The Josh Innes Show - Eagles v. Cowboys To Open NFL Season

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

It's weird. When I was a kid, I believed that every game rivalry ESPN hyped up was truly important. As an adult, almost none of those rivalries mean anything to me. I don't know why that is. The Cowboys will open the season in Philadelphia. I've never seen anything like the hate Philly fans have for Dallas. It's weird and pretty one sided. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and not just your typical smoke it slice it type ham. I did a pulled ham. So basically I treated a ham like a pulled pork, right? Because ham is one of the easier things to cook because ham's already cooked, right? So you go to the store store you buy a pork butt You buy a pork shank whatever and you I say a pork butt you buy the ham That's the the butt portion of the ham or the shank portion of the ham and then you basically are reheating it

You can put whatever you want on it. You can put it in whatever liquid you want to braise it, but ultimately it is still Already cooked and you are reheating the ham, right? So it's kind of hard to fuck it up, although I have, but I mean, as long as you don't overdo it and dry it out, it's not really terrible. But then I watched a video of a lady doing a, what the hell is her, I forgot what her name is, what her account is, where she does her barbecue videos. But, and I wish I could remember, because she does, how videos. I wish I could remember because she does how

to like Married to Barbecue I think is what it's called and she does a really good job. I love watching barbecue videos. I love these accounts where you get like the guy from Meat Church doing videos and showing you how to do shit or how to barbecue right with Malcolm Reed or you get Heath Riles or some of these, you know, bigger or Jess Pryles or Pearls. She's in Texas and she's great. So like you get all of these, you get these really cool accounts. So I saw this and I'm like, well, if we can find a ham, let's try to do a pulled ham, right? So basically ham like a pulled pork, right? So found a ham, threw that bad boy on there at 225 degrees, you know, seasoned it up with whatever on the outside of it. I used, forgot what I used for the other. Oh,

Meat Church hickory seasoning, which is great. I think it's an exclusive that you can only get at Ace Hardware. So if you go to Ace Hardware, go into the grilling section, you could probably find the hickory from Meat Church. It's great great. Through that on there, put it at 225. Let that bad boy go for about 10 hours. Okay, 10 hours, ham, boom. Took it off as the video said to do. Took it off, put it in a foil pan, put some apple juice in the pan and put some sort of like I had a glaze that I had from which oh which I

think it was a Heath Riles like cherry habanero glaze or something. Put that on the top of it. Put a little extra seasoning on top. Covered it in foil. Bumped up the temperature to like 250 and let it go for another two or three hours. Pulled it off at about 199 and let it rest for like an hour or whatever. When I tell you that it was juicy, scrumptious pulled ham, it was better than when you just get it and slice it, right? It was spectacular. So if you ever have the opportunity to do a

ham this way, it's kind of hard to fuck it up, which is also good. Ham is the best. Pulled pork is also like that. Like certain things you can fuck up. Like ribs, I have not figured out how to do ribs. I suck at doing ribs. For whatever reason, I can't figure out how to make good ribs. But I've had moments where I've made solid pulled pork and now solid ham. Pork is hard to fuck up like a big ass piece of pulled pork. I say pulled pork, but like a pork shoulder is hard to fuck up, right? So you get a little, at

least you have like room for error when you do those things So as opposed to a brisket, which I've obviously never made a good brisket before You guys know that like you've seen my videos where I do briskets and I've tried it a couple times I've never had a good expensive brisket I always end up with one of these shitty briskets because they're on sale and I just fucking suck at brisket I'm decent at doing like poor man's brisket, which is getting a chuck roast and doing it like a brisket. I can do that fairly well and it tastes pretty good.

Turkeys I've done okay with, chicken I can do okay with, brisket I fail at pretty good, but I enjoy doing it. It's fun. And I would urge you, if you can go get a ham, it doesn't matter if it's a shank portion or a butt portion and try doing it. It's fun. And I would urge you, if you can go get a ham, it doesn't matter if it's a shank portion or a butt portion, and try doing it that way. Smoke it and just treat it like it's a pulled pork. And I'm telling you, it is a game changer for the way this stuff tastes. I had like four

sandwiches yesterday while getting plastered playing Yahtzee. So you'll love it. Anyway, more to come. Yatzee, so you'll love it. Anyway, more to come. Alright, here we are. So, so the Cowboys and Eagles are going to open the season Thursday night football. That date will be September 4th at the link. Here we go. Now, smart move by the NFL. Why? Because the Cowboys are always a huge draw, but the Cowboys become less of a draw once you get into weeks 10, 11, 12, 13 whenever they're

seemingly out of contention or Dacus hurt, right? So you guarantee an audience, there's going to be an audience anyway because three and a half months from now we're going to be Jonesing for football so bad. It could be the Jaguars versus the Titans and we'd be jacked up for football. So people're going to be jonesing for football so bad it could be the jaguars versus the titans and we'd be jacked up for football so people are going to watch it but the cowboys are the top brand and everybody knows the cowboys are the top brand so what do you get though what do you get in this game well it is a rivalry game quote unquote right and i'm weird about rivalries because when i was younger i truly believed all the shit that was on tv about all the rivalries so I just bought into these like these

were the biggest thing ever because ESPN told me that rivalries mattered so when I was in high school middle school in high school when Duke would play North Carolina it was the biggest shit in the world oh boy it's the biggest rivalry in all the sports and it's up there with the Yankees and the Red Sox and the and the Missouri and Kansas and Auburn and Alabama and all this shit and then like as I've gotten older I really don't give a shit about these rivalries like these little regional rivalries that people have Like I don't think that there are truly rivalries that the nation cares about anymore

rivalries that the nation cares about anymore. Regions care about them, but I don't believe that nations care about these. Like does the world really care about the Iron Bowl? Well, they're told to care about it because it tends to be like, you know, the last game of the year and sometimes it's the day after Thanksgiving and like it's what's on TV. Kind of like LSU Arkansas. LSU Arkansas is not a fucking rivalry. It is not. It is a manufactured, made for television rivalry with a fake trophy that no one in Louisiana

gives a shit about. I was blown away when I went to Arkansas, and I saw how much these people care about beating LSU. Like, LSU is to Arkansas as Alabama is to LSU. Like LSU is to Arkansas as Alabama is to LSU. Like Alabama's rival isn't LSU. I mean Alabama's rival is Auburn and whatever right? But LSU treats Alabama like it's the biggest fucking game on the planet because we ain't Alabama. We don't have all the titles they've won. We fucking hate Alabama. Saban went there and

left LSU. All that shit. So like we treat Alabama and you know that Alabama is the standard. Like you know that if you beat Alabama, there's a really good possibility you're winning. At the time was the SEC West and all that shit and you would win that and you'd feel like, okay, we have a chance at the national championship and that's kind of how it is now. But like Alabama and LSU are not quote unquote rivals in the true sense that the game matters as much to one side as it does the other. It's not a one-sided rivalry because LSU and Alabama have kind of been the cock of the walk. Since Saban got to Bama, it's been kind of those two teams that have mostly fought for the top and the SEC West, right? So it kind of goes that way. But like I'm a I'm an LSU fan shit when I was watching games in the early

2000s, the team we fucking hated was Auburn because Auburn was the team winning championships or at least competing for the SEC West. That's the team you had to beat to have a chance to win the West. Arkansas never mattered. The only reason Arkansas matters to an LSU fan is because of the weird ways that Arkansas has beaten LSU in certain moments. How it should have cost LSU the chance at the national championship in 2007, miracle at Markham back in 2002? Is that year 2001, 2002? Point being

in all of this. When I was a kid, I thought every rivalry was the biggest deal ever. When Yankees Red Sox would be on Sunday night baseball, I felt it was my responsibility as a sports fan to consume that game because it's the most important rivalry in the history of all of sport. Then as you get older and sports don't matter as much, they matter too and you want your team to win, but sports don't matter in that same way and you realize there's a billion other things out there.

You start to realize that all of these things are just pushed on you by television because they want you to watch these games. So they hype them up in reality, Boston and New York care about the Yankees and the Red Sox. I'm here in St. Louis, Missouri growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Big picture, neither one of those teams mattered to me. But television told me those rivalries matter. Just like television tells me that Michigan

and Ohio State matters. This shit, what does that mean to me? You know what I'm saying? I'm a kid that grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Like Michigan, Ohio State, cool, the big game, whatever. But it didn't really impact my life, you know. And that's kind of how I feel about the Cowboys and the Eagles as well. Like, I don't even, like, I feel like the Cowboys have, everybody's the

Cowboys rival because everybody's sick of the America's team thing and everything else. But I feel like the Cowboys' actual rival, if rivalries matter, wouldn't it like the Redskins and the Giants? Aren't those one and two before the Eagles? I don't know. I'll tell you this. I have never been in a city

where one side cares so much about a rivalry. Like I've been in Philadelphia, I've been in Houston, I've been in Nashville, I've been in St. Louis. Like I'm a Cardinals fan, right? I'm supposed to be like, oh my God, the Cubs are terrible. In most of my existence, the Cubs have been bad. So, I've never viewed the Cubs as like, oh my God, if we lose to the Cubs, it's the end

of the world because I've never viewed it that way. Like growing up when the Cardinals were good again and were going to the playoffs seemingly every year, you know the teams they had to beat usually? Like the Astros. Before the Astros were an American League team, they were in the National League Central and the Cardinals had basically it was the Cardinals and the Astros. Occasionally the Reds would pop up. Occasionally the Cubs would pop up. But the Cardinals and Astros from about 2000 to about 2007, I guess 2006, because the Astros kind of tailed off and then eventually tanked

and all that shit moved to the American League. You know how that all went. But from about 2000 to 2006-ish, remember the Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 with 83 games won. They barely hung on to win the division against the Astros that year. So and then they got in, won the World Series and that's how the story went. But like it was always Cardinals Astros. So that's why growing up, the Astros were the team that I hated. I didn't care about the Cubs because the Cubs are mostly losers. That's what makes rivalries interesting to me. There's not a team that my

teams can face that if both of us sucked, it'd be like, oh my god, as long as we won that game, that would matter. But I've never lived in a city like I get that people here hate the Cubs, but like if it feels kind of like it's a mutual hatred, right? Because you got the big city Chicago versus the small town St. Louis and St. Louis dominates baseball for, you know, I mean they've won what 11 World Series the most for any National League team ever. You're in the big city and

you're most known as being a losing franchise. So it's like a it's like you're angry about it. It's like a big brother losing to a little brother type thing. So I can see where it's a balanced thing. I don't hear Cowboys people talk about the Eagles the same way the Eagles talk about the Cowboys. I've never seen anything like it before. Like you'd get on the radio and and base and this is why I

don't think I'd be successful in Philadelphia. I mean look, I think I could be successful anywhere but I just why I hated it is because I hate shit like that. Like I hate like well, it's a Wednesday in June and it's kind of a slow day. Let's talk about the Cowboys today. Like I guarantee you if you turned on the radio in Dallas, it's not like on a Tuesday in June, they're going to be like, you know what? Let's reach for some Eagles topic. But in Philly, that's kind of how it

was because Philly is like sports talk radio for people with the minds of children like with Arrested Development, people who have never actually grown up, which is a lot of sports radio, particularly local sports radio, particularly in this era of social media, where people are so afraid of getting blowback from people on social media that they just kind of, I don't know, just tell the people what they want to hear and they play fanboys. They do an

Adam Clanton act where they just kind of played, like they tell the fans what they want to hear and like talk **** about random cities and **** like that's never been what I'm into and maybe that's why I'll never work in sports radio again like my idea of a good time is not getting on the radio. I guess I could say that in Houston, Houston love to talk about Dallas but not to the point that Philly does like Houston and Dallas actually make sense.

They're in the same state. Most importantly, they're in the same state. There's a jealousy, like a Houston jealousy for Dallas, and Houston plays the angle of, well, they're just the $30,000 millionaires in Dallas, and the TV show Dallas, and the Cowboys, and then Houston lost their football. Like it's a rivalry. It's not really a rivalry. The cities are rivals. The football teams are not rivals, but the cities are and the Astros and the Rangers are now rivals because they're both in the American League and

Dallas and Houston and basketball Dallas Houston San Antonio. They're natural rivalries. The thing with Dallas and Philadelphia is so fascinating because I've never seen anything like it. It's hard to explain if you're not around it. I truly don't think the Dallas people give as much of a shit. Now they probably do a little bit more because the Eagles have won Super Bowls now. So now it's like that's the team we got to beat. But back in the day it was you know the Giants. It was the Redskins. Those were the teams winning Super Bowls and the

Eagles were the cute little team that could win 11 games and losing the playoffs. Oh they got Buddy Ryan and he wants to fight Jimmy Johnson, but guess what? You don't want to play off game. Oh Andy Reid is great, but he can't win the big one. Like that's kind of how it was. Now that the Eagles are clearly the dominant team in that division by a mile. And they've won two Super Bowls. it's easier to hate them if you're Dallas, right? But I had never seen anything like that

when I was there where it was like you could not and were not allowed to say anything positive about Dallas or the Cowboys. And by the way, the people in Philadelphia don't even know there's other cities in Texas. Texas is Dallas. That's just how it is to them. You could say, well, I was from Houston. Oh, you're from Dallas. They're hours away from each other. Two major American cities. They have all different sports teams. Oh, you're from Dallas. Like, yeah, I guess. But that's

how these people were. It was truly like, and I don't know if things have changed in the 10 years since I've been gone but Arrested Development is the best way I would describe a lot of the radio. Like they don't make sports talk radio for adults and by the way I'm not saying you can't be stupid and do dumb shit and have those kind of topics right but you then you you can also, you know, like, I don't know, talk to people like they're adults. Philadelphia Sports Radio is sports radio for people who never got past like, like it's for people who never got past seventh grade. Like it is very childlike and

people view sports on Sports Talk Radio with this weird childlike wonderment, right? Like they don't look at professional athletes as like adult men. Like they view them as their heroes, even though they're like 40 and Jalen Hertz is 25 or whatever Jalen Hertz is. Jalen Hertz is like like they view Jalen Hertz the same way they view J Hurts if they were 14 or 13. Like they never get past that. A lot of these people in Philadelphia don't. Especially as it relates to Dallas shit. I told you the story

that the time that I said that I thought Tony Romo was the best quarterback in the NFC East. I damn near got fired for that. Like, you can't do that shit there. And that was part of the reason I hated it, is that there are just certain rules that you have to abide by when you're doing sports talk radio in Philadelphia. It was just like, it was like, you got to hate Dallas. I'm like, I don't really hate any of these places. I don't give a shit. Like I don't look at sports through the lens of oh I hate that city. Like I'm a Saints fan right? Like you gotta hate the Falcons. The Falcons are pretty much dog shit. They've never been good at anything. The only thing I enjoyed was them 28-3 in the Super

Bowl because it means they don't have a Super Bowl and the Saints do. Like that's when it gets me. I don't want to see teams that are the rivals win. Like I didn't like when the Cubs beat the the Guard Indians in the World Series because then the Cubs got a World Series. But on a day in day out basis, like I don't flip on the Cubs and go on those sons of bitches won today. Those cocksuckers like I just it doesn't like that doesn't faze me in that way. And maybe that's why Sports Talk Radio is maybe not for me because I just look at

things through a slightly more adult tent than you see a lot of people. Like in Houston though it was like that with Dallas. Like you know you would always talk shit about Dallas and I don't know it's just it's never been that interesting to me. And maybe if I could learn how to turn that on and do more of that, maybe it'd be better. And by the way, look, when the Astros were good and we had the Astros and it was 2017 and we're shitting on Dallas, I was fine with that. I was able to

find things that I could shit on that I truly believed. Like by the way, the city of Dallas, I don't like anyway just because every time I go, the traffic sucks and there's always construction and it's impossible to get anywhere in the stadiums or miles away from the downtown. There's a lot of factors about Dallas that I dislike. Really, my disliking for places happens when I talk with their fans on social media and I realize they're dipshits, but that's

everywhere, right? Anyhoo, so that's the opening game. It's smart though. It's very smart because at least you get one Eagles-Cowboys game in which the Eagles and the Cowboys both are competing for the NFC East because as you know, by about the 11th or 12th week of the season, the Cowboys are going to be hanging on barely trying to see if they can rattle off a couple in a row to get back in it. And Dak will probably be hurt because Dak gets hurt. But anyway, more to come.