The Josh Innes Show - Would You Boo Sean Payton?

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Hi friends! Tonight we get a truly dreadful Thursday Night Football matchup between the Denver Broncos and the New Orleans Saints. I can't tell you anything about the guys playing receiver for the Saints. Former Saints coach Sean Payton returns to the Dome. Drew Brees will be inducted into the team Hall Of Fame at halftime. I'm intrigued to see how Saints fans will react to Payton's return. It's one of the more unique instances of a former coach returning. On this pod, I will compare this to other times coaches have come back to battle their former team. AJ Hinch returning to Houston...Andy Reid returning to Philly...Nick Saban returning to LSU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy, Jamokes. What's happening? It's Josh. How are you? On this Thursday morning, Thursday night football tonight, the Saints and the Broncos. I don't know what we did to deserve this, although it is a close line, but I would expect Denver to just beat the shit out of the Saints tonight. I think the Saints are broken. I mean, look, do I think the Saints would have won the Super Bowl had they stayed healthy? No. But if you look at their injury list, I don't know that a team has ever been decimated at so many key positions this early in the season than the Saints have been right now. That includes the starting quarterback. That includes like the most important parts of their offensive

line decimated their best receivers out I couldn't tell you who's playing receiver for them their two best receivers on the team out one of them just had surgery yesterday one of them is out again Chris Alave I mean it's basically Alvin Kamara and the Pips. If you go down the list of some of these dudes playing for the Saints tonight, let me give you the, I'll go to FanDuel here and look at the players they have available to catch passes, okay? Mason Tipton, $20 who can tell me where Mason Tipton went to college. Who the hell Mason Tipton is? I believe he's a,

well, for those who don't know, I think he's one of these guys that went to an Ivy League school. Princeton? Maybe he might be a Princeton dude, but there's Mason Tipton. Bub Means. Anyone know anything about Bub Means? I'm watching the game yesterday or on Sunday, and Bub Means is the only guy catching passes seemingly in this game from Spencer Rattler. Just like Bub Means for 10, Bub Means for 12, whatever. I text my buddy Matt. I go, who the fuck is Bub Means?

I've never heard of this person. By the way, he is the Saints leader, it would appear, if you're looking for the highest potential passing yardage receiving total today for the Saints. It's actually Alvin Kamara. And then Bub Means. Bub Means. Jawan Johnson.

Who the fuck is Cedric Wilson Jr.? Whoever Cedric Wilson Jr. is, 17 and a half. Foster Morrow, who I would not know if he didn't go to LSU. Foster Morrow, another tight end. Like three of these dudes are tight ends. Bub Means, Juwan Johnson, Foster Morrow, Alvin Kamara is the running back, and Mason Tipton is a guy who's a receiver. Holy shiot.

This is just an ugly, ugly, ugly football game where you've got shitty Bo Nix against shitty Spencer Rattler. You want to know how bad this game is tonight? So, you know I like to play the combo bets where you can take both quarterbacks to combine for 500. And like in some games, it'll be plus 100 or minus 185. So that means it's highly likely that both of these quarterbacks would combine for 500 yards. Uh, we talked about it with the, um, with the jets game

on Monday. Like there was, there was pretty solid value, really good value actually for those two quarterbacks to combine for 500. It was like plus 400 bucks for those guys to combine for 500, right? Plus you bet 100, you win 400, right? But usually in an NFL game, if you have two competent NFL quarterbacks, most of the time you're going to be looking at plus 110, plus 120, sometimes minus 105 for 500 combined passing yards. So minus 105 would mean you'd have to bet $105 to win 100, right? Tonight's game and this matchup, Spencer Rattler versus Bo Nix, two rookies who have not thrown for much, second start ever for Spencer Rattler who by the way I feel for you know everything that he did on Sunday he wasn't bad first half he was actually really solid

second half they figured him out Todd Bowles started dialing it up and my man was running for his life and just making bad decisions but like I'm not going to put it on him that they lost the game they gave up 51 points they're terrible um but for this game this is wild so for tonight's game for the two quarterbacks to combine for 550 yards is plus 2300 so a hundred dollars wins you 23000 to combine for 500 is plus $850. So even if you put like 25 bucks on these two jamokes to combine for 500 bucks, you'd still win like $200. So like, it's kind of worth the shot just to give you something. If you are someone who's in a position where you can bet on this shit, it's kind of worth a shot because you never know maybe it'll just be wacky Denver's defense is pretty solid so I would guess that Spencer Rattler's not going to throw for a ton but he might

this might be a shootout maybe in the dome this might be the first time you see Bo Nix really get into a shootout and he and Spencer Rattler just sling it and Bub Means and Mason Tipton and whoever the hell else is going to be catching passes is going to be catching passes for the saints foster morrow and cedric wilson jr and joan johnson joan johnson first uh play of the game a couple times seemingly this year has been a guy that's caught some passes in the first quarter if you're interested in first quarterbacks but the other interesting things coming out of this game tonight look i'm just trying to sell you on it it's the nfl you'll watch it anyway what are your options shitty college football games boston college playing football tonight

uh our boy bill o'brien playing a little with tommy castellanos at quarterback right uh that's an option i would imagine there's a baseball game tonight but once my teams are out of it i and i don't bet on it i really have no interest there's a baseball game tonight, but once my teams are out of it and I don't bet on it, I really have no interest. There's actually two games today. The Yankees and the Guard Indians play at 4-0-9 and the Dodgers and the Mets tonight. I really don't give a shit. I don't think most of you give a shit. Most of you listening to this are probably either Philadelphia fans or your Astros fans. Your teams aren't in this shit. And I'm not flipping on a random baseball game unless I hear it's the bottom of the ninth and the series is on the line maybe I'll flip over I have no interest in watching any of these games my teams are out I'm a Cardinals fan they're dog shit I'm an Astros fan they got bounced by the fucking Tigers I have no interest in watching these games although there is a 30% profit boost on FanDuel so I may make a bet just to make it interesting this afternoon to have something going on with the yankees and guard indians but other

than that nothing of interest in that is there a wnba game on tonight like i love that espn on the website still tries to like force the idea that people give a shit about the WNBA upon us. Like I saw a story that Sabrina Ionescu drills a shot from the logo and the Liberty, whatever team she plays for, wins. And the ratings for the WNBA are the highest they've been in 20 something years for the WNBA finals. And then you look at the number and it says there's 1.3 million people watching this WNBA finals game, which, look, I'm not here to dump on them for growing their audience. Yes, they've grown their audience.

Good for them. There's more people, I guess, interested. The reality is most people were interested in the race war between Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese. Let's be real. That's what drew a lot of casuals to this. Neither one of them are involved, and at the end of the day,

most casuals don't give a shit about Sabrina Ionescu or any of these other people. So 1.3 million people watched, I guess it was game two or game three of the WNBA finals. Cool. Well, just to put that into perspective, you know how many people watched the week two Manning cast? Again, that's week two NFL secondary broadcast

where there's just two brothers sitting there yapping up while they watch a game. You know how many people watched the second game of the year with the Manning cast? 1.3 million people. And again, NFL to WNBA isn't a fair comparison. But people were talking about the Manning cast like we're witnessing the demise of this show

because the ratings are low for it. Guess what? It's a secondary broadcast. Also, guess what? There's nothing else they were going to put on ESPN2 to go up against ESPN's Monday Night Football that was going to compete with it so steal some more viewership that way bada-bang but I'm reading about the demise of the Manning cast and I'm a big Manning cast guy I enjoy watching it I enjoy the back and forth with Peyton and Eli

the only time it gets kind of annoying is when there's a delay between them and guests and people talk over each other. But I was enjoying watching Will Arnett and Jason Bateman shoot the shit with those guys on Monday. I enjoy the Belichick stuff. I enjoy how Peyton gets into it. I'm a big Manning cast guy. I don't really care to hear Troy Aikman say obvious shit. I don't really care to hear Joe Buck try to sound like the coolest dude in the room. Like I'm here to watch Peyton and Eli have a good time and watch a game that outside of gambling, I really don't give a shit about. So I'm in to the Manny cast. But when I go to ESPN.com and I see, you know, ratings jumping for WNBA and it's like, cool, what's it at? Oh, the same number of people watching their championship series

are the same number of people watching the secondary Mystery Science Theater 3000 broadcast of Monday Night Football. So it's important to keep these sort of things in perspective. Good for them. They've grown. But I think that the bubble, I don't think that there's much more growth coming into it. The growth happened because of the race war.

And that's what got people watching because you had a villain, you had a hero, you had a face, you had a heel, you had black, you had white. And that's why people tuned into it. And now neither one of them are involved. Their audience will care, but they're not going to continue to grow audience. Like, I don't believe that we're going to be in a world where in 10 years, the WNBA is some big shit that people are talking about on a daily basis. Uh, no big picture. It's niche. It's small potatoes. It's, it's an indie band. They've got their core group of people and their core group of people think they should be the biggest shit on the planet and then

once their band does get big they'll abandon them anyway because that's what indie rock fans do but that's all it is the WNBA is indie rock stuff so there again Monday night football tonight I have no read on what Thursday night football I should say I don't really have a great read on what to bet

on this one I'm probably just going to take Saints. Not to win, but I'm probably going to take the combo passing yards. I mean, if I'm looking at this, maybe Bub Means. I mean, that was his favorite target. Now, obviously, Sean Payton and everybody involved with the Broncos knows who they threw to a ton last week, and it was Bub Means. So maybe Bub Means isn't the answer. But maybe Juwan J. Hey, maybe Foster low total nine and a half like the over under in this game is 37 it's like an iowa football game like this is just hideous and sean payton's coming back to

the dome if i were there i would boo him even though he's the greatest coach my team has ever had i also like when you get these kind of holier-than-thou media people that want to tell you that you're a dipshit if you boo the former coach. Listen here, kiddos. If the former coach would have retired and been out of football and comes back to the Dome to be celebrated, I'll give him all the cheers in the world because at the end of the day, football was dead in New Orleans. New Orleans was dead in 2005.

Coming off of just a dreadful season during Katrina. I went to watch the Saints play in Baton Rouge. Nobody went to that game. I was at that game when they played at Tiger Stadium. They thought they were going to end up moving to San Antonio and some other places. So we were lucky that football came back. And for those of you who didn't live it, and I'm sure that's most of you listening, it was something to think you're going to lose your football team to,

holy shit, our football team has Drew Brees, and who knows if he's going to be good. The guy had arm issues. We got this new coach, Sean Payton. We drafted Reggie Bush, which that was available because the Texans decided to take Mario Williams. Who knows what happens if Reggie Bush goes to the Texans? Who knows what happens in the world? But we draft Reggie Bush. Sean Payton comes in.

They're winning games early. It's fun. They win 10 games. They go to the playoffs. That was one of the most fun times I had being a fan of sports because I worked at a radio station called WJBO and we carried the Saints games we were not the flagship obviously but we were uh probably I guess the second largest affiliate of the Saints uh yeah so I guess that would make sense and I board opt those games every

Sunday morning so my ass would get up I'd have to be there i think it's seven or eight o'clock because we carried um the pre-game show like this long extended pre-game show that was uh hosted by i think bobby abey or whoever it was then after the game you'd have to wait around like an extra hour or two after the game to listen to the first hour of the post-game show from deanies in bucktown if you ain't in bucktown you ain't the real deanies And I was so into that, and I enjoyed it, and the team was fun, and Reggie was fun, and Drew was fun, and the team was fun, and we won 10 games and won the playoff game. Who did we beat in the first game of that in 2006? No, I guess the next year would have been an Eagles.

Did we beat the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs? Was that the Sheldon Brown hit that year? No, I think that would have been an Eagles. Did we beat the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs? Was that the Sheldon Brown hit that year? Was that the next? No, I think that would have been the year. It had to have been that year because they didn't make the playoffs in 07. They missed a couple of playoffs after that. So yeah, it would have been, I think that would have been the Sheldon Brown game, I think.

And then they go on to lose to the Bears in the NFC title game. But I bring that up because Sean Payton's coming back to the Superdome tonight. And it's kind of a talk of how you handle the legends of your franchise when they come back. Dude's the competitor, right? So also for some insight on this, it's Drew Brees being honored tonight. Like he's going into the Saints Ring of Honor, I think, or the Saints Hall of Fame, whatever they call it. So Drew's getting honored at halftime of the game, which is cool because we're all Drew people. We all love Drew. And I wish he would have got another crack at the Super Bowl. But the refs decided

that an obvious pass interference wasn't a pass interference. So they decided they would prefer to fuck us than put us in the Super Bowl, I guess. But he should have had another crack at it there. Either way. So it's Drew, it's Sean. I would imagine Sean isn't part of that at halftime, or he might be. I don't know. I mean, at halftime, I'm sure you're going to be talking to your players,

but I'm sure the fan base there, it's interesting. I've heard people in the media talk about whether or not you boo somebody like Sean Payton, who meant, as we discussed so much, to the franchise, and the franchise was dead, and then he comes in and takes this job. And for damn near 20 years, I guess 15 years, the Saints were a viable NFL franchise. There were some bad years.

Let's see, 14, 15, 16 were awful. With Rob Ryan as the defensive coordinator, the Saints had the worst defense in the NFL. They finished 7- nine each year. Those were terrible. There were great years, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13. Those were great runs for the Saints. They were good teams.

They had chance. They won a Super Bowl, had other chances, blew some games, but they were good. Then you had the 14, 15, 16, they were bad. But then you get 17, 18, 19, 20, where they were good. Then you had the 14, 15, 16, they were bad. But then you get 17, 18, 19, 20, where they were great. And then since then, they've been basically a nothing burger. But it's interesting how you look at people who were huge parts of what you did or what you got to celebrate as a fan, only to see them with another team and how you feel about that.

I think it'd be a whole lot different if the Saints were, you know, four and two instead of two and four. If the Saints were still a legitimately good team like they seem to be in the first two weeks of the year. I think Saints fans now have just kind of conceded that this team stinks and they have no healthy players that are worth a damn and that the defense is awful and that Dennis Allen's going to get fired maybe after this game tonight.

I don't know. So I think that they're going to view it differently. If this were like a hotly contested game that we felt like, holy shit, the Saints need to win this. It's a Super Bowl type of year. I think the booze would come out harder. I think because of where the team is and how bad they are right now and how dire the situation is, I don't even think the fans, even the most diehard fans view this as something that can be turned around. They might give Peyton the biggest standing ovation ever. If they were four and two and he was a real enemy, then I think there'd be tons of boos. I don't think that's going to gonna happen i think fans are just gonna think

about the good times and miss the good times tonight in the dome because it's dead i mean the whole thing's over they need to fire dennis allen they need to figure this thing out they're broken um i think they need a new general manager because the general manager just continues to say some of the dumbest shit ever like the results don't matter. I think the results do matter, but you can't just judge people on the process and then say, it's great, you worked hard, we lost, but you worked hard. No, you gotta look at the results.

I'm just trying to sell you I'm watching this Thursday night game at all because it's a waste. Go bet on it if you want to. Like, do whatever. But man, this is just, like, you know this, okay. It's interesting when you think about guy comes back for, like, you know, this, okay. It's interesting when you think about guy comes back for like, you look at AJ Hinch, AJ Hinch left the Astros, but it's because they forced him. So like, I didn't hate the idea of AJ Hinch. Like when

AJ Hinch came back, I wanted them to beat him in the playoffs, but I didn't, I didn't dislike AJ Hinch because, oh, it was a situation where he left the team. I disliked him because he was forced to leave the team because he didn't have the balls to stop the guys from cheating. So that's why I dislike A.J. Hinch. I dislike A.J. Hinch because he gets a free pass while the players get crushed. Anybody who has stayed with the franchise gets crushed. Jeff Luno can't get a job, yet A.J. Hinch has put up on this pedestal when he was the pussy that didn't stop him from cheating. So that's why I dislike AJ

Hinch. If you look at Philadelphia, Philadelphia was an interesting spot with Andy Reed. So Andy Reed, when he, when he gets whacked, it was just because it was time he had been there for what? 15 years, 14 years. They'd gone to for what 15 years 14 years they had gone to five NFC championship games they had gone to a Super Bowl they lost that Super Bowl and it was obvious the message was kind of not getting there anymore and it was time for somebody new if I were in Philadelphia and I were a diehard Philadelphia fan when Andy Reid made his return he played Andy Reid for the first time like I wouldn't feel vitriol towards Andy Reid because and I know they didn't understand this or feel

this in the moment but that was the best era of Eagles football that there had ever been the Eagles were not some dominant winning franchise the Eagles had a lot of losing in their existence and by a lot of losing I mean they weren't winning Super Bowls. They hadn't won a Super Bowl up to that point. So Andy Reid gave them the best era, the most winning era of football that they had ever had. Yet when I got to Philadelphia in 2013 or the end of 13, beginning of 14, people talked like Andy Reid was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. If I were a diehard Eagles fan when Andy Reid makes his return I don't think I'm

booing that guy because it was just one of those things that just ran its course he didn't hate you he didn't abandon you for another job it was just like it's time it's like let's do something new and I'm sure it bothers a lot of people to see Andy Reid become the most successful coach of the last 50 or 10 years and getting Pat Mahomes and sure but like that situation to me is not one where you just boo the guy incessantly maybe it bothers you that he's so successful but it's like you get over it right when you're the ones that fire the guy it's hard for me to say that you should be booing that guy unless he just destroyed your franchise and that's why you fired him.

Like the Chip Kelly thing, I get why Eagles people hate Chip Kelly because he is sort of the face of that demise of Eagles football that happened for a very short period of time, mind you. I mean, they were in like a year later after they fired him, two years later, they're in the Super Bowl, right?

So it's not like it was a huge crash, but at the time it felt like Chip Kelly had blown up your team gotten rid of all the guys you liked kept the racist receiver he himself is racist according to all the players like I can see where you'd look at that guy and say go fuck yourself and boo him just because it was controversial Andy Reid I wouldn't get that Sean Payton is a more interesting case because Sean Payton who is truly responsible for the you could argue the only successful era of Saints football outside of the late 80s early 90s Jim Mora and they didn't win a playoff game in that era they were good dome patrol defense Bobby Hebert they didn't win shit they didn't win a playoff game right Sean Payton is responsible for all but one of the Saints all-time playoff wins he is responsible for their only Super Bowl

he is the all-time winningest coach they have by a mile and no one will ever usurp him yet he bailed on you when he didn't have Drew Brees anymore and then comes back to town with a new team with a quarterback that he picked. Therefore, it makes it interesting. This is one of the most unique situations. Like even Nick Saban. Nick Saban left LSU not to go to Alabama but to go to an NFL job. So you'd go, hey, it sucks that we lost our coach, but I get it. Now he lied about it and said he's not going to be

the coach at Miami, and then he was the coach at Miami. Same way he said I'm not going to be the coach at Alabama when he was at Miami, and then he became the coach at Alabama. He was full of shit, but I got every move that guy made. So while I hate Nick Saban from a winning standpoint, I never viewed him as some guy that fucked LSU. Like, oh, he left us and then went to Alabama he spurned us no he left to go to the pros he was actually a decent pro coach as far

as college to pro guys go he was one of the more successful ones he went terrible decided he wanted to go back to college you already had a coach and then he goes to Alabama who happens to be a team that you've hated for a million years and then he turns them into the most dominant program of the 15, 20 years he's there. So that's different. As much as I dislike Alabama, I don't dislike Nick Saban. I thank Nick Saban for turning LSU into a viable program when it was a sleeping giant for a decade. For a decade.

The 90s were a waste, largely, for LSU. Nick Saban gets there. Within years of winning a national title. He gets the job at Miami. I don't hate him. The Sean Payton one is truly a unique case. Because this guy left you after being the most successful guy you've ever had. It's obvious that he got out because he didn't have Drew Brees anymore. He goes somewhere else.

Like, that is a unique case. And I'm sure there've been other examples of that. I'm trying to think of some of them, but that is a unique instance. It's not just a, we got sick of you. We fired you. And then you came back with someone else. He left us. So when people say, how dare you boo Sean Payton?

Like I get people who do. Guy had Drew Brees for 15 years Drew Brees left Sean Payton said I don't know that I like football anymore and then magically he liked football again so I get it like I heard my buddy Matt saying if you know you boo Sean Payton you're an idiot to a degree yes but on the other hand, he left. We didn't fire him. We didn't say, get the fuck out of Dodge, Sean Payton. He left. Like, when you fire someone, I have a hard time with the idea that you boo them when they come back.

You didn't want them. They were a cast-off. Andy Reid was a cast-off. Like, you don't boo him when he comes back because that's your you you let him go that was your choice same thing with the Astros you had to fire your manager that's also a unique case but you fired him he didn't leave you he didn't say ah there's greener pastures Sean Payton essentially did that and he did that because he saw how bleak the situation was at quarterback. So he just said, throw up deuces and let's go. It's fascinating.

It'll be fascinating to see how the Saints fans handle that. And it's Drew Brees night. Greatest quarterback, greatest coach you've ever had, most successful era you've ever had, old coach coming back. At least from a storyline standpoint, there's something. Even if the game itself is terrible, there's at least something. So there you go. All right, so no-name Saints receivers tonight.

Who knows? They're all low totals, so they've got to complete a pass to somebody. So keep an eye on that. We're going to be heading out tomorrow to go to Arkansas. See LSU take on the Razorbacks on Saturday night so that should be fun and maybe we'll talk again later, well we got to do some prop to your drop

we got to get some picks for the weekend as well so we'll do that later on today hope you enjoyed it, see ya