The Josh Innes Show - Reading The USA TODAY Sports Section

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

I didn't intend on reading various stories from the USA TODAY Sports section...But, one headline got me so hot that I had to discuss it. Does anyone listen to or enjoy Rich Eisen? Why does the NFL... keep screwing hometown fans? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:30 There you are. Pushing your newborn baby in a stroller through the park. The first time out of the house in weeks. You have your Starbucks, venti, because, you know, sleep deprivation. You meet your best friend, she asks you how it's going, you immediately begin to laugh, then cry, then laugh cry, that's totally normal, right? She smiles, you hug, there's no one else you'd rather share this with. You know, three and a half hours sleep is more than enough. Starbucks, it's never just coffee. The following was recorded from inside an ice plunge. Ah!
Starting point is 00:01:06 Whoo! Okay, all right. When a core's light is cold enough, the mountains on the can turn blue! So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package, core's light, just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. Whoo! It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing gold. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?
Starting point is 00:01:33 When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer so download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes plus enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart groceries that over deliver. I really enjoyed this headline from USA Today headline reads winners and losers from Thunder's ugly game for win versus Nuggets.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Headline winners and losers from Thunder's ugly game for win versus the Nuggets. Well in the headline you've already told me who the winners and losers are friends. It's a playoff game. Like I don't understand how you'd be breaking down like what this means, like what this performance means here, here, here, and here as if we're in the middle of the regular season and then there's polls that are involved and like wow, like it's a beauty contest. It's a fucking playoff game, a gigantic playoff game at that one where Denver could have gone up three games to one and
Starting point is 00:02:43 instead didn't get the job done and now Denver is tied 2-2 in that series with Oklahoma City but winners and losers. Well, the winner was the Thunder and the loser was the Nuggets. I think we solved it. We did a very good job there, did we not? Good. I don't need to read your story because it's a playoff game. Like you cannot talk about playoff games like regular season games. Like there is no, yeah, we were able to eke out that game, but I'm worried. It doesn't fucking
Starting point is 00:03:14 matter. It's a playoff game. This isn't a game, a football game in September. This isn't a basketball game in November. It is a basketball game in May. It is a basketball game in May. It is a playoff basketball game. There is no let's break this down and what does it mean for the next game? You find a way to win the game and you survive and you advance. That's the name of it. The idea that some dipshit, this poor dipshit, whoever had to write this story, winners and losers from Thunder's Ugly Game
Starting point is 00:03:43 4 win versus Nuggets. I'll click on it. Let me do this. Let me play a couple commercials and we will continue. matchups onto one slip with same game parlay plus. What's better than playoff hockey? Overtime playoff hockey. Get more from the game with live overtime markets. Download FanDuel today and get more with North America's number one sports book. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling
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Starting point is 00:04:35 Extra. Alright, let's read this. This is from Jeff Zilgett. Z-I-L-L-G-I-T-T. Jeff Zilgett. Thunder win ugly in game four versus Nuggets. Winners and losers from NBA playoff. This is absurd! Winners and losers from NBA playoff game. Winner, Thunder, loser, Nuggets, thank you for playing Jeff Zilget of USA Today. This poor bastard. Someone probably, like they made him write this. They had to have. I mean, I'm going to read this because I'm fascinated by how someone could do this. Given the choice between winning ugly or losing with style, NBA coaches and players will take winning ugly. Yes! If it were January, maybe losing with style has its benefit. Yes, Jeff. But in May, during the NBA playoffs
Starting point is 00:05:30 when the grind and slog of almost every possession make even the best teams look bad, the choice is obvious, winning Trump's all. Why the fuck is this a story? The Oklahoma City Thunder won ugly Sunday, defeating the Denver Nuggets 92 to 87 in Game 4 tying the best of seven Western Conference semifinal series at 2-2. The Thunder shot just 35.6% from the field and 24.4% on three-pointers, but that was enough as their defense limited the Nuggets and their star Nikola Jokic. Okay, oh good, here's the list. This is good. Here are the winners from Thunder's Game 4 win over the Nuggets. Again, this person has already pointed out that winning pretty ugly doesn't matter. It's the playoffs. You've already answered the question. However,
Starting point is 00:06:17 let's see who the winners and losers are from the Thunder's Game 4 win over the Nuggets. Let's see if we can guess these. I'm going to guess. Let's see. It's going to have to be something around like the loser has to be like Jokic because he's not playing well and it's like the battle of the MVP types. There's going to be some angle there and it's going to be something about the two interim coaches or the interim. Well, the winner is going to have to be the that's not two interim coaches. There's the interim coach in Denver and then the head coach, by the way, two unappealing men.
Starting point is 00:06:52 Like what happened when good looking men like Pat Riley used to be fucking coaches in the NBA? I mean, these two dudes are doofuses. But anyway, so I mean, they both look like characters in like British television shows. But anyway, so you've got, I'm going to say that one of the angles in this is going to be that the coach, I was a dag Bagnold or whatever the hell the guy's name is, the coach of the Thunder. I'm going
Starting point is 00:07:21 to say that it was huge for him because if they fall down 3-1, they almost definitely lose the series and then you take the best team in the regular season in the NBA and now you lose in the second round and now you're on the hot seat. One of those type of deals. Let's see what the first one is. Oklahoma City's MVP finalist delivered a team-high 25.6 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals. He missed his 5 three-point attempts, but did what he has done all season and crushed it inside the three-point line. So that's good to know that the guy that scored 25 points is one of the winners in this winners and losers game here in game 4 of this series. Next, let's see, Oklahoma City's bench. The Thunder had one of the NBA's top benches this season. But again, we know their bench won. They were on the fucking team that won. Thunder's defense and transition offense. Cool. Like my God, like losers, Nikola Jokic. No shit. He's the
Starting point is 00:08:27 best fucking player on the team that lost. The series has turned into a difficult one for Jokic. Denver's MVP finalist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cool. So we were right about Jokic. Maybe it'll be the angle that their interim coach made some blunders or some shit that'll probably be in there. Three-point shooting Michael Porter jr.'s left shoulder that's right Michael Porter jr.'s left shoulder is one of the losers in this game of course they're all losers and all their body parts are losers because they lost the fucking game. Other stuff from USA Today which always brings
Starting point is 00:09:07 me so much joy and gives me opportunity to ridicule. I'm amazed that this is considered the nation's newspaper. Let's see here. Let's look at... Oh, here's one for you. Rich Eisen is coming back. Rich Eisen is going to be on ESPN. Basically, they're putting his radio show on one of their platforms or whatever. Rich Eisen, to go along with guys like Dan Patrick and others, have the most boring fucking radio shows on the planet. They're fine when they're interviewing people. Like, Rich Eisen has interesting people.
Starting point is 00:09:44 Mostly he just has Kevin Pollockock on and Kevin Pollock tells great Jack Nicholson stories and it's cool but you've got Rich Eisen who is not going to be on linear ESPN but he is going to be like on one of their streaming platforms or whatever. I've never understood the appeal of Rich Eisen because Rich Eisen constantly looks like he has no interest in you at all and looks bored all the time. I interviewed him one time and this is a lot of my basis for this is the time I interviewed him and you could tell when I was talking
Starting point is 00:10:16 with him I was looking at him face to face and it just felt like this guy had no interest in being there. He just looked disgusted by the idea of this conversation. And I'm like, I don't like you, bro. Like I find you to be smug and kind of condescending and kind of a smartest guy in the room type of vibe. I just I don't get it, right? At least like Dan Patrick doesn't have a smarmy vibe. I just don't find him interesting and I never have. But I'm also one of these people that doesn't find any of these old school sports center anchors that we hold in such high regard as some sort of great revolutionaries of the media war. Right? Like I listen to the guys that are on ESPN now, they try to
Starting point is 00:10:54 do the same hacky shit the people from ESPN in 1994 were doing. But in 1994, we all thought cool is the other side of the pillow was like the most revolutionary thing we'd ever heard. But now some other guy makes some hacky line on SportsCenter and we're like, ESPN is just dead. It's not what it used to be. It's not what it used to be back when Keith Olbermann would say from way downtown, bang. That was cutting edge television. But now the shit these guys are doing is that is not cutting edge
Starting point is 00:11:22 television. That is shit. Oh, but man, we used to fawn over that shit. Like, go back, do me a favor. Go back and just see if it's possible to find like a sports center, a full sports center episode from like 1997, right? Now, I'll tell you this. The journalism is probably somewhat better back then because I think that people were just better journalists back then or at least had more credibility back then. Nobody has any credibility. Like when you see Elle Duncan or whatever the fuck her name is, like if you see Elle Duncan on TV on ESPN, do you go, boy, she's credible? No, but when you see Susie Kohlberg, you're like, I feel like there's some credibility there. Keith Olbermann had credibility or whomever back in the day, right? Had some
Starting point is 00:12:03 talent and credibility, right? But go back and watch and tell me if it's all that interesting. It's not much different than it is today. But they had hacky slogans and ESPN was at its apex. And they didn't go super political. So you didn't automatically just dislike everything they did. So you look back on shit and you're like, boy, like those were the days then you watch it and you're like, is this really that great? Like I look and this is not to rip somebody like Dan Patrick or whatever. But I look at Dan
Starting point is 00:12:35 Patrick. And I everybody fawns all over Dan Patrick like Dan Patrick just is like he invented talk radio and he invented Sports Center, right? And that's just how everybody looks at him and then i'm just like and maybe part of that is just my natural you know the natural approach that i have which is just always kind of being the contrarian like i hear a bunch of people love something so then automatically i just dismiss it and don't love it but like rich eisen like there's nothing i like about rich eisen automatically, I just dismiss it and don't love it. But like Rich
Starting point is 00:13:05 Eisen, ugh, like there's nothing I like about Rich Eisen. And there's nothing I like about Dan Patrick. For different reasons, I just don't get... Now, when Dan Patrick tells some old school ESPN behind the scenes stories, those are fine. Like, that's kind of cool. But like, Dan Patrick is a talk show host and do anything for me. And let me ask you this, when have you ever sought out Dan Patrick on the radio? boy I got to find Dan Patrick and listen to him you probably haven't you have no idea what channel he's on and don't care what channel he's on so what else is on here so there's apparently Michael Jordan is going to do some sort of feature he's going to be doing a feature on the return to the NBA on NBC. He will join the NBA coverage as a
Starting point is 00:13:50 special contributor. That means Michael Jordan is going to do basically nothing and get paid probably millions of dollars is probably what that means. Michael Jordan does not strike me as the kind of guy that has any remote interest in sitting around doing some sort of schlocky, you know, in-game pieces or anything like that for the NBA and NBC, and he doesn't need to. So if he's doing that, they're probably giving him a shit ton of money because I don't think Michael's just clamoring for some sort of attention. Also on USA Today, it's just a fun thing to scroll through USA Today and make fun of it. NFL schedule leaks 2025 latest rumors and updates. Boy, that's the kind of shit we're focused on.
Starting point is 00:14:30 We got schedule leaks guys. Let's see here. We know that the opener is going to be the Eagles and the Cowboys at the link. Let's see if there's any new updates on here. think. Let's see if there's any new updates on here. Let's see Chargers and Chiefs to play in Brazil game week one per report as a couple days ago, so I don't understand why they continue to play football games in these other countries. I get the idea of it. You know, I understand that like the ambition is to build this global game that everybody's into and whatever, but you obviously have the most the
Starting point is 00:15:05 biggest fucking brand in all of American sport. I don't give a shit if Brazil gives a shit about the NFL and I don't care if London gives a shit about the NFL. You should never be taking football games regular season football games away from your ticket-buying public in America. It is absolute bullshit, especially when you end up taking games away from places that are really passionate towns too. It's one thing when Jacksonville loses a fucking home game. It's another
Starting point is 00:15:32 thing when the Eagles lose a home game. It's another thing if the Chiefs lose a home game. So, Chargers and Chiefs. Now, I don't know if this is going to be a Chiefs home game or what. Let's see. The NFL has officially announced the Chargers will play the league's second São Paulo game in 2025. It reports the opponent will be the Chiefs for the Chargers and that YouTube is currently expected to broadcast the game. Fischer called the Chiefs the NFL's top viewership draw, which would make more fans likely to tune into the contest.
Starting point is 00:16:03 So this is a, again, this is a regular season game Will play in Brazil week one. So the first game of the year is in fucking Brazil. What are we doing? Let's see the NFL announced it is going to reveal the dates and times of select matchups ahead of the full schedule release Wednesday So this morning on the Today show They announced the first one Wednesday. So this morning on the Today show they announced the first one. Let's see NFL reveals international game host so on May 8th. So this is a couple of days ago, but you had London at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Jets are going to
Starting point is 00:16:39 host a game there. The Browns are going to host a game in England. Jacksonville is going to host a game at Wembley. The Colts are going to host a game in England. Jacksonville is going to host a game at Wembley. The Colts are going to host a game in Germany. The Dolphins are going to host a game in Spain. The Steelers, like you're taking a playoff game or a home game away from the Steelers. Pittsburgh, fucking Pennsylvania to play in Ireland. And then Brazil will be the Chargers. So those are the teams that are losing home games. So we'll have teams that are losing home games.
Starting point is 00:17:05 So we'll have the opportunity. Hey, look, Cleveland, that means that you're going to get London, England is going to get the Chaudhuri show assuming that he makes the team. So that's the latest on the schedules in the NFL. That's exciting shit right there. I will never be down with the idea of taking just taking home games away from fans in the NFL. Those are the people that have made you the biggest product in all of sports and you're saying, fuck you, we got to go try to lure in some fucking people from Germany to like our shit.
Starting point is 00:17:37 Sorry, we got to play this football game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Give me a fucking break. Play your games in America, sons of bitches. Want to go play an exhibition game? Go play an exhibition game. And then what's going to happen is they're going to put football teams in all these countries, NFL teams in these damn countries. How about you just take what you have here that's a beautiful thing? It's ours, god damn it. Anyway, more to come.

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