The Josh Innes Show - The Most Common Sense Take On Shedeur

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Bomani Jones has delivered the best take on the Shedeur Sanders drama. It's spectacular. We break it down here. I've always respected Bomani because he did something for me that I'll always appreciate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, so I see this headline, and I find it intriguing because this is someone who has actually come to my defense before on something racial. So, and he probably wouldn't remember doing that because it was 10 years ago. But headline reads, Bomani Jones rips NFL media for making Shadur Sanders, quote, a cause. Quote, you are embarrassing yourselves. Ha! See, Somebody fucking gets it. As I said over the weekend, like I have nothing against Shudder Sanders. I have nothing against his dad. Shudder is probably an okay football player, might be an NFL backup, who knows. His dad I think is very full of shit most of the time, but there are a lot of times I'm easily duped by his full of shit and

I'm motivated. There have been times I've nearly bought like coach prime hoodies and shit because I'll be watching his show and I'm like fuck this guy inspires me and then other times he'll say shit and I'm like all right this guy's full of shit and I hate him right like there's not hate hate's a strong word but like he's full of shit and I want nothing to do with him essentially right as I've said before that's what happened with me and Angel Reese when I thought Angel Reese was getting like just shit on because she was black talking shit to the white girl and it became a big racial story. I came to her defense because I think she warranted it. Then whenever she starts playing victim on shit and wants to be bad bitch, but also wants to be a victim, then I'm like, no, I don't need this shit. I reserved the right to

change my defense of you based on the situations. We ain't family, so I can change my opinion on you whenever I want. But this sounds like it's going to be a common sense look at this. Because anybody who has common sense or anybody who's been in the game for long enough, if you saw what was happening over the weekend and what continues to happen during the week, I've never seen anything like it. And it is absurd. I have never seen this. And as I've said before, if Shader Sanders were just some dopey white kid whose dad was rich and carried him to a couple of schools and talked like he was the greatest fucking player ever and his dad was a Hall of Famer, and he went in the fifth round of the draft,

we'd all sit back and laugh and go, ha ha ha ha, he fell in the fifth round, those arrogant sons of bitches, ha ha ha. And if he got prank called, we'd laugh our dicks off at it, and it'd be hysterical, ha ha ha. But instead, this became some sort of absurd statement about race and in the process it became a statement about race that also dumped on any black guy that got drafted because they weren't shooter sanders like it was a wild weekend and the media the way the media reacted though i've never seen anything

like this it was like pearl clutching but it was also like condemning of the NFL and the NFL. We had Mel Kuyper saying that the NFL doesn't know how to evaluate quarterbacks. Yes, the talking head on TV, Mel Kuyper, says that the dudes who are paid to evaluate quarterbacks have no clue how to evaluate quarterbacks. It is nuts. We are living in a simulation is what we are doing. This weekend, I've never seen anything like it. We may never see anything like it again, but it just shows, again, power of social media, power of racial discussion, power of celebrity, right? Again, there's a great video that's out there.

It was so good that I thought it was AI, it was the video of of of Cam Ward having a practice session a throwing session with Shadur Sanders and in the video Shadur is just kind of like beating off and doing whatever and like you know hey you want to do a song together and and whatever he goes you know your completion percent and then Cam Ward goes back at him it's like your completion percentage was so high because you threw all them check downs. And he's like, well, I don't have a running game. And like, they're talking shit to each other. And like, you can tell that Cam Ward,

no smile on his face, doesn't give a fuck because Cam Ward does not view this as, you know, Rocky III. This isn't a Rocky III situation where he's out there talking with fucking Kermit the Frog and shit on the Muppet Show. He's out there. Basically, you want to see two different dudes like Cam Ward in this video at least look like Mr. T like doing fucking like you know crunches and fucking rut like you know out there punching shit and everything getting ready whereas like Rocky was like training in a ballroom

like that's kind of the vibe that you got from those two dudes. Like one dude's like, I ain't rich. I didn't come from this fucking cash you came from. I don't give a shit who your dad is. I'm trying to be the number one fucking pick because this is my livelihood. And that's essentially what he said is I get paid to play football. I'm not here for what football can do for me. I'm not here for the money. I don't come from money.

This isn't just like fun for me. And like that's one of the stories. Speaking of, that's one of the rumors or stories that's come out recently about Shadur is that they felt Shadur was treating his pre-draft meetings like a recruiting trip you know like he's Jesus Shuttlesworth you know going to visit schools and a bunch of chicks are fucking him on a recruiting visit like he was treating it like basically sell yourself to me. And honestly, that's a Dion thing. And Dion put his kid in a bad spot

because that's how they treated this. Like there's nothing wrong with being confident. There's nothing wrong with believing in yourself. But when I saw that video of Cam Ward and Shader Sanders, I saw one guy that legitimately is confident and legitimately locked in and another guy who puts on this confident act for a show like that's what I see in him like I see fake confidence I see beta male shit where a dude is like putting on a front acting like he's big shit because he doesn't

know how to actually be confident that's what I see out of Shadur Sanders and if he really did go on these recruiting or these pre-draft meetings and treated them like recruiting visits which again if you know anything about recruiting visits it's a bunch of old-ass dudes begging 18 year old dudes to come to their school like tell me why i'd be good no we have to draft you you're not picking us dude so but anyway let me play a couple commercials and i'll get into this uh bamani jones thing all right if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts,

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slash promos. All right. So again, the headline reads, Bimani Jones rips NFL media for making Shadur Sanders a cause. Quote, you're embarrassing yourselves. I agree with this. I'd like, again, never seen anything like it. This is from Awful Announcing, a terrible website for what it's worth. In some corners of sports media, Shader Sanders' fall into the fifth round of the NFL draft was interpreted as the latest example of a black quarterback being undervalued and disrespected by the football establishment. A contingent led by ESPN's Stephen A. Smith even compared Sanders' slide to the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick by NFL owners a decade ago. But to longtime sports commentator Bomani Jones, that couldn't be further from the truth. Thank you, Bomani.

The thing about Bomani is I've always viewed Bomani as someone that has common sense views on things. He talks a lot about racial shit, and i'm not against talking about racial shit i'm against shit that's not common sense i'm against shit that's just blasted out there like steven a smith comparing some rich fucking kid getting drafted in the fifth round to colin kaepernick which is absurd but anyway on the latest episode of the right time jones explained why the treatment of kaepernick and sand is not comparable and why anyone turning Sanders' slide as a cause is embarrassing themselves. Let's read some of this. In particular, Jones emphasized the difference between being outspoken and what he called obnoxious. Based on his conversations with NFL colleagues, Jones believes

Sanders is only the latter. Sanders is brash, a celebrity, and many other things that could make him a distraction. But unlike Kaepernick, Jones does not see any evidence that he is speaking out for much of anything. Thank you. Like, I think Kaepernick's full of shit too. But at least Kaepernick is doing it under the guise of something bigger. This dude ain't talking on behalf of anybody but fucking Dion and him. Now, of course, now that he's been made a victim in this, maybe he can kind of shift it and do it because now he's kind of a martyr to a lot of dummies on the internet.

Quote, if your argument is they wanted to show this outspoken black man his place, number one, let us stop acting like outspoken and obnoxious are perfect synonyms, Jones says. They are not. Show me something that Shadur Sanders has spoken out about. Tell me what the thing is. Tell me what the cause is. He's not outspoken. I have not seen any reason to call him outspoken. Even if you think he has been treated unfairly, outspoken is a stretch and it's ridiculous to say that about him, I believe. Agreed. That's the argument that was baffling to me is they just don't like when you got cocky outspoken black men so when you say this kind

of shit confident cocky all this you're basically shitting on the other 200 black dudes that got drafted like they're just they're just sucking at the master's teat of the NFL but this guy because he goes out and he's cocky as shit and wants to make music, they can't handle that. They can't handle us when we're loud and we're black and we're proud. Jones also dispelled multiple accusations that have been thrown toward NFL owners and executives in the aftermath of his fall in the draft.

As for the idea that the league was sending him a message about his personality, NIL earnings, or his father's public persona, Jones wondered why he got drafted. And when it comes to Sanders' father, Deion, Jones noted that he is actually quite popular in NFL circles. After all, Deion worked for the NFL network for years before moving into coaching. Instead, Jones believes the big gap between the perception around where Sanders would land and where he was ultimately selected is simpler to understand. People were simply afraid to criticize the young quarterback around the Colorado program, which made it hard for NFL evaluators to get an accurate read on him that they could trust. As a result, Jones argued that NFL teams assumed a

different team would take him, but none did. All along, the Sanders family continued to project confidence. Dion hyped Shadur up as the best quarterback in America and a lock to go near the top of the draft. According to Jones, what ultimately doomed Shadur is the way the family handled his tenure in Boulder and his own personal performance when he met with teams. Thank you. Quote, to my colleagues who are making this a

cause, you are embarrassing yourselves. You are playing yourselves, Jones said. And I appreciate that because it's honest. It's just an honest fucking thing. Quote, and even if part of why he fell is that people didn't like him, he was going for a job where being liked is part of the deal. They did it wrong. That's all it comes down to. They did it wrong. There are criticisms to be made of Colin Kaepernick, but he literally gave it all up in the name of a cause that was bigger than him. The only cause Shader Sanders has is himself. Don't you motherfucking dare act like those two things are the same. Do not. Have you lost the plot so badly? Look around you. The whole world is on fire.

And you think that this is the thing to get mad about? You think that this is the thing to go march on and talk about? Because the NFL told an apparently obnoxious young man that he wasn't good enough to be a starter? He wasn't good enough to be a starter? Oh, sorry. There was an emphasis on the other wasn't. He wasn't good enough to be a starter. There you go.

Sorry about that. Let's see. Bomani Jones implored anyone in the media comparing Sanders to Kaepernick to shut the fuck up. Quote, so to those of you who don't know what you're talking about and you don't know what you're talking about, would you please shut the fuck up? Way to go. Good shit. God, he keeps going.

Quote, because there are things that are so important that you're missing and your outlook is not going or your outlook is not doing the service to the young man that you claim to care about because he's got some things that he needs to hear. And I don't know if his daddy is going to be the one to tell him. I don't know who's going to be the one to tell him, but he better learn them fast. Otherwise, his NFL career will end in August that's all that is all and I will say this and I've always thought that Bomani Jones has been someone who's been kind of level-headed on shit and I've told you guys this before but when I got suspended like the first time I really got in serious trouble was when I got suspended actually I guess I had been actually when I was in Houston

I got sent home for a half a show once but that was just because I was talking shit about my boss. But in Philadelphia, when I got in trouble for the Jason Kelsey thing, it was like this huge thing. And I was the top story on the news. They're playing audio of me on the fucking news. They're interviewing people at Chickies and fucking Pete's about me. It's national news, you know, and all it was, I was just making a joke. And, and again, my intentions were not evil or anything like that. I don't view myself as some sort of bigot or whatever, but, uh, everybody's shitting on me, the whole fucking world. Right. And, um, I see a tweet from Bomani Jones.

And I don't remember exactly what the tweet said, but I'll never forget this. And this is why I will never say bad shit about Bomani Jones. Because Bomani Jones is basically like, yeah, dude used a bad choice of words, but I don't think this is like the end of the fucking world. This isn't the worst thing I've ever heard. Like, I mean, whatever. And I was like, worst thing I've ever heard. Like, I mean, whatever. And I was like, thank you, but Monty Jones, like I tweet him. I'm like, thank you. Like, I'm not like, yeah, I said something that, that people took and ran with and thought it was the worst thing they'd ever heard. And cause people like drama and Philadelphia likes drama. Like I probably could have said that exact same thing I said in Philadelphia on the show in

Houston and nobody would have thought twice about it and it would have just gone on and it wouldn't have made news or anything. But in Philly, they latch onto this kind of shit. Someone grabs it, it makes news, and then you're forced to be suspended and it's a whole deal. But nowadays, people can't look at shit through a lens of like, it's kind of like this. There is no like scale of like what's bad, what's kind of bad, whatever. Everything is just the worst fucking thing ever. Back then there was still kind of a sliding scale like, okay, you said this, it was stupid. We don't think you meant anything serious by it. We move on. Now, anything you say is treated like you said the worst fucking thing ever. And I will always appreciate that, but money, while the whole world shitting on me, I'm just getting dumped on. I'm seeing social media, nothing positive being said

about me. People think I'm the biggest piece of shit on the planet and trust me when you're in that like it feels like it's never gonna end when you're in the midst of like that when you're in the crosshairs of like these kind of stories and that's happened to me I guess twice everything well the the radio row thing did but it's not like it was the worst thing ever it's just people are like lol these two dopes fighting when I got fired Philly, it felt like that shit was never going to fucking end. I was just going to keep getting hammered. And the thing with the Jason Kelsey thing never felt like it was going to fucking end. It just kept coming and coming and coming.

And nobody really used any common sense about it. And I explained. And that's why I never apologized for it. I got on the air and I'm like I'm not going to apologize when I know what I said and I know what I meant to say and it's a fucking joke and I was quoting this I'm like like I don't know if I actually apologized to Kelsey or not like I may have like like like and now I would I'd like dude I wouldn't like it was a fucking joke like I don't know anything about it like whatever but, I didn't apologize for it because why, why would I

like, I know what I said. I know what I meant when I said it. And just because you've taken it in some way that wasn't the meaning behind it. And you want to get out your pitchforks and run me into the fucking ground. Like, I'm not going to apologize. And again, maybe that's one of the reasons why maybe i was just doomed after that who knows but like you gotta kind of stand up for yourself at some point like like and not just sit there and bow down and be like oh i'm so sorry i'm the worst human ever i'm not a bad human and at some point you have to acknowledge these things but um good for uh bamani jones man like so like and it's not just like you're not seeing enough people in the media saying this.

Watching what I watched over the weekend was pathetic. I've never seen anything like it. And I think a large part of it is these people are afraid of Dion. I think a large part of it is that's just the way of the world now because there's a lot of social media clout and currency to just get on there and be like this young man's getting screwed over because he's confident and black and blah blah blah like look i can get on the air and tell you that i got fired at at casey 95 because they weren't ready for someone like me and that's partially true but the other part of it is hey do you want to keep your six-figure job j, then just sit there and do you know what the people want? Maybe I would have gotten fired

anyway, and I wouldn't have enjoyed it. But like, that's kind of how it works. There's always someone who's above you, unless you're your own boss. There's always somebody above you. And there's always someone who's making the decisions. But watching this, this victim mentality, and this whole thing was sad. And I'm glad that someone that's got a voice in a platform is just willing to be like, Hey, by the way, and not like some, you know, right wing fucking guy, you know, cause that's going to be the take of all right wing fucking guys. Someone who seemingly is, if I had to guess, not a super duper right wing Trumper guy to go out and say something like this is fucking sad.

And I'm glad that someone did. And it's not just me talking to the clouds. All right. Anyway, more to come.