The Josh Innes Show - I really loved the Cowboys doc

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

I saw a vide of Dan LeBatard being critical of the Netflix Cowboys documentary. He was interviewing Jeff Pearlman who wrote a great book about the Cowboys. They both were bothered by the fact that these networks and streaming services seemingly protect the subjects of documentaries in the name of getting access. Well, I don't mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. It's fitting that this whole thing with Micah Parsons went down as I'm watching the Jerry Jones documentary on Netflix. I mean, I say the Jerry Jones documentary. It's technically the Cowboys documentary, but, I mean, it's the Jerry Jones documentary, and it paints Jerry Jones in an extremely positive light. But that's kind of the way these things go.

I was listening to, I don't say, I wouldn't say I was listening to Dan Lebitard, but I'll see videos of his pop up on Twitter from time to time. And I used to really be a big Lebitard guy. There are a lot of guys that I used to be a blank guy over a big blank guy of. but I just, you know, I've just not anymore, right? Like, I used to really like Dan Lebitur, and then I feel like his whole thing is just kind of dower and depressing and weird now. You can watch some of these guys that used to be on television on ESPN and were a big deal and we're getting this kind of recognition all the time. And you can watch them doing their podcast that you know pay them well, so it's not like it's a shitty gig by any means. But you can tell they don't get the same kind of oomph.

And I think a lot of old school media guys are like that. So you look at Dan Lebitard, watch his videos and tell me if you're seeing a guy that looks like he enjoys himself. Like, I think that the old school media guys, like paper guys, TV guys, sports radio guys, I think they get kind of a different kick out of doing that versus doing a podcast. Because I don't think Lebitard does his podcast live streaming video, so I don't think he's like, and I might be wrong on this. But he's not like a McAfee who show is live on YouTube and then podcast. I think it's just a podcast with video going up later for Lebitard. I don't know if they live stream. If they do, my fucking bad.

But, like, there is something about getting that instant gratification, getting that reaction from people, you know. I find myself in that same position doing this in Detroit. There's not a ton of instant gratification even doing the radio show because we don't get a lot of phone calls or messages from people because this audience hasn't been trained to do that. So you don't get that kind of same reaction that you did, like doing sports radio. as miserable as it can be at times, you're getting an instant reaction from people, whether they're pissed or they think you're hysterical or they think you're right about something or wrong about something, there is an instant reaction that you get. But before we get into, I don't even know why I went down that path.

Why am I talking about, oh, there's a reason I'm talking about Levitart and some other stuff. Let me get into that after these words. Bankmore on course when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. So I bring up Lebitard because he is a big believer that by allowing access to the subjects of these documentaries, people are sacrificing, doing any real investigation into the subjects because they are getting the access.

And I don't think he's wrong. Like, if you go back and watch some documentaries about athletes or teams or whatever, most of them are pretty sterile and they tell you the story that the subject wants you to tell. Some of these documentaries end up better than others, though. Like some, like I thought the Johnny Mansell one on Netflix as part of the Untold, I thought that was a giant waste of time because you know that there's so much about this dude that's interesting. and all we got was kind of the kind of sterilized, benign Johnny Mansell angle on it, right? Now, there is something to be said about getting it from the source and not getting it from, like, reporters or somebody who are trying to be salacious and sell a book, right? So there is something to be said about that.

But I heard Jeff Perlman. I listened to a little bit of a Jeff Perlman interview with Dan Lebitard. And look, Jeff Perlman, by the way, if you don't know this, Jeff Perlman really fucking hate me. He probably has no idea who I am now, but he really hated me in Philadelphia because at one point I told one of his buddies, one of his media friends, to go play in traffic. And I had no idea that the guy had been hit by a car at some point, but they all thought I did know that. Like, it was one of those things that could only happen to me. Like, back in my day, I would tell people to go play in traffic all the time. Like, ooh, this guy's edgy.

Like, I would tell to a bunch of people, like, oh, go play in traffic. Like, it's a common saying. I didn't just make it up myself. It's a common thing that people say, go play in traffic. So I said this, and Jeff Perlman finds out about this, and he's ripping me because apparently he's friends with this writer who I had never heard of. I love the arrogance of people who think you've heard of them to the point that you would make deep-cut jokes like, hey, go play in traffic because I know you got hit by a car. I had never fucking heard of this guy. Jeff Perlman, I knew, because Jeff Perlman wrote some fucking incredible books.

He wrote the Cowboys book. He wrote a book called, I think it's called The Bad Guys One, and I think that was about, that was the name of the book about the Mets. Like, I used to interview Perlman because he wrote some fucking incredible sports books. And they're interviewing him on Lebitard. And he's basically like, it seems like they used my book as the source material for this. They didn't give me any credit, which is fine, whatever. But they left out a lot of shit that was interesting in the name of getting people to cooperate with the interview. And I guess that's kind of what you.

have to accept if you are a person that wants to see these kind of in-depth interviews. The Michael Jordan last dance series, I guarantee you there were other angles to those stories in which, you know, this 10 parts blowing Michael Jordan. I guarantee you if you wanted to find other people who had far less glowing things to say about Michael Jordan, you could have. But to get that kind of access to Jordan and to get the 10-parter that became the biggest thing outside of Tiger King that happened during the Rona, then you need to sacrifice some sort of integrity and kind of do what these guys want you to do.

And that was kind of their point. That's a big point that Lebitard makes a lot. And it's a point that I agree with them on that a lot of these documentaries just aren't all that interesting because the subjects are kind of controlling what the narrative is and what the message is. Now, the other side of that is you don't get any documentaries. But there are a lot of these that just are very sterile, very short, very bland. I haven't watched this one, the Cowboys documentary and thought.

it was bland. I haven't watched this and thought that it was boring. Now, having read Perlman's book, I know that there's a lot deeper things they can get into. But on the other side, you know, Perlman and these guys don't seem to acknowledge that there's a great distrust for media people and journalists now in the country. And whether you think it's because, you know, Trump and you hate Trump. And, you know, and Trump has created this, which he has. He's created a distrust for politicians. He's created a distrust for, you know, a journalist. So, you know, people might look at you as a journalist and think you're just making shit up to be titillating, and they're not going to believe you anyway. But, like, for instance, there is a, they talk in the documentary about when Michael Irvin stabbed one of his teammates in the neck because he cut him in line at the team barbershop.

He's like, no, he grabbed the scissors and stabbed the guy in the neck. And at the time, Irvin's on probation for the drug shit. So if they would have reported this and the cops would have been involved in it, he would have gone to jail because it wasn't essentially, it was attempted murder. He stuck a fucking pair of scissors in a guy's neck and it was like it's inches from his jugular. It would have killed him. And they kind of just gloss over that. Like to me, that could have been a whole goddamn episode about Michael Irvin, which it was. The episode was essentially about Michael Irvin as being the catalyst for this thing falling off the rails, right?

Like the Cowboys were on top of the world. then, you know, they end up not being on top of the world. And then it all kind of starts crumbling down whenever Mike Irvin gets, you know, popped and goes to court for cocaine. And then the wheels kind of fall off. And that's where it starts. I feel like they could have gone far more in depth on a lot of that stuff because, look, we're all human and we find that kind of shit interesting. Not that I don't find the uplifting six episodes of shit great. Basically, like in all documentaries, you could say they could have gone.

deeper into this subject matter. But overall, it's a good documentary. It's a good watch. It's a nostalgic watch. I'm in the last episode of it now, so the Cowboys have now fallen off a cliff, and Troy Aikman has just retired, and where do we go from here? And we're probably about to see Quincy Carter. And they end it with a very good cliffhanger in the second to last episode, and it was

just basically asking, like, what the fuck went wrong? You know, like how did this happen? You know? And it's interesting. But, like, guys like Lebitard, and I understand where they come from. because they want to investigate and they want to get the hows and the wise and they want to tell the quote unquote truth. The reality is, I don't think people in 2025 give a shit about the truth. We talk about this a lot.

That's one of the big talking points on this podcast is that I don't think people give a shit about the actual truth. They care about what they believe to be the truth and they want to be told what the, like Philadelphia. Somebody was asking me about this on Twitter based on the show from yesterday. where I'm talking about the dude in Philadelphia that's built this whole little universe and he's very angry and I find it to be quite obnoxious, but hey, he's built something for himself and he's got an audience there. And it doesn't feel genuine to me. It feels like no one's that angry over a fucking Tuesday baseball game. But hey, if it gets you clicks and it gets your views and it's gotten your jobs on the radio, good for you, bro. Same with like Stephen

A. Smith. I think Stephen A. Smith is the fucking worst. But if Stephen A. Smith created this character and it's gotten him $10 million, who might have fucking question it? In the same way that, like, if a Mark Maren questions these other fucking comedians, like, you're allowed to do that, but they have found success. You might not think they're legit Mark Maren, and he hates everybody, but they have found their niche. A lot of people hated Larry the Cable Guy for creating this character. And their way of shitting on that character was to post old videos of Larry the Cable Guy

before he was Larry the Cable Guy, wearing silk shirts doing lame stand-up in the 80s. Well, the guy created a character, news flash, Dice, Clay is not a real person. Dice Clay is a character created by Andrew Clay. You know what I'm saying? Like there's no dice. Dice is a character. And like that dude that plays Andrew Dice Clay does not walk around being Dice Clay all the time.

The Dice Clay is a heightened version of himself. So people pick and choose who they want to shit on to say that they're inauthentic or whatever. In Philadelphia, people don't want the truth. They want the truth that makes them feel. better. They want, like someone said, well, Philly really embraces authenticity. The fuck Philly does. The Philly, like everybody else, just wants to be lied to. Philly people want to be told that they're the greatest fans ever. And Philly people want to be told that you think it's the greatest city ever. And Philly people want to be told that you're

never going to leave. And Philly people want to be told, you know, that they are the absolute best. People don't want you to be authentic. They want you to tell them what they want to hear. And because they like what they hear, they view you as authentic. That's all. it is. There's no such thing as like if I went in there, like I went in there and I was authentic. People think I was being phony. Like in their mind, the way warped minds work, I went in there and I was being fake because I thought that Tony Romo was the best quarterback in the NFC East instead of Nick Foles. You know who else thought that Tony Romo was the best quarterback in the NFC East and not Nick Foles in 2013? Literally the entire fucking world outside of

Philadelphia. Literally. It's not like I went in there and said, boy, watch this fake opinion that's going to piss them off. No, me being authentic pissed you off. If I would have been inauthentic, you would have thought I was smart. The people who tend to tell me I don't know about sports and I'm not a sports guy, quote unquote, are people who disagree with the shit I say. If they agreed with me, they'd think I was knowledgeable. The only thing that gives you credibility is people agreeing with you.

There's no such thing. Like in 2025, people are very feeble-minded and people are very tribal. If you tell them what they want to hear, they think you're credible. There's a bunch of right-wing people that because they're right-wing, they think everything that right-wing reporters say is accurate and true and that they are credible and that Don Lemon is not credible, which he really isn't. He's a fucking lunatic. But the point is in all of this, it goes back to the documentaries and it goes back to coverage of people

and whether or not you're authentic and whether you're true. Like, I would have loved it if this Cowboys documentary would have gotten deeper into shit. But ultimately, people just want to be entertained. People want to be, they want to enjoy it. they want to kind of be told a story that they want to believe. And look, you can say that's right or wrong. It's probably wrong. But it goes back to the argument about the NFL being in bed with ESPN and the NFL

owning part of ESPN and now you won't get credible reporting and blah, blah, blah. The people don't give a shit about credible reporting. The people just want to watch the fucking games. Like the people that care most about telling the truth are reporters and people. But the reality is as a reporter, you exist to get the truth out to the people. If the people don't give a shit about the actual truth, then what purpose do you serve? And I don't think people care about the truth. People are so tribal, they're so into their group, and they're not going to believe anything you tell them that goes aside or goes the other direction from what they believe and what their tribe believes.

Again, that doesn't make it right, but that's 2025. People don't give a shit about the truth. They give a shit about what they believe. Anyway, all that to tell you this. I think this Cowboys documentary has been good because there are a lot. A lot of documentaries that suck and are uninteresting and boring. A lot of these untolds on Netflix are boring. I think 30 for 30s have gotten very stale when they put them out.

If you want to see incredible television, incredible documentary filmmaking, watch the early 30 for 30s when they had like legit filmmakers making these and they were all an hour and a half to two hours and the subject matter was fascinating and they were well done and thorough. As it started churning out more and more, you start getting documentaries about Mike and the Mad Dog. Like, look, I liked it. I'm a radio guy. Who outside of New York radio listeners is like, fuck, I got to find out more about Mike and the Mad Dog? Nobody. They started having worse subjects, shorter documentaries. They went, there was more on the peripheral. But that happens with everything. You know what used to be a great show? Bar Rescue. You get

like an hour-long episode and you feel like connected to the people involved. Now it's a churn and burn like it's just bang bang tapper comes in yells at somebody and they spit out a new episode and it just doesn't feel the same early episodes of bar rescue were really good now i couldn't tell you what happens but i stopped watching them because they just became just like a churn and burned and i don't like them anymore anyway more to come