The Press Box - The Cloudy Future of 'Inside the NBA,' Gavin Newsom Could Run for President Like Marshawn Lynch, and More Tortured Acronyms

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David share some notes from Lee Corso's emotional 'College GameDay' sign-off and a new edition of "Manning face" (0:20), before they react to some sounds from the weekend in college football, including Florida State's upset win over Alabama and Bill Belichick and UNC's blowout loss to TCU. They also get into Charles Barkley's important questions about 'Inside the NBA' on ESPN, Cam Newton vs. Stephen A. and introduce a new segment that aims to follow the many Democrats who could run for president in 2028 (7:40). Finally, they discuss Jerry Jones's decision to trade Micah Parsons away from the Dallas Cowboys before seemingly forgetting his name, a final Cracker Barrel update, a Media Piss Test, and some more tortured acronym nominations (32:15). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Danny Kelly, and it's officially fantasy football season, which means the ringer fantasy football show is back with the latest news from around the NFL and everything you need to get ready for the fantasy football season. So join us at the ringer fantasy football show on Spotify or on our new YouTube channel. David? Yes. Let's begin with some highlights from a weekend of college football. All right. Saturday was big because it was Lee Corso's final episode. of college game day.

Yeah, it was. And this is how big that was. Not only did ESPN carry Corsos' final headgear pick at noon Eastern, but ESPN allowed the competing pregame show on Fox to also carry the headgear pick. It's like the presidential debates where all the networks get to carry it because it's a public service. Yes. And everything about the day had the feeling. of a civic occasion.

Corso made his pick from the field at Ohio Stadium, actually on the field, with the Buckeye band spelling out his name, and Corso speaking over the PA system. Yeah. Game Day, which was fantastic, an all-time episode, was basically three hours of toasts.

Even Pat McAfee had a touching tribute where he uttered the words, I appreciate the hell out of you for existing. What a Pat McAfee way to send off Lee Corso. Kind of oddly appropriate, yeah. What was interesting is he said, you and I have a lot of similarities. Mm-hmm.

By which he means we know how to work a crowd. Yes. Pat McAfee also does that for a living in another place. Mm-hmm. But Lee Corso, man, as Herbie said on this podcast, he knew how to work a crowd. Yeah. Rile him up, get him pissed off, get him to boo him and then cheer him a few hours later.

It's funny because Kirk Kherp Street said during the episode that Korso had told him, I feel like I'm dead. Meaning, I feel like I'm attending my own funeral. And as I'm watching, I'm like, this is so nice that this is actually happening under these circumstances. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Not just talking about mortality, but ESPN circumstances you're getting to leave the show when you want to. Yeah, absolutely. It's like Tom Sawyer, right? Or watching himself at his own funeral. That's the famous comparison. And these sorts of retirements are kind of your only chance to do that, although it must be supremely odd to listen to people eulogize you.

Well, you're still walking around. But so much better than ESPN being like, I'm sorry, we had some layoffs, you know, Van Gundy had to go and Lee Corso had to go. Yeah. This is a happy way for things to end. How big would have, would a Lee Corso layoff have been during all this? I'm trying to think of a comparable one. No offense to our co-worker Zach Lowe, but Lee Corso, I mean, that would have been of just a tremendous moment of national sadness.

Well, the other thing is that, like, Fox would have just hired him, right? Fox would have been like, here's $10 million just to show up for a season. We've got your old friends, Tom Rinaldi and Chris Falika, right here. Yeah, exactly. We've been stealing from Game Day. What's one more? It's like mean gene going to WCW. Yeah.

See, I knew we'd get to the wrestling explicit metaphor sooner or later, so I'm glad you took us there. Another part of the show that was amazing is to pay tribute to Corso they brought back Chris Fowler, who hosted the show for about 25 years before going off to call the number one college football game every year. Saturday night on ESPN. Yeah. And for a while it was Fowler, Corso, and Herbie sitting together on the set. And I'm like, wow, it is easy to forget

how good Chris Fowler was at hosting college game day. I really like what he does on Saturday nights. I enjoy that call of the game he does with Herbie, but man, he just had this command of the set. And even with Reese Davis, who replaced him next to him, it's just like, whoa, just set up a little straighter.

at home. Chris Fowler's here. I love it. Meanwhile, David, over at Fox's big noon kickoff, Dave Portnoy was cutting what awful announcing accurately called a promo. He actually used the words, I have a couple of things to say to these people. And as the Ohio State crowd booed him, Dave Portnard went to Michigan and was wearing Michigan shirt. He told them to shut up repeatedly. Yeah. As a student of wrestling, I thought you would appreciate that commitment to the bid. So after all this pregame fun, the Texas Ohio State game started.

I don't have too much to say about that, but a couple of observations for you. One is, does it make me a bad person that I got really worried when a commercial for Warby Parker that Arch Manning was a part of aired during the game. You were concerned? Nothing against Warby Parker, who might be a fine sponsor of something or other at the ringer. But that somehow did not directly translate into my quarterback's about to go win this game. And then, dude, Texas have been shut out for three quarters. And Fox finds Arch Manning sitting on the sideline looking somewhere between confused,

and dejected. And I usually like to keep ringer business in-house, but I had to tweet it, Bill, and say, Bill, we found the new Manning Face. Oh, every generation has their own iteration of the Manning Face, I guess. Isn't it great when we can go back to like a Bill 2004 page two column? Just updating it, as you say, for the next generation. I'm like, it gives me no pleasure to report this, but Manning Face is back. Can we have AI?

Just write those columns, just AI bill with like the page two logo at the top and everything? We should try that just as an experiment as we talk more about AI on this podcast. Yeah. All right, AI, here's some jokes. Yep, these are my readers. Manning Face. Crack about Pat Summerall being replaced by video game Pat Summerall. Maybe we could get a fairer.

approximation of Bill in the page two days. All right, David, coming up on today's podcast, more highlights from a Saturday of college football. Charles Barkley needs some answers from ESPN, a new feature about Democrats who are obviously running for president, whether they admit it or not. Plus, the question the media should be asking about Jerry Jones post Micah Parsons, a cracker barrel update, and yes, more tortured acronyms. All that much more on the press box.

Support of the Rigger. Podcast Network. Happy football season media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker and producer Kyle Crichton here. Yes, the nephew is back. A little more college football, David.

If I may squeeze some in. The big upset of the weekend was number eight, Alabama getting beaten, and I mean beaten by Florida State. Was that the story of the week? Kind of was. At least until we got to Monday. Wait for that.

all right after bama got knocked off ESPN's Joe Tess ator was fired up and this rebooted, refreshed, re-energized for the state team knocking it. Dude

so great you know if Joe Tess wanted to have a second job in addition to calling college football he got away he already does that a highlight of that game

was the ESPN cameras found a Bama fan when the Crimson Tide was down 14. Oh, yeah. This looks exactly like the Bama fan you find in the crowd. Blue golf shirt, the hat that's like those baseball caps that every freaking college kid except you and I wore back in the 90s.

And the fan noticed the camera was on him and he just flipped it off. Very heady move. That was fantastic stuff. It's just a small, wonderful moment that really indicates how you feel when you get beaten by Florida State, which won two games last year. Mm-hmm. All right, as you said, that was not really the story of the weekend. The real story of the weekend was Monday.

Bill Belichick and North Carolina getting their respective clocks cleaned by TCU. 48 to 14. We went through this before. What do the horn frogs do? They have a gigamaggies, right? They have the two fingers curl, but do they have a phrase? I wish I should probably know this. Having better than a million games as a kid, but I don't remember.

Can you look this up? Well, I ask you an important question. More media shot in Friday, David. Dion two years ago or Bill Belichick this year? Wait, ask me again? Sorry, I was just Googling. Is there more media shot in Friday? if I may use and only a journalism classic

for Dion Sanders two years ago at Colorado or Bill Belichick this year. I feel like it's Belichick. I feel like with Dion at least at the beginning there was a little bit of like we don't know

what our rooting interest is here. People were still kind of looking for the story a little bit despite there being a fair amount of Scheidenfreude. Belichick's just been so much more part of our lives as fans and as media in recent memory. I just think it's just

a much bigger story despite being well I guess I mean as UNC is less significant football school than Colorado I guess but it's still a major it's still a big state school with all the advantages in the world so Yeah, it's got to be Bill, right?

I think so. I mean, there's the Jordan Hudson booster pack. Yeah, of course. It definitely helps. And also, I feel like Dion was divisive, I guess. Mm-hmm. At least somewhat as a player, but Bill Belichick was genuinely hated. Sure.

By non-Boston America. Until his year off, right, when he just went and wooed everybody with his droll humor across various platforms. How did that work out? Well, it got him in the UNC job. He got him and Lombardy down to UNC. Before the game against the Hornfrogs, Bill Belichick took a moment to pour his heart out

to ESPN's Holly Roe. Weird statistic. It is 34 years to the day that you debuted as an NFL head coach, and now you're making your debut as a college of football coach. What's going on inside you right now? Excitement, nerves. What does it feel like? I hope it goes a lot better in the game against Dallas and Jimmy Johnson.

They crushed us. So hope it goes better than that. I know that you've got a great motto where you say practice execution becomes game reality. What have you seen this week in practice that you think your kids can execute tonight? Well, hopefully we can do a good job with our fundamentals, ball security and communication. Tell me about the hoodie. I mean, had to be cut off sleeves, right? Yeah, it's kind of my thing.

I really believe in the institution that is a pregame interview. Yeah, is practice execution becomes game reality the most perfect Belichick phrase? You think he has that on like a driftwood plank written in artsy cursive above his sofa? Were you like me looking for an acronym there just in case one snucking under the door? Practice execution becomes game reality. Do you think that there's any chance that any player has internalized that over the year? Absolutely not. Also, is Bill Belichick invest in driftwood plank or sign above the door type of guy or is he just write it on the whiteboard and walk out?

That would be pretty great if instead of like decorative home suite home art and, you know, whatever his North Carolina chapel home mansion is. if he just had like rectangular whiteboards that he just wrote things on. That's your evidence are decorating that way. Because some coaches are really into the whole Ted Lassow aesthetic, like let's get these slogans painted on the walls. Yeah. And we're kind of like a, you know, self-help book of a locker room here. I don't know if Bill Belichick just has any time for that. No.

Did you notice after week one of college football that we were back in overreaction season? Well, that's what week one's for, right? I credit you with tipping me off to this. That in sports media now, we can't just react. We must have week one overreactions. And acknowledge that they're overreactions? Yes. Yeah.

And if I remember, we did that segment years and years ago, but I think our theory was that we reporters and podcasters want to have the same kind of fun that Stephen A. Smith, does, but we're a little squeamish about being Stephen A. Right. So we have air quote overreactions. We're just doing Stephen A in a very self-aware way. But it's really okay.

We can just react. Yeah. If you want to read a ton into Miami beating Notre Dame, you can just do it. And then change your mind three weeks later. You just have a reaction. You don't have to air quote anything. It's fine. Just lean into it, everybody.

Got a whole weekend of NFL football coming up. Just react. Yeah. It's all good. A couple of pieces of sports TV audio for your listening pleasure. The NBA season starts next month. Allow yourself to process that. Inside the NBA, of course, is going to ESPN.

And Charles Barkley told our boss that there are still some details that need to be ironed out. The reason you guys had the best studio show of all time other than the talent was that you had these producers that actually let it breathe that gave you like eight, nine minutes at halftime in a row to have a conversation.

Do you feel like you're going to be able to do that at ESPN and what happens if you can't? We don't know. This has been one of the worst. TNT just sucks, to be honest with you, Bill. Yeah. They made this deal. They haven't told us when we're going to work.

They haven't told us how it's going to work because we've been talking behind us Like, do we have to, after the game, are we going to get any time, and they're going to say, hey, you guys got to go to sports center? Well, listen, they've always gone right to sports center. That's always how it's work. And I've asked that question. You're right.

That's the best part of our show. After the game, we can, like, have conversation and have fun. Are they going to say, you guys got three minutes, five minutes, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45? But like, are we going to go straight to sports center? They haven't given us an answer whatsoever. And T&T, I think they sold the show. They haven't been non-communicable at all. They care.

They got paid. Seems like a key detail that needs to be worked out. Does it not? Yeah. Because we know that Ernie and Kenny and Charles and Shaq will be great. But they need time. It seems like someone should know the answer to this by now, right? I mean, don't, like, Jimmy Patero knows the answer to this.

Surely. I saw Jimmy train a tweet that they're going to use Inside the NBA on weekends a lot. So there's not, it's not as important to get to a late sports center as it might be on another night for ESPN. But what could be more important than this? I mean, Scott Van Pelt Sports Center, that's a big institution. But if you have these guys, just like, we got another hour or more of these guys just going. Yeah. What could you want more than that?

I mean, what would be, I'm sure that there's, that there's vying camps within ESPN. And again, I mean, couching of this all under the assumption that it'd be, it's crazy if they haven't figured this out by now. Just come to some decision, right? We're told Charles Berkeley, whatever the decision was. Yeah, so, so rewinding just a little bit. I mean, whatever point in time this conversation would be appropriate. I'm sure there's war in camps, right? I mean, the people, there's the, you know, the institution, the sports center, the Van Peltians, like, whatever.

And then there's the people who, like, see the value of what they have and inside the NBA. And I know that this is a hugely fraught thing. But, I mean, nobody is better situated to air both things simultaneously than the ESPN empire, right? I mean, like, there's 12 ESPNs on everybody's cable system. So, uh, and an app now where we can watch multiple things. You can just toggle back and forth. Uh, yeah. So, I mean, I don't know, maybe just survival of the fittest it.

Just, you know, just put them both on at the same time. See you get some more eyeballs. I like Van Peltians. Like, that's an intellectual movement. I consider myself a Van Peltian adjacent, but still. We're all Van Peltians to some degree. And by the way, there's nobody on earth more than Scott Van Pelt who wants inside the NBA to have its full flower at ESPN. And, you know, you mentioned war in camps.

I think that's right. Though I think there's probably less of that than ever at ESPN because the institutions that were old ESPN, sports center must happen at 11 p.m. This, you know, NFL prime time must happen before Sunday night football. I just think that has eroded so much just with the way the world's changed. I don't say that as a value statement either way. Yeah. That there's probably like we could count on one hand the things that must happen at a certain time. Right.

Game day before college football, their NFL pregame show because those are just cash machines and the NFL Monday night football at a certain time. And the list gets pretty short after that. It's true. I mean, I just mean, in terms of making these decisions, there are difficult conversations on both sides. I'm not saying, it's probably, you're right, it's not the institutional division of a decade ago where they would be like literal, you know, executive suite,

like to these two offices are pro, these two offices are anti. Yeah. It just feels like this is the last question because I'm of the camp, and I think I told you this, I don't believe ESPN's going to screw with inside the NBA, the content of it. That is not Jimmy Patero's style. That's just the road to ruin.

I think the show's going to be produced by Turner out of Atlanta. And I would guess that the show, the content of the show, will remain mostly undisturbed. I really believe that. But you just have to give them time. And it's not the same show if it doesn't have the same amount of time. And we've seen ESPN's approach to halftime shows where it's like, we will talk for 15 seconds, commercial, 15 more seconds in one highlight commercial.

Like, no, no, no. We just got to change our thinking. Yeah. More minutes. More actual basketball talk. And doesn't Sports Center benefit from that too? I mean, maybe there is some time consideration, right? It's just inside does it may not just trail off into your, you know,

you don't fall asleep necessarily to inside in the ESPN era. but they can still do a solid hour after the game and then just have Barclay pop up on SVP and that's like I think that's a win for everybody. The cross talk will be unbelievable. Yeah. And people are like, well, you know, they're going to put Stephen A on there and ruin it.

Is Stephen A going on inside the NBA the worst thing in the world once in a while? I don't think so. No. I mean, that doesn't sound bad to me, just to be honest. No, I mean, everybody beyond the original three. And listen, I include Shaq in this,

has been everybody they've had on that show has seemed like a bad idea from the outset. And somehow they just get subsumed by the inside the NBA like comedy machine and it all works out. Like nobody is too big of a character in their own right to like to overpower the show. One more ESPN clip for you.

Cam Newton was on first take on Monday. Cam Newton, one of the many stars that ESPN has been signing up for studio appearances. You can't tell them apart without a program. Okay, busting with the boys. Okay, that's get up. Cam Newton, he's first take.

The segment here was about Micah Parsons getting his money from the Green Bay Packers. Listen to this because Cam Newton took it to a very interesting place. You are questioned, Stephen A. I'm heat. When you was after that getting your big bag and you was getting your mignon and you was getting your corn, your mozzarella cheese provolone, was that not you looking after your best interest?

You know, that's pepper, you know. Let me laugh. Holder, let me laugh. Allow me to laugh first. Now answer your question. I mean, you got some mong. I'm saying. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let me answer the question. You asked a question. Let me answer it. Yes. I got my man, no doubt about that. No problem, no problem. Monion.

There's plenty of people throughout ESPN's history. I have helped get theirs. And anybody who would challenge what the hell I just said to you on national television, they better beware. They better not utter that publicly

because I can tell you. And I didn't say one. I said many. And by the way, Cam Newton, why are you doing that? You can ask the bosses themselves. plenty of times spanning my 20 plus years here. Look at the roster.

Look at the people here. Look at the diversity on the air. Oh, trust me, I will proudly stand up on a band and say, I got a little something to do with that because there's plenty of people that I have fought for over the years. That has never, ever changed to answer that question. I'm probably one of those. So shout out to Steve A for that. So I appreciate it.

No, back to that. You ain't the only one on the screen. No, no, no, no, no, no. But two things, hold on that. Steve, A. I threw you a lay up. So much there. First of all, Dan Orlovsky,

whose facial expressions were just a roller coaster ride during that whole monologue, trying to turn it back to a football point. Mm-hmm. Second of all, the way Cam Newton asked the question, just how many food, metaphors for money can I roll off in a row

but half of those seem to be cheese yeah he was getting to pepper jack there when Stephen A cut him off which is kind of an outer burrow cheese and then the fact that Stephen A's just right he got his money but think of how many people

come through first take you know you're at ESPN you're a takester you have to find a home for your take And if you make the list, Mad Doc Russo, Orloskey himself, I guess Al-Cam Newton, the embattled slash departed Shannon Sharp, so many people have come through the first take money-making machine. Sure.

But can't you make the same case about Michael Parsons? I mean, wouldn't you, I mean, any player that dominant, doesn't he, doesn't everybody on the defense that signed a new deal since he joined the Cowboys deserve a little bit of a I mean, deserve to give him a little bit of a hat tip? Yes, especially whoever was playing

defensive end on the other side. It wasn't being double team because Michael was. Yeah. It's a good point. You sent me a note, David, last week, or actually we were talking after the pod and you said, we need a new feature

here at the press box. Mm-hmm. Because a lot of Democrats are running for president. and we need a way to track their movements over the next three years, particularly as those movements pertain to their use of the media. So in honor of the great reporter Dave Weigel, I'd like to present to you a new feature.

They're running the Democrats of 2028. And I'd like to start with a quote from Gavin Newsom. I think Gavin Newsom's running for president? He's been running for president since 2023, at least. Probably longer than that. He was running last time. He just never actually got in the race. Well, he was on the pivot podcast with Kara Swisher.

It's actually the co-host of that podcast because Scott Galloway was out. And they got to talking about Gavin Newsom's new Twitter persona. Here's how Newsom described it. kind of interesting because I haven't really said this publicly, but I send my team a YouTube video of Marshawn Lynch on 60 Minutes Sports when he was asked his running style. And he says, going into the front line goes over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And so this notion of communication, I could not agree with you more.

Trump's success is the simplicity to which he communicates the same thing. in that cadence over and over and over and over and over again. And we move week to week. It's infrastructure week and all of a sudden that child care week and it's foster care week. And as a consequence, we have weak messaging and they're winning the narrative war. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think that he makes a really good point. And I think that him, you know, I mean, it's not just borrowing the concept from Trump.

He's obviously imitating Trump's style too, which is another degree of, you know, affect, maybe of impact, certainly he's getting a lot of attention for it. Part of the reason why I wanted to do this, by the way, is, I mean, there's nobody in news media that says no to a Gavin Newsom appearance at this point in time, right? I mean, partly because he's the governor of California,

he's a prominent Democrat, but, you know, it's an absolute yes, because of his new social media presence, because of the platform that he's just sort of very quickly built as the fight in Democrat. And, you know, I think it's important for us to look at every appearance by him and by all these other potential certain candidates with our eyes wide open, right? It's just like, we're not just like doing a favor to the country. We're running for president, you know, which you may see in a larger sense. Your personal mission is a favor to the country, but that's for voters to decide.

But, yeah, no, I mean, Newsome. may be the first politician who's actually learned something from President Trump, the first Democrat politician who actually learns something from President Trump in a positive way. And Marchion Lynch, it turns out. And March on Lynch, yeah. I saw people talk about Donald Trump's speaking style. I think it was an academic and was talking about how you take things and brand them as something else. So he's talking about immigrants.

But whenever he mentions immigrants, he mentions criminals. So for his voters and voters he wants to attract, those two things become synonymous. We saw that with Donald Trump's very first campaign speech in 2015 after he comes down the escalator there at Trump Tower. What Gavin Newsom's saying is there's also just a part that's pure repetition. You just say it again, again, again, again, again, again. And as he said, Democrats always feel like, oh, we got something else. Oh, yeah, we got to move on, right? there's something else.

It's like, why are we just talking about the thing? That's his question. And it's interesting. I mean, the whole Gavin Newsom thing, by the way, just him with Kara Swisher. I mean, we're just, is there a podcast he hasn't gone on at this point? Well, the press box for one. Well, he's the invitations, you know, out there. We'd love to have him come on and talk about political communication and or Marshawn Lynch's running style.

Yes, absolutely. Also, he mentioned 60 minutes sports. Boy, that is an. name I haven't heard in a while. So, well done, Gavin Newsom. All right,

coming up with 30 seconds, David, Jerry Jones, more tortured acronyms, and media piss test has made the big time. But first, let's do the overworked

Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag. It was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to add the press box pod where they were always

gratefully received. Big scoop this morning. this morning before we came on the air from Pablo Torre about a no-show job that Kauai Leonard was given that might have been used to circumvent the NBA salary cap. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, oh, so Kauai had two no-show jobs. It's funny because it's true. If you unbox that joke for your followers, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter job.

joke of the week. All right, David, in the notebook dump, we got to talk about Jerry Jones. Because last Thursday, Jerry Jones, who was the owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, traded away

his pass rushing stud Micah Parsons. Yeah. That afternoon, Jones and his son, Stephen, called a press conference to explain how you could trade a pass rusher in his prime,

whose name is Micah Parsons. The other thing that I would like to say is I firmly did, me made a commitment to Michael this spring, Micah, and paid him and to pay him. Michael? Surely that just happened once during the press conference, right? Did I talk to Michael? Micah

about, I'm sorry, I didn't get Not great. I'd like to repeat something I said to Joel the other day, David. We reporters need to take the lessons we learned about covering Joe Biden and we need to apply them to covering Jerry Jones.

I don't say this is a Cowboys fan. This is not me doing the irritating. Oh, my son. sports agony shared with me. I'm not doing that. No, this isn't a self-conscious overreaction. It's not. We don't overreact here at the press box. We just react. It's a promise to listeners. I think we should look at Jones and every single person that runs an NFL team and we should ask, how are they running that team? Just like we asked, how is Joe Biden executing his duties as president of the United States.

We usually think I think of this question in a binary way. Joe Biden is sharp as attack. Man, you should see him running rings around all his advisors in his meetings. Or Joe Biden is completely incapable of doing anything. Yeah. Answer is always in the middle and it turned out to be in the middle with Joe Biden. Well, maybe more toward one side. But it's somewhere between those two polls.

I think you can ask the same question about NFL owners. Jerry Jones and Joe Biden are both 82 years old. I would like to know things like how long are everybody's work days? How do people make decisions? I was reading that long. Now they tell us piece from Jeff Darlington and Don Van Nuad and ESPN yesterday about this trade. And one of the reasons the Cowboys cited for trading Michael Parsons was we got to get better at run defense. Who is talking to Jerry Jones about run defense?

How does Jerry Jones talk about run defense fits, scheme behind the scenes? Yeah. I understand, I think, why they traded him. What I want to understand is how they make decisions behind the scenes. Is that not a fair question to ask? I think it's absolutely fair. I mean, listen, we're not that far removed from an era where there were lots of Jerry Joneses in pro sports. or at least you just kind of

a lot of fans labored under the assumption or the knowledge that their team owner was um as nothing else like an old man shrouded in mystery and there was just a lot of inexplicable stuff that you know emanated from whatever office he was working from um the rise of the general manager is like a public figure I think as in in most cases as as a

I think for fans it's become It's certainly like More knowable whether or not your GM is good at their job Right it seems more of like something you can wrap your arms around and sort of understand And with all the team sales across different sports over the past decade There's just not a lot of Jerry Jones's left I mean there was never anyone like Jerry Jones but there were a lot of people who you could have the same make the same You could have made the same argument about you know in air as past

Sure. Oh yes He is like Jerry Jones. Like the Timberwolves just got sold. And there are people who would make that sort of case about Glenn Taylor, you know, like not that within the past five years, right? Or whenever the sales started and things just kind of got weird and oddly good in Minnesota. But yeah, but Jerry Jones has always been the biggest name, Al Davis, you know, bears mentioned too. But now he's still there doing it.

And it's kind of crazy. I mean, it's like, I think the biggest thing is that it's, I mean, one of the most notable parts is that it's coming right on the heels of this Cowboys documentary where Jerry Jones both seem to be, or at least he seemed to exit the interview process more self-aware than he started. And certainly had to confront a lot of elements about his own style and his, you know, history is the owner that he'd, night have before, but also that we're all as, as viewers, like, so aware of, or more aware of the Jerry Jones process, mystique, whatever, as we were maybe before. So it's interesting of you through that light, but your, but your point is fine. I mean, listen, uh, we got a few interesting stories about his interaction, you know, how he and his son relate and now he negotiates contracts. I think through that window where it's, it's even more galling that

something like this can happen. And there's just no transparency about it. Mike Ducey, who is the sports guy for the Fox station down there in Dallas, Fox affiliate, had a theory, which is that Jerry was watching the Netflix series and watching footage of young Jerry

pulling off the Herschel Walker trade. I put this in Slack like the moment that it happened. It had me go back and check the timestant. And he just went back and he said, Oh, yeah. Remember how good, remember how it turned out so well when I traded my best player

that time? I forgot I could do that. I think that is very, very likely. Yeah. And Ducey said, like, if the Cowboys dog doesn't exist,

does he trade Mike a person? I think it's, I think it's, maybe not. I mean, without giving anything away, I mean, listen,

anytime you work in a documentary project, you, you sense things like that. Right? And I'm, you know, there's definitely times

where we were like talking to Vince, like, man, about an old thing. And then, like, this story would turn in that direction on present television. You'd be like, well, we put that in his head, didn't we? You know, like, these things happen. Especially, you know, for someone of the age of Jerry Jones to be just like, not just that he'd remembered he could do it.

That's obviously a joke, but to sort of be like, oh, I want to put myself back in that place. I want to, like, relive some of that glory. I want to remember how that can feel. To be the center of attention. even if it's a negative center of attention. Mm-hmm. Like everybody's pointing at me and said,

I can't believe he did that. Yeah. Can't believe old Jerry Jones traded away, fill in the blank. Yeah, and I'm without belaboring the point. A lot of people were making Luca Donge's, you know, combination arguments over the past week or so, too. But I think that what you just said is the actual point of connection

between, you know, Jerry Jones and Nico Harrison. The fact that he wants to be the main character. Does Nico Harrison want to be the main character? I think so, at least within the organization. I don't know if he wants to be the forward-facing star. It's a more low-key way of doing it, but yeah. I mean, Jerry wants to be the main character in a prestige TV series known as the Dallas Cowboys. He wants Landman to be his life, to be real.

If the prestige TV series is the metric, then was this a successful trade? Is this a better? Is this attention bigger than what the season with Micah Parsons on the team would have been? I mean, that's what the calculation he's made for the last 30 years. Yeah. Is me doing stuff, me talking outside the locker room after every game before my players and coaches get to talk. Does that just accrue a ton of interest and clips and first take A blocks more than like the Cowboys being a team that could actually get to the NFC championship game? I think probably yes, almost certainly yes.

And Cowboys done nothing, and they've been in the spotlight. Yeah. This story that I'm wanting to read is really hard to get. Because I think there's a small number of people, like within an organization like the Cowboys that actually are around Jerry Jones all that much and actually talk to him about making decisions. And of course, they want to keep working for the Cowboys. There are no term limits for NFL owners. You're not going to get chucked out in the street and have to be a lobbyist in three years.

So we've seen with the Cowboys, you could potentially just do this forever. But I'm convinced, and maybe Don Van Nata, when he writes, and I suspect he will, when he writes his biography of Jerry Jones, we'll get at this a little bit. That is the unanswered question to me.

Well, do we know just basic stuff about just like a number of employees or whatever? I mean, it's like, you know, you have a pretty good idea when a new GM comes into another NFL franchise, like the number of people they hire, they bring with them. I mean,

the football operations department could be 100 people. Maybe I have no idea. More than 100 people? I mean, and is, I mean, are the Cowboys like, are there big roles that are, I mean,

we know Jerry, you can make the case, Jerry shouldn't be the GM and the owner, but are there other positions that are just vacant that another team would have or another GM would have and the Cowboys between, GM and coach, GM and scouts,

GM and, you know, anything else? I'm not sure on headcount, but they definitely have more power concentrated in the family, more decision making concentrated in the family than other franchises do. And again, we got some of that from the doc, you know. Steven and I were having a conversation in my office about signing Dion Sanders, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's pretty crazy when you think about it.

I mean, especially when you have just a string of sort of ineffectual coaches, too, that it's sort of like, we get father and son making all the decisions over here and then like, yeah, the players just show up for practice. And the coach is like, all right, let's see what we can do. Like, it's just, it seems like a recipe for disaster. Here's the kicker to the whole Jerry Jones, Michael Parsons, Cowboys suck story. So as you know, David, I am a Dallas Cowboys season ticket. holder from Los Angeles. Sell most of the tickets usually go with my son on Thanksgiving, which is the chiefs this year.

That will be fun. So the trade goes down on Thursday. On Friday morning, I wake up and I have a little notification on my phone. You've sold Cowboys Vikings tickets in December. Wow. So hours after this franchise smiting trade, somebody has bought a pair of tickets. for December. And then a few hours later, it says,

oh, you've sold Cowboys versus Commanders tickets from October. Same day. The day after the Micah Parsons trade, I'm like, who are these people who are like, now I will get online and buy some big Kenny Clark fans. Is it Kenny Clark's family flying in? And I know there's a lot of opposing fans because they want to come see Jerry World and all that kind of stuff.

And if you're ever in that stadium, it's not the Steelers. And there's just a lot of randos in there. But I'm like, wait, so Jerry Jones, this is how he wins, right? He does something stupid. And then the next day it's like, oh, your tickets have sold. At a bare minimum, all those opposing fans that want to come to Dallas and see a game there were reminded to go onto Stubhub or whatever app and purchase their tickets because of Jerry's craziness. It's your point. He won because he was the main character.

He was the guy. He was the A block. All right. few things before we go. We have a Cracker Barrel update. Oh my God. This is from alert listener Ryan Smith. I'm on vacation this weekend, but couldn't

help but think about the Cracker Barrel discussion over the last two pods. Joel took me to task, David, for not ever having been to Cracker Barrel after you right. That was pretty crazy. Yeah, I got lost. I should have spent more time on that for sure. Ryan Smith writes, to me, the Cracker Barrel

experience has been replaced by the far superior Buckey experience. Cracker barrel was to stop my grandparents and parents took on a road trip with the understanding of it being almost two hours sunk cost with mediocre food that we could make better at home and a store

full of junk that the kids would undoubtedly beg for. I remember buying a harmonica on one trip. He continues I think we all bought that harmonica, yeah. He continues, a Bucky stop is immeasurably better. Only a

journalism, plentiful, spotless restrooms, good food, gas, and goods that maybe you don't need, but don't feel robbed when you purchase. The former generations just didn't have buggies to beckon them along I-10 back then, and now that they do, they may never return

to Cracker Barrel. You didn't miss much by never going. We don't have Buckees in my neck of the woods, but you could, we do a Cracker Barrel obviously. But I think the broader point stands, there is, I mean, when we were growing up, the idea of grabbing a quick bite at the gas station was unthinkable.

Yes. Right? I mean, unless you had a death wish. Death wish, yeah. Or your parents were just like, we are running so late, you're going to get by on peanuts till we get to Grandma's house or something, you know, like literal peanuts. And yeah, there's a lot.

There's a lot more out there, you know. I mean, listen, when we were growing up, a lot of people didn't like, the parents who were just really a versed. kids eating in the car. I mean, there still are, but I think that a lot of that is shifted with time, so maybe there's more fast food options out there, too. But yeah, I mean, Cracker Barrel does have a very interesting place in the food establishment. It's almost exclusively pulling off the highway in my experience and just trying to get something somewhat substantive, especially when maybe when you're like coming down, coming back from a vacation and coming down

off of just the nonsense that you've been eating for a week, you know, and just whatever, all the, you go to the beach and it's just like cotton candy and crab, you know, and you're just like, okay, I just need something normal in my stomach for just a minute. Or for my kids, I want one vegetable on the plate. One vegetable, yes, absolutely. Joel compared it to Shonies, which is something I saw on billboards while taking driving trips as a kid, but never actually visited either. Do we not have a Shonies in Fort Worth down by the highway?

What was that? Well, it would necessarily be down by the highway if we had one. But I don't remember one. Could be wrong. Media Piss test, David. We have Media Piss Test making its debut in the American Prospect. Fine publication. It was an article by Jeff Houser and Timi Awoyemmi.

I would like to read you part of this article. the ringer's press box podcast regularly features something they call the media piss test. The joke is it has become a political cliche to say something new is like something old, but on steroids. And just a little aside here, a political cliche, yes, but also just a cliche. Everything is on steroids. Anyway, the authors continue in the American prospect. It might be a cliche to describe the corruption, satirons. the Trump administration as

steroidal, but it is simply true that every tool of corruption in our politics from self-dealing to gerrymandering to outright bribery has become vastly stronger under Donald Trump. First of all, thank you for the ink. We appreciate it.

And I like the approach here. We'll acknowledge the existence of media piss test. But then argue that corruption under Donald Trump really is on steroids. Oh, that's one way to get in the media piss test, I guess. We got some more tortured acronyms, David.

If you missed our show earlier, we were having some fun with MS now, my source for news opinion and the world, and asking for more tortured acronyms. And David, I screwed this up when I did the feature the first time. Because I was calling it the M.S. MS Now tortured acronym challenge. In fact, the title of the feature should have been a tortured acronym.

Oh, that's a great one. One that perhaps is also the surname of a famous MSN now host. So, David, let me present to you the renamed feature. Horrible acronyms you experience sucka or haze. Oh my God. That's your best work in a long time, Brian. This is from alert listener Jared Christensen. After spending many years as a college administrator, I moved to the dark side and became a consultant helping institutions with their recruitment and marketing efforts. For a period of time, I worked with a large public university on the West Coast that encountered some awkwardness in the mid-2010s because of the name of their student database of all things.

their blandly named institutional student information system took on a darker meaning in the middle of that decade because of the common acronym used to reference it by students and faculty, ISIS. If you would like to change your class, please consult with ISIS. This is from listeners Zach Jones. As an engineer, I worked on a green jet fuel project for Southwest Airlines called sapphire, which stood for

sustainable aviation fuel from renewable ethanol. Misbelling sapphire is one thing, but the stranded eye that doesn't stand for anything is what really got me. Excellent work there from Zach. And finally, from one of our very good friends, John Walters in Vermont,

a couple of entries from the Hall of Ill-considered acronyms back in 2000, Canada's Conservative Party merged with the Plains Provinces Reform Party under the name Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance, which quickly acquired the unofficial party suffix producing the acronym, crap. One day later, they changed it to the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. Finally, John Walters writes, one of my proudest moments of my own career as a blogger covering Vermont politics.

In 2014, then Governor Peter Shumlin created a new council to study the ways to end or at least reduce poverty. It was launched as Pathways Out of Poverty. It was my solemn duty as a snarky blogger to point out the acronym was Poop. The name was quickly changed, first to M. Foop, moving families out of poverty. And finally, to the simple pathways from poverty. Yeah. Rarely have I felt the power of the pen so greatly. Well done. That is why journalism matters. The college student system called ISIS is still my favorite.

There had to be a lot of stuff using the acronym ISIS. ISIS really spoiled things for a lot of people. All right. It's time for a feature that's always well named. It's time for David Chewmaker guesses. The strained pun headline. Yeah. Big Yod. Last Tuesday's headline about Germans falling out of love with beer was Hells is for other people.

Today's headline comes to us, David, from Justin Laidlaw. It's from the Raleigh News and Observer. And it's about the disappointment Tarheel fans are feeling today. Shout out to our friend Tate Frazier. David, after what happened with Belichick and the heels on Monday night, they're feeling tricked. They're feeling like they have been peddled something that they did not understand. What was the news and observers strained pun headline? Is it just a false bill of goods or?

Bill of goods. I gave you too much help there. Yeah, you did. I really did. I thought for a minute you was going to be a heels thing because you called the Tar Heels of the Heels. I thought that that was going to be how you gave me too much. Oh, we'd already, we'd already hear our wrestling politics a lot, but I'm sorry, sir. Yeah.

We can't do that anymore. He's David Schumacher. I'm Brian Curtis. Prodixie Magic by Kyle Crichton. Coming up later this week, Joel Anderson. We're going to do this on Friday, David, supposed to the usual Thursday. What's the opposite of an emergency podcast? We're doing one now.

You're doing one. Podcast with a slight delay. We've got Cowboys Eagles Thursday night. So we want to bring you some sound and some reactions from that game. Plus, Joel has a brand new 25 for 25. I won't give it away, but it is football inflected. Next Monday, Shoemaker, you and I meet here. More lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian.