The Press Box - Bomani Jones on the Election, Working at ESPN in the 2010s, and How We Watch College Football Now

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Today, Bryan is joined by Bomani Jones—host of ‘The Right Time With Bomani Jones’—to discuss all things politics, media, and sports, including: Thoughts on the vice presidential debate (03:11) Democrats’ lean-into-football strategy (Coach Walz) (08:06) What to make of the coverage around Kamala Harris (11:50) Zach Lowe and ESPN in the 2010s (21:15) College football, the 12-team playoff, and NIL (30:53) Looking back on ‘High Noon’ (40:31) Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Bomani Jones Producers: Brian H. Waters and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, Jalo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. Wow.

That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s, colin the 90s. in the 2000s, starting Wednesday, October 2nd, preferably on Spotify. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Eduardo Ocampo, who is sitting in for Brian Waters.

Let us bring in our guest, Bomani Jones. He is the host of the Right Time, which you can listen to in podcast form or watch on YouTube. He was also the veteran of many ESPN segments, including one, we were reminded this week that confirmed a legendary story of. about the late great DeKimbe Mutumbo. Bomani, thanks for coming on the press box. Hey, man, I'm doing all right.

I was actually, when Mutumbo died, I didn't know how, like, soon we were allowed to go to who wants to sex Matumbo. Like, I did not know how quickly we could go there. And then the internet told me, no, no, no, it's cool. We're going there now. And they, see, where they didn't, the best part was the internet got Alonzo morning, giving up the deets, but much better is Dekemey Metumbo. lying his ass off about it with me and Dan.

Like a whole 90-second explanation, you know, people just make these things up. I would meet guys who would say they would hate it when we came to the club because we could not get a lot of women. I had a good time in college. I'm not going to lie. I believe he was lying. And you and Dan sat there before Zoe came on the show

and said, we are going to ask him straight up to his face whether this story is true. So what I remember, and actually I was reminded by my guy Charlie Kravitz, who I remember he produced one of those segments. But we talked about it first, and there was some apprehension from the production folks about whether or not to ask this. And so the way we did the interviews with Dan was Dan was in charge. Those interviews were his babies. And so I just kind of rolled with wherever he decided to go, which often were places I didn't think were appropriate to go with people. This I thought was like well absolutely within the range of something that should be asked.

So if he decided to do it, I was going to have him. But if you look at the clip of when he asked Matumbo, and I was when I first started doing the show, and the whole time I'm looking at him like, oh, we're really going to do this. By the time we got to Alonzo morning, I recognized these were the things that we did. It was like nine years ago for that morning clip. And I'm like, was there a question of whether that would get on the air on ESPN? None. None.

I can tell you right now, that was not at all what was questionable. about it. Like, if Eric decided it was okay to put up on our end, Eric Rodholm, then that was going to go up. All right. To change topics fairly dramatically here, we have 32 days until the presidential election, Bimani. What did you make of this week's vice presidential debate? Why are we here? That was the question that I ultimately had. Like, I really sat up and tried to think of, like, great vice presidential debate moments ever. And, I mean, the first vice presidential I ever remember personally involved the line. I knew Jack Kennedy. I worked with Jack Kennedy and you, sir, or know Jack Kennedy. And I did not appreciate the impact of the line at the time.

But it killed in my house for whatever it worked. But I did not quite get like just how killer it was. Outside of that, finding out like what's the story with the assistant manager? I don't really think that that has ever served anything for me personally. And so I'm watching this one. And I did a little, uh, a CNN on Wednesday night. and they want a hot tape, right? That's the thing about their show. They want you to close with a hot take. But see, I'm the only person on those shows who comes from sports. Like, you tell me you want a hot tape.

I'm going to give you a hot tape. It ain't just something I think. Like, for me to register as a hot take, you got to put some fire on it. And so I was like, hey, man, we need to stop having these postgame shows for these debates. I really think we need to stop having the debate in general. But we need to stop having these postgame shows because what happens in postgame show is the media people basically are telling the viewers what they should think. Okay. So like to me, watching it and then saying, okay, well, J.D. Vans lied about this and Tim Walz didn't say anything

to him about the fact that he lied about that. Ignores the possibility that the people at home can tell with somebody's lying in their face. Like some people can really tell these things. But once we do that, you move away from the fact that he lied. Instead of saying, wow, this guy told a lie, you become critical of the person for not. handling the lie the right way. Like doing all that, these postgame shows, because we got to fill it up and do sports-like analysis, I'm like,

hey, man, I don't know if we're serving a positive purpose by having these shows. Of course, I'm on CNN, I'm doing this show with Abby Phillip, who was the host of their debate post-game show just the night before. I didn't think about that when I was dialing up the hot take,

and I offered to bring the hot take back and give them another one that we just shouldn't have assistant manager debates, but no, they wanted the hot tape. Okay. I went out there and I gave it to him. But I really just stopped and thought about like the full context and full construct of that debate in particular. What was I supposed to get out of this? I don't know what I'm supposed to glean from having. Is it the just in case the president dies? This is who's going to be like the number two person? Okay. I suppose. But I did find myself kind of bored if I'm going to be perfectly honest. Like with the most surprising thing

was that one of the candidates acted normal. That's, that's like, what are we doing here? You know what was funny to me is to see a nervous person in public life in 2024? Maybe because I'm surrounded by podcasters who are confident and eloquent at all times, either due to their natural confidence and eloquence or due to the editing that happens in podcast to make us all sound a little bit better maybe than we actually are. Here's a man standing on stage and I'm like, he's nervous. Yes.

This is different than what we see. Well, I think that most people in podcasts are playing home games. They either playing home games or they're playing friendlies. So they don't wind up in a situation where they're truly under the like spective evaluation like walls appear to be. Like for what it's worth, and I think you can be easy to forget this, even about people like this. It's the biggest room he's ever played. This is the biggest venue that he's ever played. And yeah, he was a little bit shook up by those bright lights.

And also I imagine, I wonder if for him he wouldn't. have been more comfortable if it was a room with people. Right? Instead, you're basically on a sound stage. It's quiet. Everything you say and standing in there is probably echoing out. You got no real gauge on whether or not what you're saying is landing with anybody. Like, it's kind of the first time that you do radio. If you've ever done, like anybody who's done radio for the first time, you have no idea how what you're saying is going over. None.

You're just standing there and you're just sitting there and you're just talking and you're crossing your fingers and hoping that people like it. And I actually wonder, because we're so in the weeds on it, right? Like people who cover media and people who cover politics are so in the weeds when they talk about this. How much does it bother the average viewer that this dude was the way that he was? Do they find it endearing for the average viewer watching J.D. Vance, yeah, you may have felt like he was lying. And Vance and Wall seemed to have a little bit of lying going on with him. It may have seemed like he was doing that.

But if this is the dude that you hear be having sex with couches, I imagine he came across as more of a regular human being. than you probably would he thought he was in that moment, you know. But in the end, what do I care about either of these two people? That I don't really have a great answer for. Walls is a former high school defensive coordinator. We've heard a few thousand times since late summer. What have you made of the Democrats lean into football strategy? I mean, if we're being honest here.

We are, but I found it from the very beginning to be a bit of a cynical play. when they went from taking this man who's the governor of one of the 50 states and they're like, no, we're going to call you coach. People love that shit. Like that's really what they were going for. The idea that the American public have more respect for a high school defensive coordinator

than a governor, all right? They could have called him by whatever his title was in the National Guard if they wanted to. Instead, they were like, Nah, that's what regular people like. Let's do that. Like it felt very much like a conception someone had of what regular people do

from people who don't feel like they really know regular people. That being said, I also can't act like I didn't think it was somewhat of a strong play because I do look back on the teachers and things that I have in high school. I'm not a call grown folks by their first name type, right? However, I think it's worth noting that I still call off. all the coach's coach. When I hear it, when I say it, it lands different. It does confer both a level of authority,

but also in a lot of ways, like a certain level of, like, warmness. And I actually thought the fact that he was a defensive coordinator, not the head coach, actually did more, because the defensive coordinator is more likely to taught you a class, right? Like, he may have been the guy that taught you English lit. Like, these were things that were possible. So on one hand, I thought that somebody in the camp came up with a great idea on doing this, on the other hand, I can't pretend like I didn't find it to be just a wee bit insulting.

You and I both went to high school in Texas. Yes. And it was very funny to see me see the Democrats equate high school football coach with regular person. These two things are equal. I'm with you. I call coaches coach sometimes still from those days. I loved many of them. They were not regular people or normal people.

No, no, no. The higher up you got in the coach chart, those are, they're the coach. like there's a whole market for them. They go change jobs all the time. They make a lot more money than everybody else. But Walls did feel like the coach that taught your class. Like that's the key. There's the coach that taught classes that you did,

that you and I probably didn't take because college was in our future, right? Like there's the coach that teaches Woodshop. There's the coach that does the ag stuff. Like there's that guy. But then there's always the, there's a couple that teach history because really all you got to do is say stuff. You ain't got like, you just giving them some stuff for them to remember and shoot back, but then you get the one that gets to teach an honors class here and there, right?

That's where Walls seem to be the guy there. And he typically is a bit of a warmer coach, right? Like, he's in it for the love. Now, that was the part, though, that I think that people who don't, people who don't grow up around like smaller environments or smaller towns. I went to school in a small town is, though, that that idea, though, of coach you get the high school level, at least for men of Wall's age, is a labor of love and a labor of love. lot of ways. And it's like it is a, you know, Mac Brown who coaches at North Carolina and out of the line, you can't coach them if you don't love them first. And so Walls is the guy that gives that. I don't know how much the Harris team picked up on all of that as much as

somebody was like, hey, what if we call them coach? They're like, you know what? We're going to call them coach. How long before you got sick of that on the goddamn governor of Minnesota, man? I've got other titles here too. What are you talking about? Related, what has stuck out to you about the way Kamala Harris has been covered over the last three months? Well, I think it feels like they're running four corners, right?

They got, she wound up being the nominee or the presumptive nominee before she actually became the nominee. And before that happened, Trump was running four corners. They were just letting Biden crash out, right? Everything went bad in that debate. And so for the first time ever,

they got him to be quiet for like a week and a half. And they were just letting the panic of the Democrats go down. Then they name Harris, and now Trump starts crashing out. He starts going all over the place. And now the Democrats basically start running four corners. They're like, yeah, let them talk crazy. Let them pop up on truth social and all of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and do this. The thing that jumps out to me is what I think is the dilemma that's created by Trump, which is, I think it's perfectly reasonable that there's an expectation that a nominee for president of the United States would have done a one-on-one interview a little bit sooner than Harris did. It did feel as though she was a bit protected from the media.

They were staying away from her asking questions, which honestly felt a little red flaggish, right? Like, why is this so hard? I thought that was an absolutely fair question. I think raising questions about what she actually thinks and believes, you know, like matching up what she says now with what she did before, I think those things are perfectly reasonable to do, right? The question becomes, do you hold her to a higher stand? than you hold Donald Trump on these matters. And the answer is honestly yes. And the reason is whether this be critiques from within her own party or anything else.

And the reason is she's a bit more of a reasonable person. And so you can think that doing reasonable things will have reasonable effects when it comes to her, right? Trump, I don't know. To this day, we still don't know what we're supposed to do because that dude is not supposed to get this far in this process. right you're not supposed to have somebody that's at this level we don't have any tools at this level for what to do to handle him and in all this time we haven't been able to come up with tools we haven't been able to come up with a consensus opinion on whether or not we should treat him like a serious person or not right like we don't we don't have any of the answers for what we're supposed to do and so what winds up happening is you wind up with like the one sibling who does what they're supposed to do and then when they get an 85 instead of a 90 they get criticized for And then you're just like, okay, this other one passed all their classes. Yeah, whatever, fine. And he's like, why is it a difference? Because like, you're different, I guess. You know, that's where we get. And so, no, we still don't have the answers for these things where they're like,

well, we don't have particulars about what Kamala Harris thinks. Well, why do we need particulars from her? But we don't need them for Trump. We tried that. We've been trying that for eight years. We ain't getting them. All right? We can figure them out. But we're not getting them. So we're going to try with you. Maybe you can give us something. Yeah, look, man, it's not going to work over there. Like, you think we didn't try this before? And then when we did and when we will put the stuff out there,

you wound up in this place with people like, you got to stop platforming this dude. You can't put him anywhere. You can't ask him any questions. All he's going to do is lie to you. So what exactly is it that we're supposed to do? Because he out there saying a lot of stuff. And I don't think people recognize how much stuff he's out here saying

that could be deemed as being a little bit worrisome. But is it appropriate to put those things in front of people? That was the question that we had the last time. People felt like they got conned by continuing to put him on television with the things that he was saying before, except the things he's saying do matter. But no, we don't press him on the particulars of what he says because we still don't treat him like he's a serious person, even though he's been the president of the United States. Yeah, and you notice we took him off TV or the networks took him off TV to an extent this cycle.

And what did people start writing? They started writing pieces like, you need to go to a Trump rally. you need to pay attention what Trump is doing on true social. They're like, no, no, no. Now we're taking her off ball. Now we don't know. Now we're not hearing this drumbeat every day. When the man said, don't worry, you won't have to vote after this time.

I don't understand how it is that everybody did not, like, jump up and ask themselves some serious questions about what exactly is it that you mean? And so it's just wild. We still don't know what to do with that man. And the stakes are pretty high right now. Did you see Harris's interview on all the smoke this week? I saw that it was happening. I read some portions of it. I just want to know who in a camp decided that that was the way to go.

Shouts to Matt and Stephen, right? Like they got, they landed it. Good for them. I would like to know the list that they had. when they decided, because I'm assuming that that was them making an outreach to a black man. That's my guess that they got to figure out how to hit certain people. I want to know what else is on the list, like what other plan they had in order to do that. Because I'm going to be honest with you.

I, as someone who has followed Stephen Jackson on various socials and knows him just a little bit, I would be a little nervous about putting my candidate in front of the questions that he might ask. He's got some views. He has an ideology. that could have gone way off the rails. I'm assuming it didn't because nobody told me, but that could have gone way off the rails for that campaign. I am a little stunned they made that decision.

Yeah, it was very mild. It was about going to Howard. It was about being a stepmom. And it is interesting when you put candidates in those kind of environments because they get different questions. And they also get open-ended questions. So, right, so 15 minutes on network news or with a newspaper writer, it's like, okay, we got to get Kamala to weigh in on Iran

and Israel, we need to get the longshoremen strike in here. We got it one, two, and we got to make news, we got to go on. Whereas when you're on a podcast, something like that, it's like, I'm just going to ask a question. And it's not about the news per se, and then we're just going to go. And the game for the subject is be a good hang. That's what they're looking for. Be a good hang.

You know, like that is a long form podcast. They just want you to be a good hang. Like, if you can go in there and tell the all to smoke, Because in the end, like the value of the vice presidential debate, for example, just the notion of the running mate is really somebody to tell people, no, no, no, she cool, she would me. Right? They're cool. They know, it's like this level of vouching. And somebody just be like, no, no, no, I think she cool. That'll work. And that is what I think you ultimately hope for coming out of that. Like, I don't think the listeners of all the smoke are necessarily looking to her for very specific policy prescriptions, right? Like I thought, you might have got a question about what is your agenda for black men or something like that. I think that would have been a reasonable set of questions for you, you know, a reasonable thing to expect out of Matt and Stephen. But in the end, it really comes down to, man, good hang.

They just want a good hang. Is that what Lloyd Benson was doing in 88 saying, hey, Michael Dukakis? Good hang. No, no. Well, Michael, no, what Michael, what Lloyd Benson was doing from Michael Dukakis, this is back when there was still a such thing as a Southern Democrat. What he was saying is, don't worry, little. man's with me. He's cool. It's a different kind of good hang. That's right. He was, he was conferring

his credibility onto that man. Who is the person you've never gotten to interview that you've always wanted to interview? Huh. That is a very good question. I feel like that's actually like a fairly long list. Like I would love to interview LeBron James. Like if I could get a real interview with LeBron, I think there's so much fascinating stuff there. I don't think he'd tell me any of it. But like, for somebody that would be almost like some white whale, just like, what can I get from this? I'd say LeBron is probably high on the list. If I'm just talking about interviewing somebody, because I think it would just be like a bit of a good time, right? It's like, okay, so we're going to sit here. We're going to talk about this that I haven't interviewed. Like, I've got some people

that I would like to do a different interview with. Like, I'd love to do a different one with Dusty Baker. Like, I've done one with him, but I wasn't in a position to like really stretch out and get to the places that I would have wanted to get with him. Hmm. This is a... You'll learn that when you ask me a question about a superlative, I take this very seriously, and thereby I wind up spending a lot of time trying to figure out.

What exactly... You're going to get the power ranking just right here. Dusty Baker is in a place now where he might give that interview too in a more interesting way than he would. You know, like, if I could get Peyton Manning to give him, a real interview, which I actually think is relatively possible. I think there's a lot interesting that goes on there with him. I'd be very interested.

Like, I feel like I have things that I would like to ask him that other people would not necessarily ask him. Like, I don't think that many people are going to be like me and ask him. So what's it like being a big old goofy six foot five white dude from New Orleans? Like, how much cultural interplay is Archie Manning's son, no less? I would love to talk about those things, but not from the high level. Like, I think you think of him as a seersuck a suit dude, but it's still New Orleans, baby. you don't bend some places and saying some things.

Let's talk about. All right, new topic. Zach Lowe got laid off from ESPN last week. And I saw you tweeting about the conversation about Zach Lowe. What stuck out to you about that conversation? All right. So I say this as somebody who has left that company and was as somebody who is fairly well liked from what we'll call the sports intelligentsia. Or at the very least, people who watch sports and want to feel like they are intelligent.

shall we say? And what I don't like, I didn't like it when it involved me. I don't like it when it involves other people is, oh, they got rid of Zach Lowe, but they keep putting Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins and all these people in front of you and everything else. And it's like, yo, it doesn't really work that way.

Like, it's not, it's not, I don't think it's that straight and apples to apples sort of thing when that goes down. I also think that very often, like with this particular conversation, Stephen A. Smith does not do that much if actual NBA coverage. Like he does, as far as I can tell, he does first take and he does, you know, some things that are around that orbit and he does countdown. But they're not shoving them down your throat with specific NBA coverage. That world was run and dictated by a whole bunch of different people. And the NBA itself has had its own call about who's there and how they feel about Stephen A. Smith.

I don't know how consistent that's been through the years. But they're not shoving him down your throat on NBA coverage. Like it just becomes a situation where for these people, somebody being laid off or losing their job becomes an excuse to take a dig at somebody else. And I don't think that's necessary. I also think that the people that they tend to point out are actually good at what they do. I think Stephen A. Smith is great on television when he talks about basketball. I don't think he's just out here screaming, giving like crazy hot taste.

He can get a little loud, yes. But on basketball, I don't think he's in the hot take business. Hurt, I actually think it's very good. And what I appreciate about Pirk is that you are not going to walk away. way from whatever he has done, not knowing what he thinks. And he means whatever the things are that he says. Those to me are very important qualities to have when you're doing television. I think he often says things that are insightful. He often says things that I think are ridiculous, right? That's the up and down and how it goes, but ain't none of them things got a damn thing to do

with Zach Lowe. And so to me, it almost trivializes a real life situation just to use it as your opportunity to insult whoever it is that's on. And look, I've been in the place where they go through layoffs and I survive them. And then it's like, well, Bobani still works there and everything else. It's like, God damn, man. What like, like, like, would you think? I described it as it's almost like somebody died and you're saying it should have been somebody else. And that doesn't, that doesn't sit right with me, you know? And in the end, this is about me. This is about a whole bunch of people when you've had jobs or working at ESPN for how much time it was, man. I can say myself personally, working at ESPN had an overwhelmingly positive effect on my life.

I was not entitled to have a job there for the rest of my life. That's not how this goes. Like when it ended for me there, I could very easily look back on it and be like, all I did was when. Do I necessarily agree with the rationale that they had behind every decision that they made? No, certainly not. But in some total, like my last week under contract was me calling people. telling them thank you. Because why would I do anything else based on what, like, what I got out of

my time and while I was there? So, you know, I think, I think part of it for me is that I don't view, we'll call it firing for lack of a better term. I don't view these things the same way other people do. They are not a statement or a testament to like who I am or what I am. Just about everybody, I know that's worth a damn in his game and I got fired by somebody at some point. A lot, Most people I know where the damn been fired by ESPN at some point, right? Or let go on. It's a big list. Yeah, or not renewed or whatever it is.

Like, yo, this happens. You get up and you go do something else. But it's not that damning. And I just don't think that, I think, hey, if you want to say that moving away from Zach Lowe means they want to move away from long form written content, okay, maybe that's his discussion. If you want to ask the question as to why somebody was such a successful podcast and he has an incredibly successful podcast. If you want to ask why somebody with a successful podcast

as with the numbers that his was doing the last time I looked, why that person wouldn't be somebody that you'd want to keep, I think you have a fair question to ask. I think taking him as an on-air person and moving away as a reflection of what is important to them on-air, I just don't think it fits that situation quite as snugly as people wanted to. ESPN in the 2010s is now an interesting time to look back at from the vantage point of 2024. Zach is a product of that period. You and I both worked at ESPN during that period. How would you describe what it was like to work at ESPN during the 2010s?

So the thing was, and I think what we're saying probably most specifically, even though this era ends within that decade, is kind of the age of Skipper, right? The John Skipper fingerprints were all over the place in this time that we talk about. And I think the company from a content standpoint was just much more ambitious when it came to content. Right. Like there's this, they were still raking in money hand over fist, right? Subscriber fees were still crazy high. And when you make money just for showing up, you have the opportunity to try a bunch of stuff

and to try out a bunch of people. And they did that. And John Skipper, I think, had a clear idea of what he wanted his content to be. He had an idea of what he thinks the morality of a corporation should be and what some of the goals should be. And he wanted to do stuff that empowered people that he felt were unique and very creative. And so there was an energy, I think, like I got on, I started doing around the horn in 2010. I got on the full-time payroll in 2013 is when I moved to Miami to do highly questionable.

And there was much more of a buzz that felt like if you had a good idea, somebody could find a way to put that on the road or that there was, you know, there was an incubator there of people who were really into doing or trying to find ways to do interesting stuff, right? So Connor is running content. Connor Shell is running content. Connor wins an Oscar for the OJ Made in America, for example. you know, like those sorts of things were going on.

And then 2016 happens. Like I think it's, you know, your question could be, well, what thing happened in 2016? Well, which one is you want to talk about? Trump went into Colin Kaepernate because I think both of them kind of collide and arrive at the same time and have a lot of these issues. And then a lot of that ambition started getting dialed back. But it was at least for me, I found it to be a pretty exciting time. But I can also say I found it to be an exciting time because while this is going on, I'm working with Dan, who is simpatico with Skipper.

I'm working under Eric Rydholm, who is Sympatico with Skipper. Like, my allies at that time were the people that John Skipper was inclined to indulge. So yeah, it was great for me. I mean, I imagine there's some other people who might not have had as much of good time as I did when that was going on. But it, I mean, it changed my life. Tacklow was the only one who left recently. Adrian Wojnarowski goes to work at St. Bonaventure, his alma mater. You tweeted the other day, forget about the bombs. Adrian's the single best basketball columnist I've ever read. How so? Yes. That run, and I didn't like every column that he wrote, but when he was all LeBron's neck from 2010 till about 2013, I hate to say it, boy, I was a master at work. It was. It was, there's something to be said about somebody who really knows the game and who was as sourced and informed as he was. Now, was he carrying out some agenda, perhaps? I don't want to

pretend like that wasn't the case. But after every one of those games, that mattered, I remember I was going to Yahoo to see what Adrian was saying about what was going on or what he had determined. You add that to the years that he did before that when he was at the record, and even like covering just stuff around there, Yukon and all of those things. He, for me, he wrote about this stuff with a clarity and a clear view of what it was that he was going on and an authority, right? That to me, when you start talking about being a columnist, that is what I dug about him. It wasn't necessarily. I'm not, Zach Lowe, you're coming to learn more about the X and O's of the game. That wasn't what I was going for? I wanted to know, what do you think just happened here?

What do you think is going on right now about this whole thing? And for me in that run where Yahoo, to me, was just kind of crushing the game, right? They had him. They had Wetzel. I think 40 came over at that point, at the top line of the masthead, I don't know if anybody was rocking with what Yahoo was bringing, and he just did it. Like that to me, I get all the information first. I don't care about that nearly as much.

Watching him synthesize his ideas about what was going on and put them together, that was what I was here for. It's the old school lure of the newspaper, sports columnist. It's a dying art, and that's really sad because, man, there's still some guys like Mike Sealski for the, in Philly, for example,

is a great idea. Like, we still got some guys that are out here doing it. But I think that particular skill set, like, that is, I probably admire that skill set more than anything else. I want to ask you about college football because you're very much a college football person. I'm watching Georgia, Alabama last Saturday. And I am thinking, I guess, maybe for five seconds during that game, hey, there's a 12-team playoff looming at the end of the season for the first time ever.

Then I immediately forgot about it. I went back to enjoying Georgia, Alabama, which is a fantastic game. Has the playoff? change the way you've enjoyed college football? You know, it's funny. You mentioned that specific game where I said, look, I think the playoffs of waste, the reason I think the playoffs of waste is just something to make money. There's one school in the country that plays for national championships every year. That's Alabama. That's not what anybody else is in it for. Everybody else is happy if they

wind up getting it. But the things that people care about in college football are not that much related to postseason because the significant majority of teams have no chance at that. They've never had a chance at that. You think about this. The SEC has, I guess, It's 16 teams now. Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas. These are schools that will never win the SEC.

Just built in and go look at South Carolina and put them on that list too, right? So that's seven schools out of the whole conference. Go look up the last time they won the conference or if they ever had a chance or whatever it is. That's not what they're here for. That's just the conference, okay? That's not why we're showing up.

Georgia and Alabama, two teams who rarely play in each other stadium. They really only play up by once every four or five years. That game and what it felt like, yes, was built up by the fact that they've won all these championships and everything else. But nobody cares about the playoff at that point once they're actually in there playing that gang. The same stuff is what always matters. So to me, the playoff is not going to mess up the regular season because I've never really been in a regular season for those reasons that we point out. What's going to be interesting to see about the playoff is, I think the playoff is going to ruin the concept of a national championship

because the playoff is going to become a war of attrition. It's not going to be about who the best team is. It's going to be about what team manages to survive because underrated part of the old equation was everybody got a month to get healthy before the big games came up. That's a big thing, man. Teams got to be as rested. They're largely playing in pretty nice weather conditions because nobody really wants Like the ball games that matter, ain't nobody doing that where it's cold.

You know, those things were all present. And so people are not going to enjoy the playoff as much as they think. They're just not. It's interesting when they announced a schedule a couple months ago, I was like, oh my gosh, the college football postseason, the postseason that matters, so not the Blockbuster Bowl or whatever it is, but the postseason that matters is a month long December 20th to January 20th. Who has that kind of?

I just, they're going to mess the whole. whole thing up, man. Like this, it was a way for everybody to make some more money, but this is not going to make things better. I don't care. Everybody who swore up and down, we needed a play off.

No, we didn't. If you needed to play off so much, why do you love this so much as it is? If this was something that was so fundamental, then why do you love it so much as it stands? Mm-hmm. The big story in college football was the UNLV quarterback,

Matthew Sluka, walking away from the team. Has NIL changed the way you've enjoyed college football at all? Yes, because I don't really know who. plays for anybody anymore. Like that's, that's going to be the thing. Like, I remember when I lived in Durham and I was covering stuff around the basketball

teams, I mean, I guess I was covering the college football teams too, but please. You had players, and I don't know if you're like, if you don't live in a college area, you really appreciate it, but you have these guys. And it's almost a like parental sort of thing where you watch them for four years. You watch where they start. You watch where they end up. You see how much better they get at interviews, see how much better they become as players. you see the ups and downs.

And then there's this like senior night. And it can be some of the most heartwarmest stuff if you really pay attention to a team because you're there. And it involves young people in a very particular time in their lives. That is something that, you know, as I get older in particular, that there's a charm to, right? When you change schools every year, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't feel the same. It's going to be more mercenary. Like part of how we wound up in his thing with the duo of UNC, the UNLV is he played at Holy Cross.

And then he went over there because somebody told me, get a check and then he didn't get a check and now he's out of there right that doesn't feel good for anybody like that does not make watching this any more fun for anyone so to me i thought the biggest mistake they made was getting rid of the year you had to sit to transfer i didn't think there was i understood why they did it because as long as the coaches could do that it was such a moral like a hole in the morality of it all they had to do that to be fair but that's not going to work out for the benefit of these players i don't think i think for most of them staying somewhere the whole time and getting somewhere where they know your name and you become familiar and part of their

like the emotional registered a place, that's a better way for you to go ahead and do it. But with the money, therefore a lot of them is the last chance they ever going to get to come up on some bread. I can't blame them for going and getting it. But no, I don't think it's good for the product overall. But I always acknowledge when they were out here acting unfair and not paying the people that should have been paid, I did acknowledge that with moving into what was right, some things were going to be less fun, you know, and I don't.

know how many people who are on my side of the argument were willing to be honest about that. It's interesting, too. College football is hard enough to keep up with as it is. And the quarterbacks now, I'm like, okay, a couple weeks ago, it's like, I know where Dylan Gabriel is. I wasn't totally sure I'm going to admit where Will Howard was. I was like, oh, he's playing for Ohio's team. He's starting and throwing touchdowns. Well, the quarterback thing doesn't even make sense to me because I think about when you're yours. When you were left school a year early because Texas wouldn't let him take the NIL money.

And so he went to Ohio State. He got there. He did not beat out C.J. Straub. He sat behind him for a year. And then he went back to Texas. Okay. It's worked out okay for him. However, if he had just sat for a couple years at Ohio State and worked on getting better,

he would have had one year playing with number 18 for the Arizona Cardinals now. And he would probably be a first round pick. And he'd be in the NFL right now. All you need is one year of film. he probably would have done that. Instead, it's this, I got to hurry up and get on the field situation. And I don't really get that. Like, it's very interesting to Arch Manning and that whole family decided he went there. Like he got in when yours got hurt. But he went there and was like, okay, I'm probably going to be sitting down here for a couple of years. That's fine. There was no circumstance under which I think the mandates were going to have him transfer.

I don't think that was it. I think they recognized the value and stay in there and figuring it out. And look, sometimes you do wind up in a place where you could be somebody like, say, Joe Burrow, where Dwayne Haskins is beating you out. And wow, I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to play here. I'll go somewhere else. But no, some of you guys should probably just stick around. Instead, every year, every quarterback is just putting his thumb in the wind, a sandwich way the wind's blowing. All right, a couple of quick hitters before you go.

A couple weeks ago, the Cowboys are getting trucked by the Ravens. And you tweeted this, the Cowboys are saving every sports talk host in America from having to prep at least one or two segments. From someone who was inside that world, still are, but was inside it on a daily basis. What do the Dallas Cowboys, good or bad, do for the sports talk industry in America? They're the most popular team and the most disliked team. You put those two things together and you're serving a significant portion of your audience. Look, whether you like it or not, and I don't know, I don't know if this will be the case after Jerry is gone, right?

And it wasn't really the case. I don't think during like the Dave Campo era where they were going five and eleven every year. year. But they're more interesting than just about everybody else is. They typically have a level of star power that other teams do not have. There is a reason why they're on prime time all the time because we watch them, okay? To a lesser degree, you can talk about the Steelers all the time, right? There are other teams that you can place in that are in the same situation. But the bottom line is they rile the people up regardless of what direction you're talking about more than any other team does. They do. And so, yeah, when something big happens with the Cowboys, if this were an

era where people still took callers, like, you got to show that taste callers and you got any proximity to Cowboys world, all you got to do is show up and turn on the lines. You ain't even got to bring no notes. You ain't got to read the newspaper. I was thinking that weirdly when Pete Rose died the other day. It was like, remember in early 90s and mid-90s sports radio where should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame was the number one segment? Any sports host in America was doing that. How about it? Let's take it past America.

When I worked for what is now, what was then the score, I think it's not Roger Sportsnet, but I worked for the score in Toronto. My PD there, and this is in 2010, was like, even in Toronto, if you can't get through a day,

just ask if Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. Even in Toronto, that would blow up the phone lines. The phones aren't going well. Let's get Pete Rose the Hall of Fame on the board. We get some calls.

It never fails, man. That's fascinating. Mid-90s, I feel Pete Rose Hall of Fame is number one. MJ versus Wilt was number two. Because sports radio host of that age remembered Wilt. Yes. And seen Wilt play. And they could weigh in on that.

And they had some very divergent opinions about that question. And now it's MJ LeBron. Boy, people, it really gets the people going. All right, last one for you. I told you this before he came on the air. The last time I saw you in person was back in 2018, and I'm on the set of high news. watching you and Pablo do rehearsals.

Show wasn't even quite on the air yet. How do you look back at that show now? I look back on it as a learning experience in a lot of ways. It is for me personally a good chance to probably take some inventory on different things. I personally look, it didn't work out the way anybody wanted it to. So if you got any truth about yourself, you got to look back on it and try to find the things that involve you that you can improve upon. down the line. It is also an interesting look at how many things that are not just about the content have to fall together right in order for you to get a show to go in the direction that you

wanted to. But I think a measure at which I will always view it is, I was pretty honest with Dan when I moved to Miami in 2013. I signed a four-year contract. And I was pretty honest with him. I don't plan to be back here at the end of these four years. This is to get me to a place of having something that is more my own. Because that was dance. He was very gracious in giving and sharing with the space and everything. But that was his city.

That was his daddy. That was his show. I wanted something that was a little bit, going to be a little bit more of my show. And that was the plan. I am not much of a goal setter. I don't operate like that. This is one of the rare times that I do.

And I got it. It went the way that I wanted to. Everything that I wanted in a television show at that point, I got in order to make that. happen. And so if given the chance to do it again, I could probably come up with some things that could have been better, that could have been improved. But in the end, it was for me, it was a landmark accomplishment and something that I am very happy to say that I had the opportunity to do.

But Monty Jones, the pot is the right time, wave, sports, and entertainment. But Moni, thanks for coming on the press box. I appreciate it. All right. It's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guest, Strange Fun Yeah, Thursday's my day. Some debate, huh? This is my favorite recurring bit, and I got to tell you that some people are not totally aware it's a bit, so let's keep rolling with it. Monday's headline about New York City Mayor Eric Adams' alleged crimes involving Turkey was Grand Theft Ottoman. Grand Theft Ottoman.

Today's headline comes to us from alert listener, Vegas Kev. it's from Defector. There was a September injury, David, involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm going to keep it simple for you. Injuries are happening to Toronto now in

late September. What was Defector's strained pun headline? Injuries in September. Late September. You might have a little change outside. Fall. Mm-hmm.

Oh, the leaves. Wait. There we go. There we go. Leaves are falling. The leaves are falling leaves. You're there. Just a little correction for hockey aptitude here.

It's autumn and the leaves are falling. All right. It's autumn and the leaves are falling. I'll take it. I would have had to double check that with myself. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis, but I see magic by Eduardo Ocampo. Thank you, Eduardo.

What a week here at the press box, man. If you have not checked out yesterday's, that is Wednesday's pod, please do Benji Sarlane with his typically excellent reaction to the vice presidential debate. And then a really interesting interview with Gabriel Sherman about writing the screenplay for the new Donald Trump movie, The Apprentice, which everyone will be able to see in about a week and a half. next Thursday on this podcast, the fun continues. Eugene Daniels from Politico is going to be on.

He is a White House correspondent. He is one of the authors of Playbook. He is the only big-time political reporter that I know of who has a Rivals.com recruiting page. That's right. Eugene played college football. That's Thursday. Shoemaker returns Monday,

and you know we will have more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.