The Press Box - Super Bowl Broadcast Reactions, the Right Take on Tony Romo, a Report From Vegas, and How to Cover a Well-Meaning, Elderly Man

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Bryan is back from Las Vegas after covering the Super Bowl, and he shares his observations with David (0:53). They discuss the broadcast, including when Tony Romo sang Adele (21:46), Jim Nantz’s game-winning call (27:43), how Phil Simms botched his own prediction (31:30), and more. Later, they talk about President Biden’s back-and-forth with Fox’s Peter Doocy (42:47). Plus, Only in Journalism, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Galaxy lights, Coachella, Lightning Bolt necklaces. Did you catch all the Scandival clues? Last March, one cheating scandal launched a reality TV investigation that generated hundreds of conspiracy theories, thousands of podcast episodes, and millions of dollars in revenue. I'm Jody Walker, host of an American Scandival. Ahead of the Vanderpump Rules premiere, relive the pop culture phenomenon that rocked a reality nation.

starting January 23rd on Ringer Dish. David? Yes. The Chiefs beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl 25, 22 in Las Vegas last night. So I heard, yeah. So you heard. There's so much we need to get into, but I want to start with a very strong take.

Oh, okay. Not a lukewarm take, a strong take. I'm not a Vegas guy I'm not a gambling guy but I think maybe we should play every Super Bowl in Las Vegas I don't disagree let me hear your argument

the media contingent this week was like a slightly bigger bachelor or bachelor at party where you feel that Vegas knows you're there but it's just kind of absorbing you into its essence. Like, you could walk around the strip and you would hardly know a Super Bowl was happening

until maybe Friday, Saturday. Restaurants, really good. I sound like the Chamber of Commerce here. Shows, amazing. And everything was close. You know, 20-minute Uber ride, 10-minute Uber ride. Yeah, no, it's an incredibly convenient city for things. like this.

I mean, it's just the world's biggest, like, conference town. Just, you know, in addition to being the world's biggest gambling town, or at least America's biggest gambling town. Yeah, listen, it's set up perfectly for stuff like this and all the hotels. I mean, there's a billion hotels right there and a billion more, not too far away. Good food, good entertainment. My mom was at, my mom actually asked me as you're watching the Super Bowl if they had it there every year.

And I said, no, but they probably should. I mean, it's just so convenient. Glad your mom's on this corner as well. No, she just had no idea. Thanks to the Kelsey Swift romance, she was all in on the Super Bowl this year. So she needed to watch. But yeah, no, I mean, it's good.

I mean, I'm not a big Vegas guy, but it's hard to argue against Vegas, right? Because, I mean, I'm not a Vegas guy in the sort of classical sense. But I'm, you know, I will always say, man, if you get like a super cheap plane ticket there, that's a great place for like quick family vacation. You know, hang out by the lazy river or whatever pool you're at and have some funny, some delicious food. Go see, you know, carrot top or Cirque de Soleil, which is I actually did the

last time I was there. Cirque de Soleil, not carrot top. Not I didn't, Rich Little, I'll say for next time. That's when you really make the big bucks, you know, really splurge for the gold circle right next to the stage as I did. Yeah. You say super cheap plane. take it. How about a super cheap hotel room? Yeah. I priced out the Luxor, which was the media hotel. Just luxer.com. This is not through the NFL or anything.

$37 a night. Really? For Super Bowl week. They got a little more expensive, you know, like Friday night, Saturday night. $37, dude. Wow. For the Luxor. And by the way, congratulations to all the sports writers who showed up in Vegas during a media

apocalypse and complained about being sent to Vegas and having to stay at the Luxor. Just so happy that we've retained our sense of a grieve sports riderdom. All our colleagues are getting laid off. We're like, well, we're staying at this hotel that's way down the strips power rankings. Look at us. Sports writers covering the Super Bowl. I love that. Also, what was funny.

So we're staying at the Luxor and Radio Row was like two hotels away. So to get there, you didn't ever leave an indoor space. You walked across one casino. You walk through that thing. Do we call that a mall? Just kind of like a corridor of shops. Yeah. That fair?

And it's all weird shops, right? It's like a place that sells Guinness hockey jerseys, like Guinness, the Beer. You're like, hmm. That was never really. on my radar, but hey, here we are. Then you walked across another casino and then you walked through another mall and then you reach the media center. It's a long walk, but it's at least an air conditioned walk, right?

It's a sneaky long walk, but I'm not going to be like those sports writers, David, who are complaining about their accommodation. I'm going to be like, hey, it was raining one of those days. I'm very happy to be walking that through that mall for 25 minutes. It does mess with your like internal clock a little bit because you generally think if it's walking distance, that means a thing, right? It's like, oh, I can just kind of run out of my room with seven minutes before I need to be where, you know, get to wherever I'm going. Yes. Yes. I mean, you look down as like, wow, 21 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the vaguest thing, right? This is,

they're supposed you, they don't want you to know whether it's day or night, what time it is. That's why you're paying your $37, you know. You get that, you get that discount rates. You can walk by a million things that are for sale. Got some observations about the game for you. We'll getting to Romo and Nancy in earnest in just a second, but here's some openers. Reba McIntyre sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. She sure did, yeah. How do we feel about Reba not being announced as a country music superstar, the normal term, but as a, quote, entertainment icon?

Well, I mean, I guess that's true. I think she sort of, I mean, you know, was a little bit behind the ape, I mean, not behind the ape, but behind the curve there. because she didn't realize that Beyonce was going to make country music superstar into the next big thing, right? But, you know, she is an entertainment icon. That's Ruby McIntyre. People in my mentions were like, well, you know, she had a sitcom. I was like, oh, does that get you over the hump?

No offense. She's on the voice. She's a host on the voice. I don't know what that means that takes you out of your category. But anyway. She is singing here. So I don't know how we needed to label her exactly. Observation number two, the NFL is way better at nostalgia.

you than the NBA. Oh, go on. I think it just makes a lot of sense. Okay. So the NFL, we got the Super Bowl, right? We're all excited.

And before the game, there's like a big video package with Tom Brady and Eli Manning and Peyton Manning and winning the Super Bowl and sitting in the locker room or hoisting the trophies. And then when we start the game,

it's all about Chiefs 49ers. You watch the NBA finals and they're going to a commercial in the middle of the finals. It's like, here's a picture of Wilk Chamberlain holding up the piece of paper that said he scored 100 points. You're like, this is cool, but this feels like I'm trapped in the NBA museum instead of watching an exciting finals game. Oh, yeah. NFL just nicely keeps it right over to the side.

So it feels like it's connected to history, but doesn't feel like we are living history when we're watching the most exciting game of the year. that was big. There was a lot of discussion about how much CBS would go to Taylor Swift during the game. Yeah. What if the problem was elegantly solved by the Chiefs only scoring three points in the first half? There's not a lot of positive reaction shots, not a lot of cheers from the Skybox. No, like Noah Gray three-yard gain. We don't need to go to Taylor Swift.

No. It wasn't even a question. No. I thought, I mean, I'm sure that there was some incredible, you know, production meeting about this whole thing, deciding how much to go to Taylor Swift and at what point to go to Taylor Swift. And boy, I would love to have been a fly on the wall, at least for the purposes of this podcast in that meeting. But yeah, it seems like, you know, nature healed itself or whatever. There was, it did not end up becoming a big issue. By the way, on the whole Taylor Swift thing, you know, I was watching a lot of, a lot of, you know, the pregame, well, pregame content, the several days before. the Super Bowl and NFL Network and whatever Paramount Plus was serving up. And I had completely forgotten how much Giselle there was in some of those Tom Brady Patriot Super Bowls, just like nonstop, like more than there's Taylor Swift, just shots of her reacting

to touchdowns, shots of her reacting to big plays, getting up and high-fiving people just the same. I don't remember the same amount of public outcry, although I'm sure that there was. I just don't, you know, then again, maybe that wasn't a government's eyeop. She wasn't set by the State Department to put Democrats in the White House. You're totally right. I kind of forgot about that too. And after Tom Brady would win,

all the shots of them postgame. And her famous quote about him not being able to throw and catch the ball the same time. No, she was definitely a big figure. This seemed to be the year where it was decided we had to have at least three celebrities in every commercial. Yeah.

I think that started last year, the year before. But yeah, that that would certainly seem like it was just every single commercial this year. Okay, so smart listener or somebody that covers advertising, can we find out when the first commercial was where we had to have a celebrity and all of a sudden they would look to their right and be shocked to see another celebrity? Another celebrity. Yeah. Yeah. That has become the go-to. Right. It was Tina Faye and Glenn Close and Jack McBrayer. we had Matt and Ben and J-Lo and Tom Brady. Not that funny.

By the way, am I allowed to say that at the ringer? And when there's, what's the one I'm thinking of where there were several characters who were like playing their role, this happened a number of times, playing their basically the roles

from whatever TV show or movie they were on, but they were, but it wasn't just them. They were like, there was another actor who is there, that was like, so it was like just shoot old in. Ted Lassow and Dan Marino.

I know if you're talking about that. Like Ted Lassow. That's not the one, but that's a good example. I don't know. I don't even know. Yeah, it was just a lot. I mean, I'm sure that these,

listen, the Super Bowl ad budget, the ad companies have these just enormous budgets. And at some point you're like, what do we spend this extra $5 million on? It's like, well, we've already maxed out the CGI that we could possibly spend in this, using this amount of time. It's like you're in some weird world building video game

or something and you're just like, wow, I'm just way ahead of where it should be of all the benchmarks. Like, what do I do with all this? Well, I just, I'll build a pool for everyone to swim in. I don't know. And they just look at their budgets and they're like, all right, five million dollars. Who's got Tracy Morgan's phone number?

You know, like, let's just get. Tracy, we need two seconds worth of work at the end. You're the final, you're the final joke. People look over and see that it's Tracy Morgan. And what's like showing up to work for an actor for literally like five seconds of time? You know, that's how long it is? Oh, yeah. Or no, I mean, I'm sure it takes an hour or something, but just film the five seconds.

But still, it's just like, what just an amazing, amazing economy this is. Well, I was watching the Dunkin' Donuts one very closely because I wanted to make sure that those people were all together at the same time. Oh, yeah. Because it was clear from the Tina Fay ads that she and Jack McBrayer were not in the same room and maybe just texted afterwards. Like, isn't that funny that we're in the same commercial? but that it probably wasn't filmed at the same time. But I was watching the Dunkin' stuff, especially with Brady. I'm like, did we just go to like a cutaway of Brady dressed up like the other people?

It did seem like they were maybe all filmed together. I don't know if I mentioned this. Yeah, I think they were in the same place. But that's it. I think that's the next evolution. We already have the three, the three, you know, the multiple celebrity commercial is the error that we're already in. And the next is, well, how can we,

you know, how can we do even better than that? It's like, let's make it really clear that they're in the same place. So get rid of the CGI, get rid of the special effects. Just put them outside throwing footballs or whatever. And that way, it just, it seems more special. It's like the old Vanity Fair Hollywood issue cover. Yeah. These people are like leaning on each other.

We're going to make sure that you know that they're all in the same place at the same time. Got a tweet from listener Guy de Gata who says, what Super Bowl commercial tropes need to be retired? I vote for the fake movie TV show commercial music video until someone yells cut trope. That's a really good one. I think the Arnold Schwarzenegger State Farm ad was in that genre, which I did enjoy like a good neighbor. I'm a cop, you idiot. No, yeah, that was great.

I feel like Arnold has already gone through like four cycles of being self-referential or whatever. I'm not, but regardless, that was fun. Like that movie had a joke about twins and twins was itself Arnold being self-referential and joking about it. Oh yeah, I'm talking about four cycles even since like his whatever

in his old age, but you're right, that was entirely self-referential. And the can't say it right thing was sort of a kindergarten cop reference and it's just that, yeah, well, you know, I guess there wasn't another big star in kindergarten cop. apologies to that dude with the long black ponytail who was in a bunch of stuff back

Chris. His name was crisp and Arnold was after him. Weirdest ad of the night, the RFK Jr. ad. Oh, yeah. That was like it. It was, I got to say that was definitely a perk up and what the hell is happening on my TV screen moment. Turns out it was done by a super pack and RFK Jr. was distancing himself from it and also a apologizing to his family members for it because some of them were offended that he was lumping

himself in with JFK. But he also pinned it to the top of his Twitter profile. Oh, yeah. So perhaps not totally distancing himself from it. And then this, David, for our last note here before we get into the game, I don't think I've ever seen this. We get through all the pregame pomp and circumstance. or the players are on the field,

we're ready to go, and CBS goes to the booth. The shot of Tony Romo and Jim Nance. Shot we're very familiar with with sports television. But there was one twist. They were sitting down. I don't think I've ever seen a shot of announcer sitting down in a football booth.

That was a first for me, because they stand up when they do that two shot. And then they stand up the whole game. They don't actually. sit down, most of them. They watched the game standing up, so just to see them seated like they were about to host Meet the Press or something?

Yeah, I think you do catch it occasionally. I feel like we've accidentally seen Tony Romo, I mean, Troy Aikman sitting down on occasion, but maybe not. Maybe they just stand, maybe I'm wrong. I feel like I've seen a, I saw a sitting scene this season. But it's incredibly unsettling.

Also, it will never not be weird, especially on the Super Bowl, the CBS logo jackets. The network blazer? Yeah, the network blazer. Like, I know that this is a tradition. I understand everything like that.

But yeah, I guess if you're being forced to wear something to work, maybe the Super Bowl is a time where like you have a CBS tuxedo or something, you know? I just feel, it feels like a little bit with the level of fashion consulting that goes on with all the, and all these shows, the CBS network blazer feels like a downgrade, right? It feels like it doesn't actually. actually feel like if you're going to make someone wear something, make it be nicer than what they would wear. Give them a CBS Rolex or something that they can flash around or just some sort of, you know, golden diamond encrusted pendant or something they could put on whatever jacket they're

wearing. Pinky ring? Is this like the old debate over school uniforms where we don't want to make the announcers who aren't making $18 million a year uncomfortable? So everybody should have to wear the same thing. Someone provides the outfits for even like the the lesser, the sideline reporters and stuff, right? I think they probably pick. I think they pick themselves. I think

they may have a budget or they may have a tie-in with a sponsor, but I think they go get their own stuff. These guys, but you're right, it is, like we have come to this era when they're not wearing the half-zips, when they're actually wearing suits that they look really good. They do not look like, you know, guy at the

roofing convention at the Luxor and Vegas. They are they are dressed in the where else in the world do you have a corporate logo blazer? You go to the club, you go to the like the country club and you don't have a jacket on. They give you a jacket

with the coat of arms on the breast but like yeah, you win the masters. Where else do you have a where else would you have a corporate blazer with a corporate logo like a car dealership or something? Like I can't even think of what it would be. I can't decide whether I think it's really cheesier

it's just an amazing link to the television past. I work for CBS, bro. This is the eye. It's like true detective. You know, like look at this weird symbol that only a few people understand. I kind of like it in that way. But yeah,

but they got to pivot. At some point they have to pivot to like the Paramount Plus Blazer, right? Whatever like the, whatever the more powerful, the more urgent iteration of their corporate logo is. They're going to have to go with that. I'm out. That's the point I walk away from the,

the network plays. All right, coming up on today's show, lots more Super Bowl observations about Jim Nance and Tony Romo about the CBS broadcast, plus my report from Las Vegas in the beautiful rooms at the Luxor. See what I did there?

Plus, David, how do you cover Joe Biden, who a special counsel just called a well-meaning elderly man? J.J. Reddick has got a big job and John Stewart is back tonight. All that much more on the press box. A part of the ringer. Podcast Network.

Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer Brian Waters here. I want to talk to you, David, about Tony Romo. Did you notice how quiet he was at the beginning of yesterday's broadcast? Yes, I did. I did. I was very eager to see how he was going to come out of the gate, and I felt like he didn't quite come out of the gate for most of the first quarter. Do you think he got a note from somebody? I saw Sean McManus, run CBS sports. And it's like the only criticism he's basically ever brooked about Romo is that he was too

excited. So we think Romo got a note early on that said, okay, first quarter, come out Mellow. Yeah. Let it build. Don't feel like you're going to parachute out of the booth when the opening kick happens. I think that that's probably more true or closer to true than my initial, my suspicion, which was that he just went with no one ever gets on my case

for saying nothing. Right? They always are getting on my case for saying something. And so it's like if you don't have any like your parents told you, if you don't have anything to say, don't say anything at all.

Right? If you're anything smart to say, don't say anything at all. So you just sort of hung back. It's a weird strategy for an announcer when you're supposed to talk during the football game. It's like if I don't talk,

then those critics won't get after me. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was also there's the nature of the game, right? I mean, it took most of the first half for the sort of storyline to settle in that it was a shitty first half, right? Or that it was a, it was just sort of best case scenario, just sort of a immovable force or right, irisible force, immovable object sort of showdown, right? And, you know, it took a while, I think, for that, for him to start telling that story. He does power down during games at art offensive shootouts because he's just not that. interested in it.

That's always one of my big criticisms of him is like, if you have a game where, you know, Nick Bosa or Chris Jones is just running, is basically wrecking the other team's offense. He's just not that interested in that and explaining that. So I do think that might have been part of it. But David,

you know, you can't stop Tony Romo. You can only hope to contain him. So after a quiet first quarter by the second, he was singing Adele. Well, we're halfway. through the second quarter.

All we have on the board is a field goal. Take it to the commercial there, Mr. Romo. Romo always had some everyman appeal. It turns out he sings like you and I do. Yeah. As well. I thought Romo had a lot of great moments last night. Man, like if he is a little too focused on quarterback play,

I think that's a fair criticism. But man, when he talks about quarterbacks, he talks about him like nobody else does. There was this moment last night where Patrick Mahomes threw this ball behind a receiver. I think it was Justin Watson. And Romo went to the replay and showed how the 49ers defensive tackle Eric Armstead was just in his range of vision. And Romo, excuse me, Mahomes had changed his arm angle slightly. And that's why the throw was behind him.

And it had a shot from the sky cam behind, kind of floating behind Mahomes. It was like, man, this is a great marriage of point announcers making with a picture. And it's like, I don't understand football at a Solachian Kapodian level, but I can understand what's happening here. I feel smart. Yeah. He had some great Romo-esque moments last night where I don't know if you notice this right at the end of regulation. The chief's kicker Harrison Butker is about to tie it up with a field goal where we think he's about to tie it up. It's a chip shot.

And Romo says to Nance, no way it ends like this, does it? Like, he can't just miss this, right? and we're going to have this great super pole and exciting fourth quarter end on a random thing. Yeah. And that's something I was thinking. I was like, absolutely he has to kick this and we have to get to overtime.

And I don't think Trey Aikman says that. I don't think Chris Collinsworth blarts that out right at that moment. That's a good point. It's where Romo's at his best. Like things just come out of his mouth sometimes that are the exact right thing to say

and that go places that another end. announcer maybe wouldn't go. I also thought of you when that 49ers punt returner got clotheslined and Roma made a Hulk Hogan reference. Do we think Hulk Hogan has ever been mentioned during the Super Bowl broadcast before? Oh my gosh. That's a great question. I would assume no, but, you know, he's been around for a long time.

1986, you think Madden may have said something offhandle? That's a Hulk Hogan kind of move. That's professional wrestling. I think that stuff that Romo does like that, people who are sports writers, professional sports writers or media critics, that's the stuff they miss. Because you know what?

Man, of those 100 plus million people watch the Super Bowl, a lot of them, they will only remember Romo singing Adele. That will be their lasting memory of the quote-unquote announcers. Yeah. That fun guy singing Adele.

There was also a lot of bad Romo stuff last night. mention the stuff about not being curious about defense or line play. I think Romo is this weird combo of real genuine passion for football and schematic football and a lack of curiosity about these guys as players and humans. If you watch him call a game, you will just notice that he very rarely talks in depth about players at all. he never even has the Chris Collinsworth thing where it's like Frank rag now Mike I mean I you just got to you know you just got to give it look at this guy

like he doesn't have those kind of broadcasting moments that we got and getting used to since John Madden was on the year where you just take a guy it's like I'm just going to tell you about this guy and bring him to life as a person as a character as a player yeah it feels very remote doesn't it even if Romo is constantly elated it. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I think that has sort of his, his fans' point of view goes to that, right? I mean, he's, he's sitting from this, his, I think his base of operations is on the couch next to us, you know, and he, and not necessarily to come with insight about the teams of the player, certainly inside about their schemes or whatever, but not, but, you know, he does not do that at all. And it does, and that does feel missing sometimes. I thought he did a great, a good job overall last night. I know the spotlight was really on him. But that's absolutely true. I'm totally where you are. And I think this whole remote thing has gone over the waterfall just a little bit.

Like you can look at him and be like, man, I see some flaws here. I see some things I don't like. But to me, he is like a flawed NFL quarterback who takes you to the Super Bowl, right? Who plays brilliantly throughout the playoffs, who plays brilliantly in the Super Bowl, as he did last night when he was announcing the game. But we'll also make big mistakes at the same time. time. And I think what we do is the same thing we do with that flawed quarterback, right? We put him in the first take Kairon as this guy is elite. Oh, man, he's elite. That Prescott going to lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl or he's terrible and unplayable and we need to trade him and start over and find a new quarterback in the draft. And the truth is he's kind of both of those things at the same time. But he's not a bad announcer. You know, he is a really good announcer. He just happens to be flawed.

And I agree with you. I don't think last night was a bad game with the best of his three Super Bowls by far. Of course, it was also the best game. Jim Nance, David, I thought it had his best game of the playoffs. He was really good. He'd had a few moments in the previous games. I think there was like a Strip Sack Ravens Chiefs and then a fake punt Bill's Chiefs where he felt a little quiet.

And I was kind of like, hmm, kind of un-Nantzian. He was also doing a golf tournament the day before the AFC championship. game and I was like, are we overworking Jim Nance here? I need to give Jim Nance some space to just do football. But I thought it was pretty good last night. Here he is calling Patrick Mahomes' game winning pass to

McColl Hartman in overtime. That jackpot line in Vegas is right on the razor's edge of corniness. But I thought it worked. I liked it. Totally worked for me. also want to ask you about the vagusness of the broadcast. Had an executive from a rival network tell me a couple weeks before the game.

Seriously, we finally have a Vegas Super Bowl and CBS gets it. Right. The squarest of the very square network sports divisions. Did you catch that running ad CBS had where James Brown and Phil Sims and the pregame crew were standing on the strip and sunglasses that they would show a week after week. guys. Yes. Yeah, that's that's that's that's Vegas baby, you know, amazing stuff.

Sam Blake tweeted at us that Jim Nance called Gene Sterator, the ref in the booth babe at one point, which I thought was a very Vegas he touch. Nance had one had had one, I think it was Nance, not Romo, had a, that would be a terrible bet, quip. I think towards the end of the first half about like leaving, web. or not the chiefs were going to stay in or we're going to run a play on fourth down or something like that. It didn't really fit. It seemed like he was just waiting and waiting for the opportunity to use the line and had to shoehorn it in there.

But, you know, it's it's Vegas. You got to have your, you got to have your jokes. And it was 1919 late, right? And Nancy said that's usually a winning hand. I think that was also kind of shoehorned in there for some Vegas talk. What did you make of the amazing shot of Travis Kelsey just shoulder

blocking? Andy Reid on the sideline I was a real litmus test do you feel they let that one go a little bit didn't you want Tony Romo or somebody just kind of explain

what's going on like they seem to trace it to the fact that Kelsey was out of the game no I think Romo explained that part right away he said he thought he should have been in there because the backup tied in you know missed his block or whatever

and he's saying just leave me in or whatever but yeah it was really uncomfortable because obviously Andy Reid was just not paying attention to the screaming until he got, you kind of shoved. And then it just seemed really weird. Andy Reid was just like, who is this man? Why is he yelling at me? Andy Reid, you know, deceptively old.

So, yeah, that's understandable. But, no, I just, it was, it was, it was really weird. And on the one hand, I did want to know more about it. On the other hand, I'm sort of glad it became a meme immediately. and we just sort of move past it as a culture. You know, like I didn't need him to address that, Kelsey to address that as he was like receiving the trophy

after the game or whatever, you know? It just seemed like a moment that's unnecessary. My favorite moment from the pregame was Phil Sims botching his Super Bowl prediction. And I don't mean getting it wrong. I just mean botching the whole delivery. Listen to this clip, David, and see if you need to take a couple of Advil afterwards just to clear your head.

Spiris a lot. They see they're putting their mouth where their heart is in terms of the picture. Who brings home the Lombardi Trophy, Phil? Okay, you know, I'm going to go with the underdog, and I know everybody, that's Kansas City, even though they're favorite, because everybody has been picking San Francisco, but I'm going to take Kansas City in high-scor and games, 31 to 27, I'm sorry, San Francisco, 31 to 27 over Kansas City.

Oh, yes. So we list all these reasons. And he's like, no, no, no, all those points still stand, but I'm taking San Francisco, not Kansas City. Somebody else in the set just went, oh, okay. Another moment from the P game was Nate Burleson, interviewing Patrick Mahomes. Listen to this clip and see if you think this is the way the nation thinks of Patrick Mahom.

When I think about you and the Chiefs, what comes to mind is Jordan and the Bulls. Jeter and the Yankees, Brady and the Patriots. What I mean by that is they love it when you're winning, but they hate you when you become dominant. Do you feel that way? You definitely have gotten that since this year. I think this is the year that it actually has kind of came out that way.

That's part of it. You turn into that villain, you turn into that team that everybody doesn't want to win. You have to embrace that too in order to be great, and I think you've seen the greats do that in every sport. If we can speak for the entire sports media, here, do we think people perceive Patrick Mahomes as a villain? Absolutely not. I mean, a lot of people are talking about this.

I do think that there's some, there's some truth to what he said, but given that like the broader point is true, I cannot imagine a team or a player being more, being more inoculated from that, from those sorts of like bad vibes than the Kansas City Chiefs, right? He's in Patrick Mahomes in particular. I know.

I mean, he's just, he's got to have like the highest approval rating of anybody. He's nice. Like you look at him on the field and somebody sacks him and he's like pat him on the head. Like, ah, you got me. Good one. Yeah. I got you. I mean, there was a whole dad bod thing, you know, from the, from the AFC championship game.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems like, especially with their recommendations. record this year with them, I mean, and the Super Bowl itself was the sort of microcosm of it, just a team trying to figure out who they were and kind of coming through in the end, almost in real time. I think it was, I mean, I honestly think a lot of this boils down to just the sort of narrative

anxiety, right? It's like, we don't know what to say about this team. And so we're just going to sort of grasp at straws. Yeah, I think that's right. I think there's a sense that like we're trying to progress too quickly through the stages of sports radiodom and first take them here where America and I think media members too are more in the appreciating greatness stage of Patrick Mahomes rather than the I'm tired of these assholes stage which will come you know with with Brady it came because of a scandal with University of

Michigan it came because of the scandal it's very hard to picture the chiefs doing anything like that, but who knows? Like I don't pretend to know the culture of that organization or anything like that, but it just feels like you just need some inciting event or they just have to win so many championships that people just get sick of them and start rooting against them. Maybe that happens after three. But I don't think it's happened yet, broadly speaking. No.

I mean, if they win again, we can meet back here next year and have this conversation. But still, I mean, I think letting, you know, you know, their top receiver go be in free agency or trading them away because of salary cap considerations. I mean, there's just, they've just,

there's just so many reasons why it's not a prototypical dynasty. And I mean, in the way that would make you hate them, right? It's not like, it's not like, you know, this is Golden State,

the Golden State, we were signing KV or something where you're just like, oh, no, not again. Now, listen, I guess if they could pull something to wrap it out of the hat

and do something like that next year. But still, I don't know, man. I don't know. It just doesn't check the boxes for me. A couple of final notes for you from Radio Row in Vegas. There's a kind of small status difference between 90% of the radio shows which camp out in Radio Row, which is this huge room at a convention center, very charmless place. Everybody's together. A couple of radio shows get the off-site set,

which this year was heightened slightly because they could be at a casino. their own casino and have fans or onlookers come to them. But what was funny about this, it was kind of cold all week in Vegas. So whenever I saw Dan Levittart or Dan Patrick talking in a clip, they were always really bundled up.

It looked like they had come to their sports radio show on a taunton, which perhaps had died at the first marker. Just kind of a funny little note there. Sometimes it's nice to be inside, with the masses. Biggest get of Radio Row was Pat McAfee on Thursday got the rock for an hour. An hour.

I was told from my wrestling friends that the rock couldn't go for five minutes now, but he went for an hour on the McAfee show. By the way, the whole McAfee thing was very, very fascinating where you'd have, we're talking, there's mostly media people in here, maybe some just Super Bowl pre-week types,

but people were six deep watching him interview people like The Rock or Dana White. Yeah. Just watching him do it on the set. That was, let's just say, not happening to the same degree when Mike Florio was talking next door. Still just kind of a phenomenon in a strange way. Oh, absolutely. Anytime people are gathering around to watch you do the thing and not just for the people who you're interviewing, it's pretty important. impressive. Also, the sound isn't always

right. Were they broadcasting it? Could you hear what they were saying? You could. Weirdly, yeah, because again, you're probably like 10 feet from the stage and it was all on the same level in McAfee's case. So it did feel like you were kind of sitting in where A.J. Hawk

would normally be smoking a stogie. Other Thursday guys this year, Thursday being the height of Radio Row, Coach Prime was there. Saw him taking a moment with fellow Colorado guy, Chris Fowler. Josh Allen was there. Joe Montana was there.

This was the biggest and most loaded radio row I've ever seen. And I'm not sure if people just wanted to come to Vegas, both media members and famous people that media members wanted to interview. It's an easier yes than some places. Did you enjoy Radio Row content from afar? Did you notice any interviews that you actually wanted to watch or any product plugs that particularly amused you? I did.

I won't name any names, but I did notice like, bounty paper towels and, and buffalo wings front and center on a broadcaster too. Was that a thing? It was a product placement, I assume? Yeah. Bounty figured out that sports writers are just hungry all the time,

so they just were just constantly cooking wings in this little outpost they had on radio, row and then giving you bounty paper towels. Oh, that's a good idea. But if they supplied you with an interview, which I believe Gronk was one of their spokesmen this year, then you were having the bounty towels and the wings, I think out on the set. That was it required.

See, that's actually really smart. I mean, I've never done Super Bowl Radio Row, but I've done things like this. And there's always, food is always an issue, right? You don't know if you should eat before you get there. Maybe you're running late and you can't eat before you get there. A lot of times I don't eat before I'll go because like just in hopes that there will be like a like a Danish spread somewhere wherever I'm going. That'll be better than whatever I would have gotten my hands on.

And then a lot of times there's not and you and you're stuck there and you're like, you got to fight for like a bottle of water, you know, just to have something to drink you. There's, you assume there's a Starbucks everywhere where there's not in the middle of a giant convention center, you know, and you've got to figure out where to go. It's a really smart move.

And frankly, now that I hear about it, I don't know why, you know, Grubhub or Uber Eats is not just, constantly sending food, just having like a dude with the giant grubhub backpack, just walking around giving people food

just to get the logo in the camera shot. That would be really smart. You know, I always sneer. Go to any place where people are starving and shameless and just start giving them food for product placement. You win people over pretty fast. I mean, you know, I sneer at the product plugs.

I love to laugh at people saying, what are you doing with so-and-so? What's your, tell us about it? your relationship with so and so, but dude, we had a moment where somebody representing Subway had left all this stuff on the ringer table. And Arjuna was like looking at these things. He's like, oh, this is like a giant churro. And I was like, give me the churro. And I just crushed that churro having not eaten anything in hours right in front of everybody. It was like cold too. Not a great experience. Definitely the third rate Danish you're talking about.

Dude, that was so satisfying. I was like, I'm in. Tell me what you're doing with. Subway Footlongs. I'm an official resident of Radio Row. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, David, the special counsel says Joe Biden is a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. What do political writers do with that? But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrated gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Send your nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always, always gratefully received. The runner-up goes to this Super Bowl gag quoting here. Tomorrow will be chaos at Allegiance Stadium. 72,000 fans and just one usher. Thanks to

the count of Monte Grypto for that one. But this week's runaway winner, David, sent to us from, by Nick Field and Mark Mascalino is if you congratulated Taylor Swift on winning the Super Bowl in her rookie year, Congrats, you made the Overward Twitter joke of the week.

It was everywhere. All right, in the notebook dump, let's do a couple of quick things. Joe Biden is not going to face charges for mishandling classified documents. Oh, man. Happy news for Joe Biden. But the special prosecutor, whose name is Robert Herr, said in his report explaining why Biden wouldn't be charged, that Biden was, quote, a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. said Biden couldn't remember the year his son Beau died.

Biden added on some data points for journalists looking to write a story by referring to the very dead German Chancellor Helmut Cole as if he were alive, among other mistakes. I think there's some interesting journalistic questions posed by this or some interesting questions about what journalists are going to do. the first one, of course, is the zero-sum question. Is Joe Biden up to the job of being president? And I thought it was fascinating that they got him out there in front of the cameras.

And I think it was pretty late at night when they did this. The day that report came out. We need Joe Biden out there. We need him doing stuff. Here was Joe Biden mixing it up with Fox's Peter Duce. Thank you. And I'll take some questions. President Biden, something the special counsel said.

in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged is because in his description you are a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing I've been president and I put this country back on his feet I don't need his recommendation it's totally I is your memory and can you continue as president my memory is so bad I let you speak that's that that's what you and worse, Mr. President. My memory is not going.

My memory is... I think that was Biden's attempt at doing the Ronald Reagan. I'm not holding my opponent's youth and inexperience against him. But it fell flat because it was in a room full of journalists who actually had questions about...

Yeah. Biden's... Yeah. So what do you think journalists will be doing? Trying to figure out if he's up to the job, trying to figure out how this actually affects what he does in the White House? Yeah, I think the last point

is probably the closest. I mean, what they don't need to be doing is just taking, is like perpetuating this question as if it's a reality and sort of actualizing it, right? I saw a thing, was it yesterday that said it, or this morning where someone was asking is, is Biden's age a bigger deal than Trump's? Oh, no, this was, I think this was on Fox's Sunday show or sorry, CNN Sunday show, the Chris Wallace Sunday show. is his age a bigger deal than Trump's convictions or whatever? And it's just like just the very fact of asking this question just seems like you're doing a terrible disservice to the American public. Because the answer is like it absolutely should not be.

But just by entertaining it, you're legitimizing it. Seems like that's a big lesson. That for a while it seemed like it was coalescing as the big lesson take away from Trump's first campaign. that by sort of like by like pointing and staring you were legitimizing and yet if that lesson's been learned

it hasn't actually been parlayed to anything besides Trump himself I don't know I mean I just think there's so much more to be I mean I think Biden makes a right point I mean look at his record right

I mean I'm not saying you should feel honor bound to vote for Joe Biden but there's a lot more that you could do just by like actually investigating what is, or just talking about what his administration is accomplished, rather than, or failed at, rather than just talking ambiguously about his age, because it's an unsolvable question. If there's a way to solve it, by all means, please figure it out. But if it's not, then all you're doing is perpetuating a myth and legitimizing it in the process.

I think it, tractor beaming it into an argument about Trump is one of those things that is probably both inevitable and very, very problematic in a way. Because then it becomes about, well, what are you going to do? Vote for the guy who's been indicted four times? You know, it's like, well, that's actually not the journalistic question here. There's a question before the voters, right? Certainly. That's an interesting question, but it doesn't actually solve it.

Not to mention that Donald Trump has did his own Nikki Haley, Nancy Pelosi switcheroo the other day, which Nikki Haley has been making a lot of hay out of. I do wonder how the press is going to handle these inevitable. little Biden gaffs or mistakes on the stump because it's not, as you say, the entire story. If Joe Biden goes up there and mixes up on, on hull of Merkel for Helmut Cole, that should not be disqualifying for the presidency. They're probably not nothing either.

And there's a lot of room between not important at all and disqualifying. and I do not envy the reporters who will watch this stuff and try to figure out how do we talk about this? What's the right way to think about a president who is the first one to admit that he's aging, right? But he's probably a different guy than he was 10 or 20 years ago. I am interested in details about what his White House schedules like, how this has affected his presidency. I would like to know even more about that. But it's not an easy one to cover. Even if you set out to try to cover it well.

To the Trump point, as much as it pains me, I mean, there is, he's being, Trump is I think somewhat legitimately being graded on a different curve, right? I mean, I think that the perception is that Joe Biden is, you know, all of his remarks are prepared and he still has trouble delivering those. And Trump is speaking off the cuff and we can say,

oh, well, all of us mess up names. and we're speaking off the cuff. Now, neither of those things are entirely true, but I think that that's, there's, there's a hint of truth to it. But yeah, no, I mean, it's, I don't know, I don't know that, I mean, usually you say you,

you would couch everything in the, in a broader context or the relevant context. So every time you ask the question about Biden's age, do you say, you know, Trump's only a couple years younger than him and seems to be, you know, just much more detached from reality? I don't know, that's the problem

of having this conversation because it's not a quantifiable thing on either side. So you're not, so you skirt the issue, you skirt that problem by just, well, we're just asking questions. But asking questions create the problem. I agree. There's a lot of, there's a lot of interesting questions. There's a lot of interesting ways you can go about this. But currently it's not, it does not seem, it does not seem that anybody's really interested in doing it.

You saw what Biden tweeted out last night, the little meme thing where he said, just like we drew it up when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl. Yeah, it's a good meme. It is. I have a lot this fall, I feel like we'll be covering meme Joe Biden a lot this fall rather than actual Joe Biden, especially after he passed up going on the Super Bowl pregame show to do an interview. In other news, David, John Stewart is back tonight. Just the man to sort out these kind of questions. I was just recording it and realized that the daily show is crammed between reruns of the office and South Park on Comedy Central, which is its own kind of,

here's what happened to culture since John Stewart left us. What do you think, how does John Stewart play in 2024? Well, he's had a show on, what, Apple Plus, I believe for a little while that like if you're so inclined, you could have been watching John Stewart.

But it was serious John Stewart. It wasn't a daily show John Stewart. Yeah. it'll be interesting. I mean, I don't think that there's many people better at him than doing what he does in terms of hosting the daily show. Probably nobody. But so much of the culture is sort of evolved in that direction that I find out hard to imagine he's going to stand out as much they did at that point in time. I think, you know, listen, this is going to be a great old guy still got it reaction cycle, I'm sure.

I think that's inevitable. And, you know, I think he'll probably produce. some really incredible content. But, you know, we're in a much different world. I don't think that, you know, he or, you know, John Oliver are probably interested in people comparing their output. But that sort of stuff's going to be inevitable. And if it's not, regardless of whether or not it is, I guess,

there's only a certain amount of oxygen, you know, for these things to take up. And, you know, there's probably more people paying attention on social media and stuff like that. But, you know, at his peak, John Stewart was, close to the only game in town. So am I right about this that what John Oliver did was take the

funny of John Stewart and the glibness of John Stewart and marry it with I am actually passionate about these issues instead of saying screw them all like John Stewart sort of did during his daily show prime? Yeah, that's right. I mean, there's also the long form aspect to it too, right? That we're not just sort of like pointing

and yelling stop or, you know, explaining and diagnosing. and everything else. But yeah, yeah, and I think that's, I think that there's, that's an important aspect of it. Now, listen, John Stewart's going to be taking some of that with him because he's back, you know, not just for the money, but presumably, but sort of on a moral mission.

So I imagine that there will be more sort of meaning and honor attached to this run than maybe there was, that it felt like there was his first time around. J.J. Reddick is going to be on the number one NBA team on ESPN with Mike Breen and Dorisberg. That's per the athletics, Andrew Marchand. J.J. Reddick is incredibly deserving. He's at a very interesting trip to the top. He is largely fueled by his own media, his own self-owned and self-created media apparatus, combined with some really good game calls for ESPN and some good endings on first take too.

I think you probably have to add that in there. Still not sure we need three people calling a basketball game. Yeah. Still mystifies me that. You might have lost that argument already, Brian. I think I, well, obviously I lost in a walk because Turner number one team, ESPN number one team and CBS number one team for the final four. We all have three people.

It feels like the eccentric thing became the. norm in a way. But again, if you look at Dorisberg, you look at changing regs, like, these people are deserving. So maybe the job, the answer is to give them both a spot on the team. Some quick only in journalism for you. This is from our friend Oliver Bundy, nondescript. Calling something nondescript, I cannot tell you how many times I have been tempted to type

that word or actually typed that word because I've read it my entire life. It feels like you could always come up with a more interesting way to. say nondescript. Nondescript, is itself a nondescript word? This was from Hoover. It gives us from the Financial Times ruckians. I had to look this up. Ruxions means a disturbance are quarrel. Despite ruckians at the company in November, the Financial Times said. I guess that's only in journalism. I don't even know what that is. Our friend Mike Catalana, too, had a great one, which I've heard in sports, which I hear in business every once in a while,

he has emerged. This was in the context of JJ Reddick. J.J. Reddick has reportedly emerged as the favorite. Right. He also just is the favorite. But he has emerged. Anybody who's about to get a job is emerging. That sounds like,

like, like, Woge tweeting the draft picks here. J.J. We're just looking for it. J.J. Reddick is emerging as a favorite for the third seat in the announcement. We're looking for new verbs. All right. Here's a feature that's always emerging.

It's time for David Shoemaker, guess is a strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a Royal Farms dispute in Baltimore was the plot chickens. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener Sarah Leonardo. Thank you, Sarah. It's from NBC for Washington. I'm going to have to set this up for you because it's a,

it's very strained and just kind of a tough thing to guess, but I'll do my best here. David, when you go to the airport and you're about to get on a plane and you realize you forgot your snack, are you like me that you walk into that weirdly branded convenience store in the airport that's like Daily News or CNBC? Yeah. And you opt for the checks mix.

Oh man, I'm more of a trail mix person than checks mix, but I can totally understand. Checks mix, according to this NBC4 Washington article, has really random and variable pricing at the airport. Sometimes it's $9.99. Sometimes it's a more reasonable $5.99. And they talk about the reasons for this, why it's more different airports and such. So start this headline out with a lack of. a lack of and tell me what was NBC4 Washington's strained pun headline. The actual words are lack of?

Yep. A lack of checks and balances? Well, we're done here. See, I just, I try to help him out and I wind up giving him too much. David is too good. It's like the chiefs. You can't spot, you can't fumble a pun because David will just pick it up and score a couple of plays later. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. coming up Thursday on the press box, our guest host is the New York Times reporter and podcaster. Asted Herndon.

He is back on the show. I cannot wait to talk to him about the campaign trail, Biden, and other stuff. And then David, I don't know if you know this, but we get a week off. It's a wellness week here at the ring. Oh, yeah. Ready for some wellness? Take a walk, read a book, eat some checks mix. So Shoemaker and I will reunite on this show on Monday.

February 26th, where we will have, wait for it, more lukewarm takes about the media. Happy Super Bowl and see you then, David. See you later, bro.