The Josh Innes Show - Reading The USA TODAY Sports Section
Episode Date: May 12, 2025I 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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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.
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
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
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
4 win versus Nuggets. I'll click on it.
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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
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,
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.