The Press Box - Super Bowl Stories From New Orleans, a Farewell to Hubie Brown, and Eagles Talk With CNN’s Kasie Hunt

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel kick off the show with this week’s class in J-School. Joel discusses some of the highlights from Bryan’s interview with Chris Berman (1:45). Then Bryan shares some of the best stories from radio row (15:59). Then they get into some more headlines, including: Donald Trump being the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl (25:20) The Dallas fan base's feelings after Luka Doncic was traded to the Lakers (29:25) Hubie Brown’s farewell tour (39:40) Stephen A. Smith’s potential presidential bid (59:08) And as they get ready for Sunday’s big game, they welcome CNN anchor and Eagles superfan Kasie Hunt, who discusses her excitement for Super Bowl LIX. She discusses the following about her fandom: Her worst experience as an Eagles fan (1:03:32) The secret society of Eagles fans in Washington (1:08:23) Rapid-fire questions, including her favorite Eagles player, who she considers to be their biggest rival, and more (16:48) Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Kasie Hunt Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA and check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting

right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. Media consumers, welcome to press box. You got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. You've got producer Brian Waters coming up on a loaded podcast. My stories from New Orleans about covering the people who are covering the Super Bowl. Joel's going to weigh in on the Luca Donchich trade, a farewell to ESPN's Hubey Brown, and another edition of, how do we cover this, the occupation and redevelopment of Gaza edition.

Plus, special bonus, we chat with noted Eagles fan and also CNN anchor, Casey Hunt, before the big game. But first, if you want to see some championship hardware, if you want to meet a man who doesn't need to pretend that everyone doubted him, Ladies and gentlemen, there's only one place to go.

We are going to J-school. Yeah, I would never pretend to be an underdog. That's just not how I roll. Nope. Not you. Not me, not me. So, Brian, I have to admit something. I'm a little jealous that you're down there in New Orleans

and getting this whole Super Bowl experience, especially after our time in Atlanta together. So I feel like I should be there, but I'm glad you seem to be having a good time. When was the last time that you were in New Orleans before this? Sugar Bowl last year. Texas Longhorns versus Washington Huskies. So you go fairly regularly.

Well, I've been twice because the Longhorns were here and the Super Bowl was here. I'm in old school sports writer mode. My date lines are my vacations. That's it. I mean, man, I live in California for now, at least. And I felt like I used to go to New Orleans every year for me. a while. And I really spent a lot of time there in 2015 when I was reporting a package of stories to commemorate the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina. But what I remember most vividly was going

in December 2003 for the national championship game between Oklahoma and LSU. So let me remember Heisman Trophy winner, Jason White, you know, Nick Sabin. This is the very low-witage, Nick Saban. I don't think people knew Nick Saban was going to be Nick Sabin at that time. That was his first national championship even. But I was there a year and a half before Katrina, and I really, really fell in love with that place. And I just, like, so I want to just kind of, like, what has been your favorite thing to do in New Orleans so far? Like, I know you're saying you're in the quarter, right? Yeah, close to the French quarter.

We're talking about outside my, you know, shoe leather reporting and journalistic responsibilities here. Yeah, you're in the hotel room all the time. What would you like to go do to let off a little steam? I would like to eat, Joel. That's what I'd like to do. I'd like to eat po-boys. I'd like to eat even more po-boys than I've been eating, and that's at least an average of one or two a day.

Have you been to mothers to get your po-boy there? I haven't been yet. No. Oh, you've got to go to mothers. You've got to go to mothers. Mothers for po-boys. Mothers. My boy, Reggie Atatula, he's at 6.10 a.m. in Houston,

and he posted an IG story from mothers. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, I'm just, you know, people are all someplace sometimes and you're not there. And you're just like, oh, I'm the kid not at the party. And I'm like, oh, man, you guys are getting po-boys and getting po-boy pants. Which brings me to, so in the last episode, you mentioned the go-to New Orleans bit. Okay. And I just, I did not realize that getting a fortune in the French quarter was a was a go-to bit in New Orleans.

Is that a big thing? Is that seriously? Well, I haven't seen a sports writer do it yet, but just walking through the French quarter, I would see fortunes told. And I was thinking, okay, if I'm a sports writer and I'm looking for content here, something that would be pretty easy to get and would make for some good video, provided the fortune teller was comfortable, of course, being on video. What would that be? I don't know. Fortune teller, sure. Okay, okay.

I mean, I guess like doing a second line or just drinking hurricanes at 1.30 a.m. probably is not. that's not really a go-to bit. Well, that's not a bit, Joel. That's things sports writers do. That's right. That's right. Some people are hitting it harder than others, I'm sure. There have been some people hitting it hard.

Let me tell you. I know, I know, I know. Oh, that's funny. Anyway, so I'm moving on. I want to spend a moment highlighting your great interview of Chris Boomer, Berman, which was released Wednesday. And first of all, did you notice this? I'm sure you did.

Or maybe you don't notice it anymore. that Berman himself said no fewer than five times that you were asking great questions. Did you notice that? Did he kept saying that? Yes, I did notice. I will tell you that like having done a bunch of these interviews now with famous people, when they say great question, what I usually find they mean is in the 30 or so go-to answers I have in my head that I can pull out when I'm doing an interview, that's not one of them.

So more than, hey, you just asked me something terrific, it just means like, I'm not ready for that. Give me a second. I mean, I think that in itself is a good. You're making him step out aside his routine, right? Like the character of Boomer, he had to think a little bit harder. I could hear him efforting to think, too. They were great questions.

I just, you tell me if you felt the same way. And I don't think this is, you know, offending Chris Berman and all to say that he sounds like a Ron Burgundy era broadcaster. Like his actual gravelly voice, like it's kind of like an avatar of like the late 70s and 80s. Like when you sort of experience your local sports news guy to drink and smoke and like arm wrestle of the team's backup quarterback, you know what I mean? Like I just, his voice really threw me back. Like it was like a relic from a long ago era to me.

I totally agree. And I think that's the magic. Chris Berman. Yeah. I mean, watching him on television, and I'm sure you had the same reaction, it was like, you don't look like those letter perfect announcers that are on the networks. You look like, you look like somebody and sound like somebody that I could actually know. Yeah.

Yeah. You could be my friend's dad. Yeah. And that's what, and I mean, the jokes could be my friend's dad's jokes, the sort of the look, the hair, everything about him, and that's what he, that's who was his superpower, right? Not only was he funny and witty and good on television, but he was accessible. Yeah, he was very familiar, very familiar to people. Well, I just, there's a couple of things I wanted to point out for that interview, because we had talked about before you went in there about, man, what happened to Tom

Jackson, man? Where is Tommy? Where nobody's talked about him? And he said that they texted that day. I was really, it really moved me that they still are that close. Did he, did he say anything about him off air that are we are we ever going to get that elusive tom jackson interview oh my god that would be a great one no i mean it's funny because when i always love it when tv friendships turn out to be real friendships yeah because those are different things yeah you can be great and effective friends on a show or a podcast or whatever it is and then it's like oh yeah we don't talk yeah yeah yeah right yeah we just it works for tv but like to hear that and he was like you know Tommy went to my wife's funeral.

He went, you know, he was, he showed up. He was that guy. I really thought that was cool. Yeah, that really moved. And there's two other things. So I mentioned in this, I mentioned later in this episode that I grew up a Houston or less fan. And I probably mentioned it every episode, to be honest.

But one thing about Houston is we used to love to tell people that it was the fourth largest city in the country because I felt like if you didn't tell people, people didn't know how big Houston actually was. And so you kind of get an underdog complex. or sort of like, you know, a little brother complex, right? When nobody thinks about Houston. So the biggest deal in my life as a kid, as a sports fan, was when people would acknowledge the existence of the Oralers.

So when Chris Berman said that Warren Moon through the prettiest pass, I felt 12 years old all over again. I was like, oh, my God, he watches Warren Moon and his connection with Haywood Jeffries and Ernest Givens, man. It felt good to me. Like, I felt like a little boy again. I felt seen. I was like, oh, man, people were.

actually watching the Oilers games, right? That's great. And one other thing. So he makes, he talks about Chris Fwatu Mafala, and the joke, Bad Mafala. And I have one brief, quick story about that. So I was the scout team running back for TCU in 1996. So I was a lot of guys, man. Like I was Ronnie Jenkins, who was the running back to play behind Steve Sarkesian at BYU that year. We played against Steve Sarkisian his senior year at BYU. there weren't really that many other, like, great reterbacks.

We played, well, there was a kid, June Henley for Kansas. Like, I got to be him. He was in the NFL for a little bit. But so Utah had Chris Fuatu, Mafala. And I don't know if people know who Chris Fuatma Fala looked like, but he's like 6'1 and 280 pounds. So that was the only week that season that I was not our lead scout team back. Because as big as I was, I was not Chris Fuatu, my father.

I think we made a linebacker. the scout Zbriere back that week. And I was like, oh, that's not a name I've heard in a very long time. So anyway, was I the only one that had had completely forgotten that boomer nickname? I'd forgotten it too. That's what it kind of delighted me to, I was like, oh, man, people are talking about Chris Fuatu, my father. That's amazing.

Yeah, I think I thought I had the whole, you know, dictionary in my head, but I was like, ooh, that's one that I forgot. I had my father. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. So anyway, I think people should definitely check it out. They should check out all episodes of the press box, but that was a lot of fun.

Thank you very much. And the third thing, Brian, we're currently in the middle of a Kendrick Lamar bonanza. Do you want to tell me your favorite Kendrick Lamar song? I'm joking. I'm joking. These are always my favorite questions. No, not going to do it. Sorry.

So anyway, unless you actually had an opinion, but we can skip that part. We'll go forward with the J-School segment. We'll circle back to it. Kendrick Lamar, my choice for the best rap artist of all time. promise I'm not a prisoner of the moment. I've been saying this for maybe five years or more. But, you know, recent winner of five Grammys, including Song of the Year and Record of the year, and he's going to be the halftime act for the Super Bowl on Sunday. And I'm sure there's a lot to be said about that. And do you know why I'm sure? Because I've actually already

said a lot about it. And so I'm going to, Brian, have you ever had this experience? I was reading this article in New York Magazine headlined how Kendrick Lamar went from BLM Symbol, that's Black Lives Matter symbol, to Super Bowl star. And it's sort of a timeline of Lamar's political and cultural stances over the years. So anyway, I started reading this article, right? And under the subhead, 2015 Fox News Target, I read this. And this is all the quote. Quote, why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? Kendrick rapped on to Pimpa Butterflies, the Black or the Berry. Quote, when gang banging made me kill a racial slur, blacker than me, hypocrite, end quote. And then, in a parenthetical, right after that, it says,

quote, the same jazz Darren Wilson supporters were spitting at protesters, end quote, tweeted journalist Joel Anderson. And I almost like hopped back. I was like, what? I was like, I didn't know that I was, I was getting quoted back at myself in an article that I had nothing to do. Have you ever read your own quote somewhere and not known it was coming? Yeah, and I feel almost anything, unless it's like a sentence you really labored over your leg or especially if it's a tweet or something like whoa i said that what yeah i was like i don't even like that i don't even like the way i said it i just anyway but thanks to zach chaney rice good friend who who included that in his piece anyway so um but anyway people have actually asked me to start talking about kendrick on the record and which is surreal to me

because i'm a huge fan of his work and also i can't believe this is partially my job now to just talk about things that i enjoy uh and i want to highlight those appearances but really the work itself. And first, I went on the Culture Study podcast with my former BuzzFeed colleague and Helen Peterson. That episode is titled

Fake, Real, imagined, and projected celebrity feuds. It was a lot of fun. We covered a lot of ground. I talked about Ali versus Frazier, Pock versus Biggie, and I even got to recall the time, and I'm not making this up,

Paris Hilton called Lindsay Lohan Firecrotch. It was a line that has been burned and covered in water. run. That is a line that has been burned in my brain since I heard it. I was like, what a line. What a thing to call somebody. But also here at the Ringer, I was fortunate enough to contribute three entries on our

the 100 best Kendrick Lamar songs ranked. Brian, if you're looking for a new favorite, favorite, please check out that link. A new favorite Kendrick Lamar song, by which I mean to say. I'm just going to search Joel Anderson in that document. And I'm taking your recommendations. Yeah, take some advice. Yeah. So my entries are actually at number 87.

That part, the Black Hippie remix. Number 52, The Heart Part 3, Will You Let It Die? And number 43, Meet the Grams, which for my money was the most devastating song in his beef with Drake and maybe one of the most devastating rap dists in hip-hop history. And also, this is Thursday morning, the Ringer dropped a narrative podcast feature titled Poetic Justice, the year of Kendrick Lamar, and it's hosted by my good friend, Justice Charity. Justin and I go way back.

We once got biscuits together in Brooklyn a decade ago. that's my guy. I've known him for almost 15 years. I'm really proud of him. And I got to contribute to some sound bites to that podcast. I'm really just so proud of the job, Justin and Vic Room and Justin Sales and Chelsea Stark Jones and Bobby Wagner and Eric Jones did with this. And I really encourage folks to check it out. If they follow the beef or they just want to learn a lot more context for everything that led up to the runaway hit of the past year and not like us. So, you know, just I like to give a recommendation every now and again. So anyway, next week, next week, next week we'll come back and we can talk about your favorite Kendrick song. By the way, don't you love it when you had the halftime entertainer is obliged to give a press conference before the Super Bowl? I know, man.

These are people that don't do a ton of interviews and especially don't do it like, you know, the quarterback of the Eagles. I mean, yeah, they do not, they do not like talking unless it's something that they have totally got control over, right? Yeah.

There's not a scrum around these people. So I did not go to that press conference, but that's always just entertaining to me that there'd be a big room and I got a question right over here. Even the NFL just throw you up in front of the Philadelphia inquiry, you know? Let's do some headlines

because I got number one here for you Super Bowl stories from New Orleans. Yeah. I too was missing you today because I was down on Radio Row and our friend Van Lathen was interviewing Emmett Smith. Wow. So first of all, I got Emmett Smith.

I got Van Lathen. I got two legends. Two absolute legends. And at the end of the interview, Van turns to Emmett Smith and goes into this whole thing about, could Michael Irvin play Black Panther in a future movie? That sounds like. And I'm like, oh my gosh, we have arrived at Radio Row. Like everything is happening right in front of me. How seriously did Emmett engage with this?

I don't know if I want to ruin it. We should lead people over there. But he had a very brief answer that left Van laughing. Oh, really? Okay. It was pretty great. I love it. He was happy to go there. I've been wanting to talk to Emmett for a long time.

Did somebody get his number for me when y'all were down there? I didn't see anybody hitting him up, but I can run back over there and see if if Emmett's willing to give that up. Okay, okay. One of the fun parts of Radio Road to me is that all the celebrities or former players or current players that go there are arranged in order, Joel. So like the least of these people are Monday. And then Tuesday, and it sort of peaks on Thursday.

That's when you bring out the big stars, which is today. And then it goes down a little bit on Friday. But I'll give you some of the things here. Monday guys, Ryan Leaf. Okay. Recently, speaking of beefs, seeing going up Ben Solac on Twitter. I was going to say, he's making his debut now. He'd least this disc track against Ben.

So, there you go. Tuesday, we had Clark Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. You're including him as a select, just, I mean, I guess a notable guy. I mean, he was doing interviews with everybody. buddy. It's again, he, Clark Hunt probably got, I don't know, 10, 15 interviews. Man, okay. Wednesday, things picked up a little bit. We had Bert Kreischer, the comedian. I thought could have actually been a Thursday guy. Sean Payton, Pac-Man Jones, who I believe also talked to Van. Man. Jalen Milro, Marshall Falk, and on and on from there. Jaylon Milro was there, huh?

Jalen Milro, is the thing now the rookies come and do a little bit, or soon-to-be rookies come and do a little bit of a press tour. I guess presumably Shadur would be there today, then. Shadur is is there today that is that is correct okay yeah Thursday and again this is the peak right so this is again even somebody like you and I were just very hardened to not only like famous athletes but the commerce going on the selling going on a radio row walk around it's like oh there is Joe Montana just walking among us here's Emmett smith here's jaden Daniels who's going to stop by the ringer table later today Greg Olson Shadur Sanders you mentioned Mike Pereira, I don't totally understand why he was a Thursday guy, but there you go. Darren Woodson, who's right on the edge of the Hall of Fame.

It was a pretty great day. Yeah, man, that sounds like a lot of fun. But actually, Emmett, you're here to talk about have a heart foundation through your Cheerios. It's that kind of stuff, though, right? Dude, I mean, I love it because it's always like, you know, you get 10 minutes of what you want. And then there's this incredibly awkward transition. And they're like, Emmett, tell us what you're doing with. And then you fill in the question, which is just my favorite part of the

whole thing. Weirdest radio road guest. I'm sitting at the ringer table on Tuesday and I was by myself. And a PR person comes up to me and says, do you have time for? And this is where I'm just like, uh-oh, because I'm getting trapped into something here.

And the person has a lot of openings on their schedule. That's usually not a great sign. That's a bad sign. Yeah. So the BR person says that she's, and she handing me a flyer. And I'm paused because I'm like stealing myself, what am I going to say? What's the proper way to get out of this? And she says, my client,

Kurt Schilling. Oh, I was like, whoa. Kurt Schilling is on Radio Row. Wow. Let me tell you, he was booked. I saw Kurt Schilling going up and down doing interviews. This is a time in American history that has bent toward the Kurt Schillings of the world. So it makes sense that he'd come back out right about now. Yeah. It's a, yeah. It's a. It's a we won tour. Yeah, right. Yeah, there's a victory tour. So it makes sense.

So you did not interview him. I did not get any questions for Kurt Schilling. Though I was told any question to Kurt Schilling would be fine. He was happy to talk about anything. Really? Where is the Ringer table on radio? Who are y'all between? We're next to the Dallas sports radio station, the ticket.

Oh, man, the ticket. And next to Josina Anderson's podcast, media. thing. That's esteemed company. Steemed company. We're in the big leagues. This really made me laugh, Joel,

because I've been having, as you might imagine, a lot of conversations with media people. And I don't mean like, you know, I'm asking for the dirt. I just mean you run into people

and you do the thing. Sports writer, right? I haven't seen you since maybe the last Super Bowl. I haven't seen you in a long time. Kyle Brandt did this bit on Good Morning football. And speaking of feeling, scene. I have never felt like somebody was listening in on every single conversation I had the

Super Bowl, including ones at the party last night that I was at after I had seen this bit. So here is Kyle Brandt talking about how sports writers greet each other. You're going to be standing at a party. You're going to have a drink. You're going to have some sort of bracelet on. And you're talking to someone who you don't really know, but you kind of know them from social media. And the whole time you're talking to them, they're kind of looking around the room and so are you. But you guys will exchange three questions in that social exchange. Question number one, when did you get in? And if they say, oh, just today, you go, oh, yeah, nice, end of the week, it makes

sense, you know, save money, get more time at home with the fam. But if they say, been here since Monday, you say, whoa, long haul, been there, man, bet you can't wait to get home, right? That's question number one. Question number two, where are you staying? And they're going to say the Hyatt or the Hilton and you just go nice, nice. Or you could say, whoa, wow, high roller, huh, must be nice for you. That's question number two.

And the third question, they all must be asked in every exchange. Question number three, you staying for the game? I mean, man, I had that experience in Atlanta doing the how long, so when did you get in? How long do you stand? I mean, that is, he really, he really knelt that experience right there. That's amazing. All these incredibly articulate sports writers and we just have absolutely nothing to say to each other. We don't.

We don't. You know, it sounds like the question you would ask. Yeah. It's like the question you ask somebody on an airplane that you're, you don't know. Like, you start, oh, where are you coming from? Oh, where are you going? How long are you going to be there?

That is the way we talk to each other. Have you ever had the sensation, though, when you run into somebody and it's like, you know, they're faking it. We're both faking it together. And then they actually run into one of their real friends. Yeah, and they're looking at you because they're like, how do I ease out of here? Right. Yeah.

And talk to the person I want to talk to. Slat out. That's a good, just a good opening for me to leave. So can we talk about. NFL teams not using blue sky. Yeah, let's do that. That has been one of the kind of interesting stories here. Mike Florio over at Pro Football Talk says the Patriots recently said that the NFL told the team to get off Blue Sky.

Huh. And Ben Fisher of Sports Business Journal writes that the NFL dot dot dot is acutely aware of the league's capability to be a business kingmaker. If all 32 teams organically got on Blue Sky, the platform. could create a robust NFL news hub out of those accounts without much work at all. The NFL knows exactly what that would be worth to Blue Sky and wants to be paid for it. Oh, man, that is, yeah, because I think is that they get to use clips, right? And that's one of the things that Blue Sky is missing. There's still some people that are, you know, clip merchants or whatever, but it's not the same as getting the official, you know,

the imprimatur of the NFL endorsing you using their clips and having access to their media, right? And at least for people like us, that's what keeps me going back to Twitter. Yeah. Besides the usual venal reasons of I have a lot of followers and I don't want to completely blow it. I'm like, when a thing happens in sports, one of the great uses of social media is you just show me the thing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I absolutely. And I, that is a big thing. And whenever I'm in group chats, I'm sending, you know, these clips over and over again to people, you know. And it's usually through Twitter because, like you said, on Blue Sky, they just don't have that yet. I, you know, actually, I guess it was two months ago now, Ira Budway at Bloomberg interviewed me for this. Speaking of me, just running my mouth and media outlets all over the place.

And it was about what's missing from Blue Sky. And we sort of touched on this. So this is a month ago, right? that they're missing that sort of community and the people that share the clips and all that stuff. And it should have occurred to me that the NFL was holding out for some money. But it didn't, but that makes a lot of sense.

Last note for you here, Donald Trump is reportedly coming to the Super Bowl. Oh, okay. Florio says this is the first time a sitting president has been to the Super Bowl, which just blew my mind. That is crazy. Are you serious? I mean, I remember in our lifetime,

Bill Clinton going to the, the 96 Olympics in Atlanta, and that was a big part of his, like, soft re-election campaign. Like, oh, here I am. I'm in the box. I'm waving. I'm waving. You got to re-elect me and all that old Bob. And Bill didn't go to the Super Bowl, but Bill went to the final four, Arkansas, you know, when no one of the 40 minutes to hell Arkansas won the championship. This is one where Trump, you're like, somehow Donald Trump lands on the easiest and most basic bit of political theater there is. See all those trips to UFC. Like, I am going to the sporting event.

Army Navy games. He's been to a college football champion. The last time it was in Atlanta, he was there for that in 2017. So he just like knows. How did he like land on the obvious stagecraft and somehow every Democrat ever has not? Well, you know, also I think I don't, I don't know if he's a sports fan, but he's sports adjacent. Like, I mean, he used to be an owner of the USFL. So him being at sports events, that is like the one thing, at least, in the course of our lives, that seems about right because Donald Trump has always been sort of popping up at these events where lots of celebrities and famous athletes are. So it makes sense.

But yeah, you're right. You'd think somebody else would be like, this is a great opportunity to just show up and, you know, prove my, you know, regular person bona fides or whatever. Mike Silver had a note about what Trump might be seeing from the box. This is Silver in the Athletic. At his annual Super Bowl News Conference Monday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell strongly supported the league's policies designed to promote diversity at the club employment level and said they would continue.

But during the Super Bowl and with President Donald Trump apparently planning to attend on Sunday, the NFL might be making another kind of statement on the Caesar's Superdome field itself. By the way, it feels so weird to say the word Caesar's Superdome in that order. Silver continues according to two league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. League officials recently changed one of the slogans expected to be stenciled in the back of the end zone from end racism to choose love the game between the chiefs and eagles will mark the first time since february 2021 that end racism is not included as a message in the back of a super bowl end zone well maybe we ended racism those are the two options right yeah we're

caving or we actually ended racism it all worked we they solved it's over i'm rooting that I'm rooting for number two to be true, but I have a feeling it's not. The NFL, of course, had a great explanation. We're like, no, no, no, we felt choose love was important because of the terror attack in New Orleans and the wildfires. That's a more apt message for this touching moment in history. Choosing love because of the wildfires. Okay. I guess I can kind of see how they got there.

Whatever you guys want to say. I was impressed and surprised that Goodell does. doubled down on supporting the diversity efforts within the NFL. And I guess the thing is, is that Roger Goodell, rightly or wrongly, believes that the NFL's popularity is sort of bulletproof. Remember, there was, on both sides of the aisle, too, there was this talk, you know, about a half decade ago about boycott the NFL, not watching it for, you know, whatever side of the aisle you were on, you could find a reason to want to boycott the NFL.

And Roger Goodell is like, get out of that bullshit, man. You're about to watch this game, you know? So, like, he knows that, you know, you get rid of it. In racism, if you say that we still have a DEI program, it's like, oh, at the end of the day, you still want to see Chiefs versus Eagles. Yep. Yep. And when you have content that ain't going away like that, that's, you know, that's, that's a,

that's a nice position to be in, I guess. Headline number two for you, the Luca Donchich trade continued. Shoemaker and I took the first pass of this on Monday. So I'm, I'm interested to hear what you think. Where did you, where did you land on both the trade and the way it was reported? Yeah, so I'll start with the second one first. Like a lot of people, I mean, it was a little earlier out here on the West Coast. It was like 9 or 10 o'clock.

And the way I found out about it was a friend of mine put it in a group chat. And he was like, oh, shams got hacked. And then it came up and we're like, oh, my God. And that's, I mean, that says something about the trade. And I just, I'm going to step back for a second and not reveal too much because I'm going to be writing about this for our website this week. But I was in Dallas in the late 90s when the Mavericks were really bad. They had to work very hard to win the hearts and minds of the fans in Dallas. Oh my gosh, yes.

I'm just surprised that they were willing to give it up that easily. That's what's so crazy, right? There's no way you can rebuild that, right? I mean, you're from that area. Like, they just are not going to be able to get it back by being good at basketball. Like, it's something else, too. So I think that's one of the great questions here, because we all know, like, You piss off the fans and then five years go by and you're good again and the fans come back.

So the question about Luca that's interesting is, have you just pissed off people so much because you've severed this connection that something will be different, if not forever, forever's a long time, but for many, many, many years? Right, right. Did you read, and I mean, of course, because this is the way media works now, a lot of conspiracy theory that comes up around. it. And I can, there was somebody that had posited that this was a play by the new ownership, Miriam Adelson, to make Dallas hate the Mavs so much that they'd be forced to be relocated to Vegas. Have you seen that particular bit of conspiracy? That was the let's play, let's do some game theory of NBA trades. What a weird. I mean, I remember starting to read it being kind of excited because it was getting a ride on Twitter.

And then I was like, wow, I have completely lost the plot of why if you want to be in a better position to build a casino in Dallas, you should have a crappier team that no one wants to watch anymore. Yeah. I mean, Dallas is the fifth. I think it's like the fourth or fifth largest market of the country too. I don't, that doesn't seem like a really good play, like to do so poorly that the other owners would agree. oh yeah, we'll help you and leave because Miriam Madison would have to get permission

from the other owners to leave. I don't think that that is a thing. I can understand how people ended up there because that's how shocking the trade is, though, that you have to start thinking that way. I think that's what happens, right? Shocking things happen in American life and that's when we go to conspiracy theories.

Right. Because it helps make the inexplicable, somewhat explicable. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, again, there's a piece of this, and I don't even know if I'll get a chance to write about it in the piece, I can talk about it here. And people can get mad at me for saying this.

There is something very special about an NBA town having a white superstar at basketball. Like, it eliminates a lot of the problems that a lot of NBA teams have had, and the league has had itself for the history of it, you know, the history of its existence, getting people to come and go watch all these black guys play basketball. We're having a white superstar, a likable one, one with Flair, getting rid of that.

Like, that is a lottery ticket. One who talks trash constantly. He's a badass. Yeah. And you got rid of that guy? So I did have a, and I saw some people talk about this. I wondered how Woj felt that day. So whenever we talk to him next time, if we talk to him next time, if we talk about,

talk to him next time we have to ask him that yeah because that feels like the one you know like you know the pelicans made a trade i don't see adrian sitting at home be like man i wish i was in on that one yeah but luca danchich being traded in the middle of the night that's a fascinating one because that's the that's the big game right of all this stuff that's the biggest of game our our buddy nick right has termed it uh one of the three most shocking trades in the history of the NBA. I think it's got to be. I think it's got to be because, you know, it's funny. I was, I was watching after the trade happened for the now they tell us story to be written, where we learned all the things Dallas had been thinking all along about Luca, but had never been reported.

This is what happens. And you noticed it took a while and the story that actually came out didn't really have all that much information, which is interesting journalistically because you realize those now they tell us stories, those are all written in advance, right? The Lakers are having a crappy season. You know they're not going to make the playoffs, so they're going to be like one and done. So a month out, you start collecting acorns. You start getting the story ready so that as soon as it happens, boom, publish. This was so out of the blue that no one had anything ready and no one had acorns gathered. Right. Right. And really, they still don't. I mean, there's still, you know, I feel we know very, very little about what actually happened or why it happened, maybe.

And this is the thing about, I don't know if media is equipped to get this. So I'll talk an innuendo around what people alleged was going on with the Brooklyn Nets when Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were having their issues. Like if you know somebody in media or somebody that covers the NBA, there's been an awful lot of conjecture about what was actually going on in Brooklyn at that time. I can't help but think that something else. Because it just doesn't add up. Like, if the guy was fat, you'd think it would have shown in his performance.

And it just, it does. So it makes you think, and it's probably going to be reporters, you know, the Ramona Showbarns and people like that, hammering away at this for the next few months, trying to figure out if there's anything else to this. Because you got to think so. Because the Mavericks line just doesn't make a lot of sense. But, you know, we have to accept it for now. this is one of the great weeks in the history of Dallas sports radio

just a true blood on the walls time to get on the air to take calls oh man that's so great I would love to hear all these Dallas people so angry that sounds amazing well here's a little taste of it this is Sean Sharif who's one of the morning guys over at 1053 the fan in Dallas he was here on radio row so I had to ask him what was it like to host a Dallas radio show what are people feeling in the wake of the lucca trade. Rage, you know, I think the number one word is hurt.

This city is hurt. People are protesting. People are canceling season tickets. Now, a lot of cowboy fans always say they're going to do this, and they don't. They still show up 90,000 deep. This is not the Cowboys, all right? The Mavericks are probably number three in the Metroplex,

behind the Cowboys, maybe four, behind college football and the Texas Rangers. But people are hurt. They have been gulfed. budded and they feel like their heart has been ripped out. This would have been like Trayton Durk in his prime. This would have been like, you know, I grew up in Maryland, getting rid of Cal Ripkin, Ray Lewis.

That's what this is. And you did it to the Lakers. That is not even salt in the wound. That's vinegar. That's salt. It's an extra knife. This absolute devastation for a fan base. Is that the first time you've ever heard Cal Ripkin and Ray Lewis in the same sentence?

I mean, man. But, I mean, it really does get it. like how significant of a divorce this is. I mean, it makes a lot of sense that people would feel that way. Yeah, I mean, the Mavericks have no, there's no reason to believe that they'll always have the undying affection of Dallas fans, man. It doesn't, you know, it could easily go back in the other way.

If you were trying to poison the fan base, this is certainly one of the ways you do. Sean, that sounds like a great interview, too. I can only imagine like what he was able to say when he was not with the mic on. Here's one more cut for you because it was it was some good rage. This is so Mavericks GM Nico Harrison is the guy who made the trade. He is what the press box calls America's softest target. Nobody is defending Nico Harrison. There's no there's no professional injury you will suffer from going after Nico Harrison this week.

what would it take to rehabilitate Nico Harrison? Here's Sean Sheree. I'm joking when I say this. The only thing that can save Nico Harrison walking around town, he needs Luca to go into AA yesterday. He needs Luca in rehab in order to save face and walk around the Metroplex. And then we'll see how this plays out.

There's a lot of people. Charles Barkley, Kendrick Perkins, Stephen A. Smith, have the Mavericks as the number two seat in the West. one and two, DFW doesn't give a S right now. They do not care. They're like, you can win three straight titles. We'd rather go titleless with Luca than have these guys that you pay for and bring in as old superstars and win with.

I hope Luca doesn't have to go into AA. Just merely a hypothetical. Yeah, but it would be nice. And actually, I did want to touch back on something because I don't think people know this if you haven't been to Dallas. And it sounds kind of crazy. Mavs fans really do see the Lakers as like one of their rivals. You may not think that. Strangely.

They're strangely. Like they're really sensitive about the Lakers and how good the Lakers are. And you wouldn't just think that Dallas would care, but it really is a big deal for them that not only that they trade that guy, they did it to the Lakers too. Absolutely. And that's where even more conspiracy theories come in. All right. Headline number three for you, Joel, farewell Hubey Brown. Hubey is hanging it up.

And this is not what you'd call an early retirement because Huiby Brown is 91 years old. To give listeners a sense of Huie Brown and the NBA, he was an assistant Milwaukee from 1972 to 1974 when Kareem and Oscar Robertson were there. His second or maybe third or fourth act was as a broadcaster. He's done that job for 40 years when he wasn't coaching. Hubey's first finals on TV was

1989 with Dick Stockton there's a throwback he's calling his last game on Sunday Sixers Bucks for ESPN where do we start with Hubey Brown man so I feel like there was there's a few

guys that are like this you know like Red R Buck Jack Ramsey we remember Dr. Jack Ramsey sure you know and like Hubey Brown and they just represent the evolution of the game. Like, I felt like they were there from the game running on tape, the finals running on tape delay to now this era where it flourish. And it's, you kind of grow up expecting

Hughie Brown to always be part of that ecosystem. And it just sneaks up on you all of a sudden when those guys are gone. You know, like a chick herndine. You know what I mean? Like, all of a sudden, that generation of people, you know, I don't know how old Larry Brown is, but he's like another person that just sort of of that era. Like, you can, you can, there's pictures of him on the internet on an ABA. sideline. And if you've got that, like you've got some real like MBA professional hoops credibility. And that's what I think of with Hubey. Like that generation of folks is, you know, it's reaching its end sort of. I totally feel that way. And it's funny with announcers how

there links to the past like that even when Boomer was talking about Carmen policy. You know, I'm like, oh my God. Right. The Departolo family. You know. Yeah. And I'm like, oh yeah, right? Because you know, you remember that. You know when that happens. That's not relevant to the NFL right now. But that's like, that was hugely relevant to the 80s and 90s and beyond of the NFL. Yeah. And that's like when you, yeah, when you just have that mental catalog like, no, no, I didn't see Oscar Robertson play. I coached Oscar Robertson. Was incredible.

Hubey wound up doing four finals on TV. That's it. Which is kind of interesting. Yeah. Because, I mean, that's the thing about him as an announcer. He's never really a number one guy. for all that long. Like, just, you know, just to, you know, he eats up innings, basically.

That's the thing. And I mean, don't, don't you agree that he's one of those announcers who got more popular as he got older? I absolutely think so. Because there's not very many announcers that get to be popular anyway. You kind of got to, you've kind of got to see you age on air. And I definitely think he has started to get his deserve props. And also because, and they talk about it in a lot of the stories that I've read about him, he's famously overprepared for this stuff. That he, you know, that he's really good at knowing his data and stuff.

And especially now the way people consume sports and they pretend that they want to be informed on the game, right? Or, you know, some people really do. And some people want to pretend that they want to know everything about, oh, this offside court action or whatever. And so, yeah, it makes sense that now he's finally, you know, sort of people are stepping. getting to, oh, no, we really need to appreciate this guy because he really takes his craft really seriously. That's funny. Everybody uses terms like teacher.

And he, in fact, was a high school teacher for a while and coach. And there's a lot of high school teacher affect in a Hubey Brown call. And I'm not just talking about the 8 by 12 legal pads that he's bringing to the announce table. I mean, there's just that sense of you're very prepared for this. There's something a little bit workman like, but also a. total mastery of the material to the point where you're like sitting there and you're like wow this is not showy i'm not sure i'm going to have a lot of like quotes i you know repeat from this necessarily other than the hubyism's like okay you know at the end of every sentence but it's going to

be good it's going to be a satisfying call of the game yeah absolutely i'm i'm really you know you bring in this up it really has touched me it's like oh i'm really going to miss huby i mean even though we so much more of him than anybody had a right to expect. I mean, you don't tend to expect somebody to be as lucid and entertaining at 91 as Hughie is, right? So there is that. But yeah, it's just going to, it'll be, you know, it's not like every time you watch a game, you hear Hughie Brown, but the idea that he's just not going to be in that media ecosystem,

it's just really kind of sad to me, you know? But it seems like he's had a really rough couple years. And so his wife died recently. His son also died of health issues recently. Brendan Brown. Yeah, you're going to play a clip here. He had a great interview with Chris Mad Dog Russo this week. Touched on that a little bit.

Brian, can you play the second clip here? Here is Hubey Brown talking about grief. I lost my 57-year-old youngest daughter two years ago. and my wife had dementia and she passed away after five years in early June and then my son who was 54 years old

passed away with a heart attack in November grieving makes you grow up grieving on a daily basis when you're the only person in the house, the memories,

the facts that you learn about that your wife only moved eight times. And she had four children and she put them all through colleges, one with a doctorate's degree in epidemiology. She never complained about the new house, the new church, the new neighborhood,

the new schools for kids. She just made it all happen. And every day I appreciate her more because I never could have gotten to where I got without her. Because she would always say the same thing. Well, we went from high school to high school to college to college and then to the pros. She would always say the same thing. Let's give it a try. Farewell, Hubey Brown.

That is some moving stuff. stuff. He served us well for a very long time, so I hope he can find some peace in retirement here. And hopefully that his retirement is long and fulfilling as well. All right, Joel, I'm going to do a pivot that Hubey Brown would have been proud to describe on television. When I take us to Donald Trump's comments this week about Gaza, which he imagined redeveloping in a real estate mogul kind of way and turning into a Riviera without the residents of Gaza who were in a complicated Trumpian idea going to go somewhere else.

We don't need to linger too much on the details of that press conference, but I do want to play another round of how do you cover this with you? Yeah. Because we're going to do this throughout Trump's second administration. Because I think, you know, it's easy to bag on the press. It's easy to point and go, oh, look at that headline. You got it wrong. You didn't frame the story right.

And I think it's worth us just trying to entangle, untangle, I should say, a story like this. Right. So where do we start? Like you're a reporter. You're listening to that. There have been follow up questions. He's very, very clear what he's talking about. That's not just like a loose sentence or something.

How in the world do you cover a press conference like that? Yeah, I mean, I think it was sort of shocking to watch, because they ran this press conference live on TV too. And he said it so assuredly and almost sort of so casually that you can sort of take for granted, like everything that would have to happen for a Mara Lago in Gaza. It would mean the world would have collapsed into war, right? And so that is the context, I think, which you have to report it. And so, yes, he says this. And I think Donald, you know, Donald Trump is serious about this stuff. He said it before.

Like, I don't, now, how likely it is to happen, that's not really the media's. I mean, it is the media's job to assess the hurdles to the things that he's saying happens, right? Like, you have to give that context. But in terms of reporting it and is he seen? serious, I believe that Donald Trump believes everything he says, even if he's not telling the truth. And I think that that is the way that you have to cover him, don't you? Belief believes that this is something he wants to happen or something that has any chance of actually happening?

Both because he is the president, the second piece, and right now, institutionally in this country, it kind of seems like there's a short line between what he wants to happen and what does happen now. Indeed. Right. I mean, you know, Elon Musk, you know, playing governmental administrator was not something that most of us would have imagined. Right. Dude took down, they took down a page talking about resources for dealing with hate crimes. Right.

And that is a fairly significant change in the federal government's posture towards hate crimes, like being anti-anti-hate crime. So you have to, I mean, you know, maybe in 2016 to 2020, it was a little bit more. This guy doesn't know what he's doing. We don't know. We don't know how serious he is. But it certainly seems like, and you tell me, it certainly seems that things have changed and that the things that people presume that he says are bizarre. Yeah, maybe they are, but also there is a chance that they can happen in reality now as well. So that's the first thing I think reporters puzzle out. Is he serious? Does he actually want to do this or believe that this could happen?

And then the second thing, and I think this is another challenge for the media that maybe we haven't talked about enough is there are so many things going on right now. We talked about Elon Musk and Doge. And I think it's very hard. for the press to help the public keep track of them. Or maybe to put them in some kind of order so that you're trying to, you know, part of what we do, right, all the time is to say, here are the priorities. Here are the things we think are most important that the White House is doing right now. I think that's in a way the biggest challenge because he's just, you know, whatever Donald Trump understands about the media, he absolutely understands that if you

you just chum the water like crazy. If you give people content, for lack of a better word, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, undersell what he's talking about there with Gaza, but just put things into the world that not only is the, does the press kind of have to leap on it for all the reasons you described, but at some point it will just overwhelm the system. Absolutely.

And like the, I want to say like the New York Times, Washington Post, they're all, they're covering all these things. They have the bodies to do this. It's not that they're not covering it, But I do think when we talk about the consumer out there, they're just like, you know, they're overwhelmed and they don't know where to look. And I think that so the last time there was sort of the Trump bump, which, you know, you could argue helped a lot of news organizations with traffic goals and, you know, attention and everything else. But since then, there's been a deterioration. And like, you know, there's been a loss of a lot of media outlets and the media outlets that have existed have lost a lot of people.

They don't have the same sort of, you know, resources or, you know, foot soldiers, for lack of a better term. And so that's going to be the real problem here, too, is that because the New York Times and the Washington Post, even though they've got a lot of people, they still can only do so much. And then there's just sort of a gap. Like there's been a lot of places that have thrived in this environment, like wired, for instance. Or Marisa come out. So, like, she has a substack. She's been covering, doing some great work around this stuff. but there's still just a lot of ground that's going to be left uncovered.

And I don't, yeah, I don't know what that means for the rest of us. Like, if you can't get it in mainstream media, maybe you'll get it on substack. Or maybe you'll get it in a totally out of context post on social media or lies will fill the void. And that's sort of like the scarier part now, too. this like, oh, the media, we don't even have what we had in terms of like a media and ecosystem that we had like five years ago, right? Yeah, totally. Totally. And like I said, it just stresses the system. And I think, I do believe he understands that or has an instinctive notion of that. You know, the guy who was trying to get on the front page in the New York Post all the time.

Like, if you just throw things out there, eventually people, you become one, you just become the story and the only story. And it redounds to his benefit. but also it's just very hard to keep track of anything for people. I don't blame anybody. We're two and a half weeks into the administration. Right. Yeah, this isn't an accident. They're doing this intentionally to flood the zone,

to confuse everybody and keep us sort of scrambling to keep up with everything that's happening at once. Like, it's all part of a plan, presumably, right? Yeah. You mentioned the Trump bump, and I just want to say for all the wonderful ladies and gentlemen who reported my little part of the. the world about the media.

I've been reading a lot of stories about, hey, you know, we didn't expect there to be a Trump bump necessarily, but subscriptions are up, traffic is up and all that stuff. I don't not believe that. And I certainly hope that that is the case because people are doing excellent work. I just want numbers. Yeah. Whenever we talk about that. Because traffic is up.

Subscriptions are up from what? Right. What is the answer here? Because without that data, it's just kind of a useless story. Right. And if things are doing so well, let's hold you to that if you decide to cut jobs later in the year or whatever, too. Right. I mean, if things are going so well, we want to hold you to that.

So tell us what metrics you're using. And also, if in four months later you decide to cut some percentage of your newsroom or whatever, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to we should be better about that this year actually that's something that's a project that i want us to to kind of follow up on because i yeah no news organization would ever crow in the press about how well they're doing and then lay people off later in the year that would never happen i you know i wouldn't i would have never even worked for a place like that i mean that's i saw it i was looking at charlotte clines piece in new york magazine today and it's about the bulwark and she has the whole paragraph with all the subscriber numbers here we go

and this is people are paying this much and this and okay that's good let's I just want some numbers with those stories before we crow about how well everybody's doing and all that kind of stuff the numbers on Twitter don't count like whatever the metrics and views and stuff like that don't don't throw that as because we that's we know that stuff is fake so don't how much money are you making you know that right that's we got to be solvent that's that's what we're trying to do here exactly you also send me note about we're having a white house correspondence dinner this year yeah man are you shocked that this is still a thing like not shocked but

incredulous yes yeah what do you so what do you make of that then what do you do you think it's actually going to happen well I would say this the old White House correspondence dinner we bagged on it for a reason because it was this chummy night of

the White House is chummy with the press and the press is chummy with the White House and the politicians and this shouldn't be our job. This is putting a false veneer and it's taking our off the ball of what we should be doing. Trump's different, at least by a matter of degree, trying to take seats away in the Pentagon. Bringing in Sage Steel is this week's new media reporter because we don't like the other reporters in the White House briefing room. Okay. Like it is totally antagonistic. So now what you're doing is you're having a White House correspondent's dinner to, I guess, hope that you can recreate the fake

chumminess of 20 years ago? I mean, it's just, I don't even understand the bad purpose of such a dinner. Yeah. I mean, like, I would, and I'm no offense to anybody. Well, no, you know what. Actually, if you're offended, you're just going to have to be offended. I would be sort of embarrassed to show up to that this year. If I, I would, I would think it wouldn't reflect you know, I know people have obligations and I know that, you know, a job is a job or whatever, but it just seems, especially given sort of the hostile pose, like if you're one of, if you work in an organization

that had to reach some sort of settlement with Trump this year or you lost your spot in the Pentagon and you still show up there at an attempted, you know, faux chumminess or like, you know, I would think that would be really embarrassing. I think that's what's going to happen because that's what is the reason they sold, What are they settled with Trump? Like, you know, various news organizations or might settle with Trump because I want everything to be okay.

You know, at least they're corporate. Then maybe, I'm not talking about the news people. I'm talking about the corporate leaders who are the type of people that go to these dinners. You know, they want everything to be okay. You know, let's make a little donation. Okay. Seems like a better, it would be a better use of resources and time and all this, you know, all these people to raise money for something.

You know what I mean? do something for a freedom press or something this year instead of that. Like maybe they should come up with another plan. But, you know, I'm just Joel Anderson. I don't know. I just run the J-school. You're just on a media podcast. That's what do we know about that?

Last note on this general topic. Have you seen all the Stephen A. Smith for president chatter this week? I have. I have seen a little bit about that. He was on Hannity. He was on The View. I find this fascinating, not because I think Stephen A is going to run for president or win the Democratic nomination for president. But I think there's so many parts of this.

One part is I think Stephen A does have some, some maybe nebulous, but some political ambition. Yeah. Number one. Number two, I think that Stephen A knows that it's good for business if people think he has some kind of. a political ambition. Absolutely. You're very aware of that. Absolutely. Number three, that calculation where you both want to run for president and you want people to think that you want to run for president, that's not that different than the calculation that Pete Buttigieg is making right now, that Gretchen Whitmer's making right now. That's that,

that is politics. That's what you do. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a good career bump, man. It's a good attention bump for people to talk about you in that way. I remember when people were talking about Ben Carson running for president about a decade ago. And I wrote a story about it. And it was like, would he risk his reputation running for president? He wouldn't want to look like a fool. But there are actually benefits to running for president, even if you're not serious about actually wanting to be president. Like it's good for business. It's good for branding, no matter what. And I think Stephen A is that particular kind of candidate who's like, I'm not going to do anything yet, but I'm going to give those kind of interviews.

I'm going to let it build. And I'm going to see if there's a groundswell for me. You know, again, is overwhelmingly likely he does not do anything. I think 99.9% chance. But I think he would enjoy that period where people are like, what, can't you run? Yeah. Can't you save us? I mean, man, wouldn't he?

I mean, the funny thing, nobody wants to be in Congress, a Senate. Like, it would be too much of a pay cut. Like, you know, Stephen, he's like, I'm done not, for what they want me to do for that. You know, but it's just, you totally skip past like New York City mayor. You know, this is always the president thing. But yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, but Stephen A, man, he makes a lot of money. I don't, you know, to do any of those jobs, I mean, president is the only one that sort of financially makes sense for, I guess. All right, Joel, Casey Hunt is on the line.

Sure, Casey's an anchor and chief national affairs analyst at CNN. But what's important this week is that she was raised in the Philly Suburbs. And with the Eagles back in the Super Bowl, we thought we'd do a little check-in with one of the team's bigger media fans. Casey, welcome to the press box. Thank you. I got nothing on Jake Tapper, but I try. Well, I think Jake for the Eagles, Wolf for the Bills, right? And then it's all down from there.

Exactly. All right. No, I'm soaked. Thank you so much. You mentioned you were raised in the Philly suburbs in the 90s. What was your first memory of Eagles football? Oh, that is a, you know, the irony of it is probably that it was Andy Reid on the sidelines and how much we all hated him. Is that like the right memory for this Super Bowl?

Wow. Honestly, because it was like, it was a tough time, you know, to be a newly minted Eagles fan. It's, you know, I keep like, you know, I think our younger, like, you know, I think our younger, like, Some of our younger fans are a little bit more used to this than I am. Like those of us who really came up in this time, like, I think I can talk about this because Jake has talked about it in public, but there's like a list serve that we have going. It's not even a list serve.

That's like way too generous. It's just an email that was started. It's all of the Eagles fans, the Philly people around D.C., right? So reporters, members of Congress, like the only rule is you can only talk about the Eagles, right? Like no politics, no nothing else. and it has had the same subject line the entire time. And the dominant theme of this email is that we cannot talk about the Eagles likely winning the Super Bowl. Because if we do that, we will doom the entire enterprise.

So, you know, I don't know. That's what I got. So, Casey, I grew up rooting for the Houston Oilers. And so maybe the worst thing that's ever happened to me as a sports fan is watching my team lose a 35 to 3 lead in the playoffs to the Buffalo Bills. So, right? And that experience just forever scarred me. I never think any lead is big enough. So I'd like to ask you, what was your worst experience as an Eagles fan? I mean, wasn't it the same for all of us? Like, wasn't it the call at the end of the last Eagles chiefs matchup that, you know, gave him a first down? And I realized that afterward, you know, our guys were like, no, no, actually, it was fair. It was fine.

And I just thought that. I was, like, so excited about that. I think I underestimated exactly. I think it become a bigger Eagles fan in the wake of that experience because it really, like, part of me never believed that they would get as far as, you know, they have in recent years. Anyway, like, I just, that was heartbreaking. I was heartbroken. It was also the first my son was around for.

He's now five. So he didn't really get it then, except that he kind of understood that mommy was upset about something. And so that, you know, I like, I hope I kind of hope he doesn't remember. Like, maybe he will remember this Super Bowl for sure. So, you know, hopefully we can like replace the bad memory with a better one. A lot of terrible things have been written and said about Eagles fans, which, if any of these are false. None. You're taking every one of them.

No, it's like, look, this is the thing about us that I kind of embrace, you know? Philly is real, right? It is like we, and we don't mess around. And I like that, you know, especially now because I live in Washington, you know, everybody says what they think they need to say for the given occasion, right? Like, who wants to live like that, right? Eagles fans are tough, but like you do right by us, we'll stand with you forever. That's what I hold.

So I want to ask you this since. So last year the way the season ended up for the Eagles, there was really, no reason to think that they'd be back here this year. Are you a fan of Tony Siriani? You mentioned, you know, about Randy Reid. So, like, what do you think of Tony Siriani? Well, see, I've grown immature. Okay, I'm no longer a teenager.

I do get that, like, he's had his moments with the fans and no coach is perfect. But, you know, I think that I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. put it that way. I mean, look, I think the team is, like, one of the things about this team, and, you know, I don't know how, like, in the weeds, like, you guys want to get. And I should say, I am primarily an Eagles fan. Like, I'm not going to be able to do your Oilers trivia and, like, other stuff. Like, I'm a general sports fan.

I'm not, like, an NFL, you know, you can definitely catch me off guard with some of this stuff. But I think we all are, like, obsessed with the tush push, the brotherly shove, et cetera. And, like, I get that it's controversial. but one of the things about it, and, you know, I don't know that I want to give the coach all the credit for it. I think it's really our guys on the field, but he's certainly part of it. Like, it takes them all being, like, incredibly on the same team, right? Like, you cannot do that if you are not part of a group of guys that trust each other, no matter what, that have, you know, done it a thousand times together and want to be there.

And I think that that, like, is one of the things that has taken, it's fun to see, right? As much as we talk about SACON and Delaan Hertz and, you know, our massive line, it's fun to see that they're doing this because they are the Eagles, right? Not because they're any one of these individual guys. And I think, you know, for that reason, you know, you can't do that with a coach that is completely letting you down, honestly. So you don't think the brotherly shove should be outlawed for next season. That's what you're telling us? I mean, I just, you know, like it's not our fault that your QB can't squat 600 pounds.

Just not. I'm sorry. Maybe you shouldn't do it. Might be safe for you. Sorry. No, no, no. I was going to say the best argument on behalf of the Eagles for that is that everybody can't do it as efficiently as they can, right?

The Eagles are the only ones to succeed time after time. So if it was so, if it was such an unstoppable play, it seems like everybody would be able to do it. But only the Eagles seem to only able to do it. I know. It's like you think it would be, I mean, it's not exactly a complicated idea, right? But execution is clearly difficult, right? You mentioned this email list, and I wrote about this a few years ago, and this was a deep dark,

a deep dark secret in Washington, and I started poking around. And what happened, Joel, is as soon as I started asking questions, the list started talking about me asking questions. This is how much of an Illuminati service is. Oh, no. So give us a sense for this season. You've got, as you say, you've got reporters, you've got a couple of congressmen on this list. How would you characterize the emotion for this Eagle season in particular? I mean, it's always a rollercoaster of emotion, I will say.

Like, each game is Eagles game. And don't forget, this extends across seasons, right? So the Phillies is, I don't happen to be a Phillies fan. We can explain my complicated sports loyalties if you guys care about it. Oh, please. But I, but like, it's constant. But the Eagles, like, is sort of the, like, it's just the place where everyone is clearly the most emotionally invested, like, in a consistent way.

with the exception of like, you know, the Phillies, you know, World Series attempts and all that stuff. But it's just very, I really think everyone is always convinced that it's not, it's going to turn out badly, right? So every time something goes our way, the joy is just off the charts. But that said, we're Philly fans, or we're Philly fans. So, you know, it's not like the edge of like being willing to talk trash. I mean, we don't actually throw bottles on the Lister because, you know, it's on the internet. Right, or get taken to that jail in the vet. Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, and I think, I do think this after last season, which started off so well and then collapsed. so spectacularly or unspectaculously, I think people were kind of reluctant to like hope. And obviously when Hertz got injured, that was a moment, obviously. And so, you know, I think, again, there's some people a little bit on there after the last, I mean, obviously they crushed the commanders, right?

So that was really like a high point. And there were some people saying, well, I won't name names, okay? but one former member of Congress was like, yeah, if Jalen plays that way in the Super Bowl, we're going to win. And the entire list is like, what are you doing? Like, absolutely not.

Don't say that. So, anyway, I keep running into this on TV because I want to be like, oh, wait, no, I cannot say on TV that we're going to win. That's a really bad point. Anyway. I mean, well, so, because you've

been on TV for a decade, Now, you accrued some fame and all that. And so, and you're known as one of the best known Eagles fans out there, right? So I'm just curious, have you ever been surprised or have you got a chance to meet or gain an audience with an eagle or even maybe an Eagles fan more prominent than you? And you've been able to kind of geek out on Eagles talk since you've become Casey Hunt of television. You know, I don't know. That's such an interesting question. I've never thought about it.

I mean, look, I would love, you know, no one's ever invited me in the Super Bowl. I would love to be invited to what Super Bowl. You couldn't swing that assignment? You couldn't talk your way down there for something? Well, do you guys know Koiwire who works for us? He's on with me every morning, right? He's going to Stanford, uh-huh.

We do sports, right? He played for the bills. No, he gets the Super Bowl assignment every year, obviously. And he deserves it. But maybe someday. That'd be cool. I mean, honestly, it's like Jake is the person that I talk to you the most about it. He's definitely, like, the highest profile Eagles fan that I run into on a regular basis.

And, like, he, you know, I mean, he's got the whole nine yards. Like, he has a pair, I think he has a pair of, I don't know, if they're Jordans or dunks or what they are. But they're definitely Eagles colors that he had, like, I think he might have had them, you know, because you can go online and, like, pick the colors for your shoes. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he has that going on. although and then he definitely has them for the Phillies as well but I would love to be able to I should think about that

that's actually a really good it's a good idea you should reach out Randall Cunningham's just waiting on you to call or something you know he would take that call for sure yes yes I absolutely would so funny the can we unpack your complicated philly sports fandom so pro eagles but not pro

pro other teams I don't like the Phillies but I'm a Flyers fan. Basically, it boils down to that I grew up watching sports with my dad, right? Who is just, you know, my kids when they've been really little have been like alarmed to watch games with them because he'll like erupt at the TV for, you know, whatever reason. And, you know, my daughter will be like, oh, what's going on? It's rubbing pop.

You know, but that's what I grew up with. And so that's kind of part of why, like, I mean, I will watch almost any sport and have a great time doing it, and it's from that. And my dad grew up outside of Baltimore, Maryland. So, you know, I grew up going into some of the final games at Memorial Stadium. I don't know if you guys, how into all this you are, but that was where my dad went when he was a kid, and then obviously they built Camden Yards.

In the mid-90s, we went to some of the first games at Camden Yards. And unlike the Eagles at the time, who were, you know, difficult to root for, those were actually pretty good because Ripkin was a church. short and then a third and you know you had palmero and alimar and brady Anderson and outfield and like it was just it was a really fun team to root for and so I became obsessed with Baltimore Orioles which is something that I have you know never lost and that I've been able to um that's kind of the place where it's um you know it's like a pinch me part of my job because I've gotten to go and like throw the

first pitch out on the field and like oh really the new owners of the team yeah um the new owners of the team, David Rubinstein, has just been so great for the ball club. And he's also really interested in and has done just amazing work on like the American presidency. So there's like a lot of overlap. And he's been extremely generous and, you know, having us to games. And Cal Ripkin is now really involved in the organization, et cetera, et cetera. So we've done a lot of that as a family lately. So that's kind of the one that I'm like, like the, that I really kind of grew up with in the most significant way.

and the reason why I was able to end up an Eagles fan is because my dad didn't have an NFL team except I did grow up hating the Indianapolis cults because they had left Baltimore in the middle of the night when my dad was a kid, right? So he just, like we didn't have a team to watch necessarily. My dad's from the Maryland. My mom is from Michigan.

My mom's family was from Michigan. My grandfather's a huge Lions fan, but you may recall that they have lost like basically every game on Thanksgiving until, you know, extraordinarily recent memory. you know so that wasn't really like I was kind of like why would I root for this team they're terrible and then you know we moved to philadelphia when I was a little kid and um by the time the ravens showed up in baltimore I was already gone for the eagles because all my friends were so that's kind of how

that that happened I'm probably like a sixers fan too I don't watch a ton of the NBA I watch more college ball and march madness but um but you know Alan iverson was around when I was growing up in Philly for the Sixers. So I have a little bit of that, too. Baseball is just, you know, in college football, I'm a big Michigan fan. My parents met as University of Michigan. I was going to ask you about that because I read an interview where you once talked

about that you kind of wished that you had gone to Michigan because you could experience that background. I was, yeah, I almost did. I ended up coming to George Washington University because I knew I wanted to do, you know, politics, international relations is actually what I studied in school because the Iraq War was going at the time. but I was choosing between GW and University of Michigan.

And I didn't give up, right, like a season, you know, four seasons of games at the big house, which sometimes I watch it and I'm like, oh man, I should have, I really should have signed up to do that. But you know what? It worked out. It's fine. I got a few quick lightning round questions for you, okay? Okay. All right.

All right. And I'm going to go easy for you here. Okay. Thank you. Who was your favorite Eagles player? Who was my favorite Eagles player? Ooh, that is tough. I have to say probably Nick Foles, I will say that.

I don't, like, I, for whatever reason, like when he was really putting it up there, I, it just, it works for me. And it was, it was like a fun point in my way. We're a couple of Texas natives here. So we're good with the Texas boy. That's fine. Yeah. So who do you consider the Eagles biggest rival? Well, I mean, when I grew up was the Cowboys, right?

And so I don't know that I'd ever really like go of that. I feel about the Dallas Cowboys the way I feel about the New York Yankees. I feel a little bit more strongly about the Yankees. Not my much. So was there an opposing player then that you hated? Like, you know, if you... Wasn't it Dion Sanders? I mean, you're taking me back to the 90s now.

Yeah. But yeah. I mean, like, come on. Like, I don't know. I remember him as a villain. Okay. And what politician does Jalen Hertz remind you of? Oh, come on.

That's a great question. What politician does Jalen Hertz remind me of? You said you were going easy on her, Joel. I see. I need to look at his face and think about it. This is, yeah, I was talking about even just like style. You know what I'm saying? Just kind of very, man.

He didn't have to be looks wise. Because that's a lot. He's a very handsome man. So most people don't end up, you know, you know, you don't have to. I don't have to say it, but, you know. I mean, I think like, honestly, it's like the policy. You need to give me a minute to come up with, like, who as a politician I would come up with? Because, I mean, really, like, he just is the guy that you can bet the farm on all the time in every way, right?

And, like, that kind of reliability is not, like, a common trade here in Washington, D.C. you know, because he can kind of do it all. And like, he obviously has his moments, but he doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel like a show, right? Like, he's not like a showboat, even though he could be, right? Like, he could, he certainly, like, could deserve that. So I'm just trying to think if there's, like, any politician that I would kind of give that kind of praise to.

I'm sure there's one out there. That's not fair. Okay. I will, I won't. You know, like. I don't know. That's how I would think about him, and that's what I would think about in terms of, in terms of politicians. I'll also get myself in trouble depending on whether I'd have to pick like a Democrat and a Republican to give you. Fair enough. Or it would be an issue. Fair enough. Fair. Okay.

I guess. I realize that's lame. This will be easier then. So what's your best in-game experience moment for the Eagles? Like you've been in a home game. Go to a home game. Watch it. Like what's your favorite memory of that? Which game? You know, it's funny. I think I've only ever been to one game in person at the vet years and years ago. Who was it? You remember? Man, I was like, I'm trying to think of who they, who even the, who in them they played. I remember like, you were a baby baby.

You were young. Yeah, I was young. And I was like, we were way up, you know, primarily what you remember if you go to the bed is the seats, right? And the orange seats were the ones that were way, way up, right? And now they're like, you can buy them on eBay, I think. I remember like my friends had this whole competition. I have thought about buying a couple chairs when they replaced the vet with the lake, but then I thought where the hell am I going to put them?

I think I was living in an apartment at the time. But I just remember like it being, I don't know, I think it was just so in awe. I do remember that they won. And that was amazing because it's like everyone pours out of the stadium. And as you mentioned Philly fans earlier. So that was like totally unbelievable. Yeah, I went with like a family friend

Because like for whatever reason In my family we didn't go We went to tons of baseball games But I didn't like grow up going to NFL games And honestly like I should go Like I you know I've never been to You know FedEx Field here partly because it's FedEx Field

And it's over Maryland And they're trying to fix that Which would be terrific And then I would you know Go all the time But yeah I mean you're reminding me that I need to get out more I need to go to more of these games in person

Well, if your kids are the age, you say that, I mean, like, it's not a surprise you're not going anywhere right now. You know, between work and- At the moment, we are, yeah, I need to be able to, like, move quickly out of the crowds. Baseball is actually great because it's like, you can watch a couple innings, you can wander around. You can, like, you know, not to stay the whole time. It's, like, kind of more relaxed. He's been to a bunch of O's games. And Nats games, actually, too, because we have the Nats are right here in town. Plus, they play, you know, the times they play are just a lot easier.

But I want him to grow up going to football. games. I think that would be really fun. All right, Casey, before you go, you mentioned you can't do a Super Bowl prediction on television. Maybe you can do it on a podcast. Would you care to venture? No, I mean, look, I'm not outlawed from doing a prediction. Like, I won't, you know, I'm not going to give you like a partisan jersey on D's and R's, but I certainly wear, you know, we'll wear the birds on TV. I'm not a sports reporter. But no, it's more like if I predict they're going to win,

I feel like it's going to mean that they're going to lose, right? So I feel like I can't. I mean, what, I feel like in my gut about what's going to happen. I mean, I think my fear is that the chiefs are going to edge it out, right? Because they win every close game. Well, there's that. Yeah, primarily.

And I don't know, it's just like every time I think the chiefs are going to lose, they don't. So, I mean, I think they got their work cut out for them. But I think, like, it could be, honestly, I just really hope it's a really good game. Because I think it really could be, like, a really great game of football to watch. And I also hope that the, you know, that the, what happens on the field is determined by players and not anybody else. Oh, here we go. I will say that. That would be great.

You know, like, I love you, Patrick Mahomes, but let's not. Let's not. Oh, my gosh. All right. Casey Hunt, catch her on CNN where she will be yelling, fly eagles fly at various confused members of Congress. Casey, thanks for coming on the press box. You guys are the best. Thank you so much for having me. All right. That is the press box.

He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Thanks a magic. By Brian Waters. Joel, you and I are back next week. We may have a little announcement. Yeah. About the beginning of our 25 or 25 series here at the press box. Yes. Yeah.

We're getting it launched next week. Are we not announcing who it is yet, are we? No. But we're doing some launching. Okay. The results will be up soon. I like to tease a guess because the guest you tease is almost always more interesting than the guest you get. I don't want to say anything, but we're going to be working on that next week.

Right. And I guess I'm a huge fan. But he also could be polarizing to some people at least. So we don't want to run you off before you get a chance to find out who it is. See, that's a good tease. Shoemaker and I back with our post-Super Bowl show on Monday. Joel, I will see you next Thursday. Looking forward to it, man.