing that ESPN has to deal with, right? So that's kind of where they are. But I feel like if all of like, so I'm not someone jumping in on that world. Like, oh my God, ESPN went woke and they went broke and the programming sucks. There's DEI hires and this woman's not qualified. I'm not going to jump in on that because I like, honest God, I hate those people. I know a lot of people listen to this and they're like, right wing. I hate those people. I despise those people. As much as I despise wacky liberal people, I despise wacky right wing people just as much. Because they have lazy shit, just like the left wing people do. But I'm not positive that Monica McNutt didn't know it was Barry Sanders. Like, I think she may have just been trying to tie whatever he was wearing back to back to Shador. I kind of buy it.

All right. So the jersey. Let's get into it because obviously this ties. Who won Shador Sanders? Obviously, this ties. It ties in no way. You sound stupid. The only tie to Shudur Sanders is that the fucking name is Sanders.

That's like saying that, like, the house that Pooh Bear lives in in the 100-acre wood, the tree. It's like saying it obviously ties to Shudur Sanders because it says Mr. Sanders above the door. Well, it doesn't tie to Shudur Sanders at all. It's kind of like saying, well, I went to KFC. And obviously, that ties to Shudor Sanders because of Colonel Sanders. It's dumb and your tie was dumb and I don't think you're very good at your job, but I don't know that you actually didn't know who Barry Sanders is. All right, so the jersey.

Let's get into it because obviously there's ties to one Shador Sanders who balled out in his first place. No, no, no, no, this is, uh, De Berry Sanders. I'm sorry, you're talking about that. Barry Sanders. But the tie, come on, the tie is this? Now the argument can be made and she goes, oh, I'm sorry, that's Barry. That's where you hurt yourself. That's where you got to jump in and go, no shit.

I know it's Barry Sanders. I'm just making the connection there. That's all I'm saying. So that leaves it open there to go, okay, maybe she didn't know. At the end of the day, it's at the end of the fucking world. What do you think that's, what do you think Stephen A. Smith fucking knows. The guy on a daily basis proves he doesn't know shit, he makes $10 million a year. They're there to entertain you.

It's the entertainment, sports, and programming network. It is what it is. But do I, like, I still don't know if she didn't know who Barry Sanders is. Like, I feel like in that situation, you got to say, oh, so you're rocking the Barry Sanders jersey. Speaking of Sanders, your boy Shador Instead of, you know, looking at that jersey. All right, so the jersey. Let's get into it because obviously this ties to one Shador, Sanders.

It really doesn't other than the fact. Like, what an annoying person. Obviously. And you're trying to sound, and then you sound dumb. Like I love when people are like, obviously, and then you end up sounding fucking stupid. Ma'am. Respectfully, you sound stupid. Do I think it's this giant crime that these people, these right-wing people are making it out to be?

No, I also don't like, hey, look, good for the right-wing people. They just now discover that there are dude cheerleaders in the NFL. Congrats. It's been going on for 10 years. And here they are just now discovering dude cheerleaders, and it's something they're yelling about. So, congrats on being dipshits. Anyway, more to come.