The Press Box - The Weekend Reaction Pod: Bryan in Austin, Bad Omens for Tony Romo, and the Season Premiere of ‘60 Minutes’

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel recap Bryan's exciting weekend in Austin, Texas. They talk about the Texas–Ohio State game, Ted Cruz on 'College GameDay,' and some other sights and sounds Bryan witnessed this past weekend. Then they provide their thoughts on the season premiere of '60 Minutes,' and they talk about CBS's 'NFL Today' (37:53). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to PressBox. It's a happy Monday in America. That's true. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. Joel, how was your weekend? Just kidding. How was my weekend?

I mean, you know, you talk about Texas football. This is the kind of Texas football I'm talking about, which just came in the mail on Friday for me, by the way. Sounds like you're trying to change the subject again. Where have I heard? that this weekend. I just, you know. From a Joel Anderson podcast.

Did you catch the Oklahoma State game? That was big game, man. Big game. Yeah, they wear orange too, huh? Yeah, they wear orange too, man. Shout out Stillwater. Producers of this podcast are Isaiah Blakely and John Not Bones-Jones. We have to start, Joel, in the city of Austin, Texas.

We really do, huh? Okay, that's fine. We really do. No, I'm happy for you. bad. I am because Brian sent pictures from Austin throughout the weekend and it was just like what a homecoming. You know, if I was like

oh man, it almost like a homecoming weekend and then you sent a picture of yourself at the stadium and I was like you know, everybody knows I've got my beef with UT but that doesn't extend to my friends. I didn't want you to go out of there morose, you know? So in that way

you really didn't you wouldn't mind it if I went out of there I would have lived. I would have been fine. I would have rather have been right. You weren't rooting against me personally. No. But if I had been hurt by extension, you would not have objected to that. Is that a fair way to say? I would have lived with the same way that you live with TCU losing to UNC in Dublin.

Mm-hmm. Even that, I didn't. Yeah. That's true. We don't come up with UT fans. I know. I know you T. You don't even think about TCU.

Sorry, no. But that's not. But tell me about Austin, man. I can see you get there. What were you doing? Like, why were you there? So my buddy, Adrian. Okay.

A guy I met at UT. Mm-hmm. I still remember the moment we met in political science class. Oh, wow. He turns to me and says something. And we became friends and are still great friends all these years later. That's amazing. That's cool, man.

He's the guy. He lives in El Paso. From El Paso. He still lives in El Paso. Oh, nice. and he's the guy that we renew our friendship every year, every couple years, by traveling to UT games. Oh, man.

So he went with me to the Vince Young National Championship game. Oh, man. We went to Texas, Georgia and Austin two years ago. We've been to Texas, Ohio State number one versus number two in 2006, on and on and on. And every year, it's kind of like, okay, what are we thinking? What are we thinking? And about a month ago, he calls me and he says, Ohio State.

I was like, okay. Got to do it. Yeah. We're not going to mess around. We're going to do Ole Miss or LSU at night in Baton Rouge. Tiger Stadium. We're just going to go. We're going to push option A, Ohio State.

Oh, man. So, yeah. So I went down Thursday night. Now, as I was thinking about a trip to Austin, I'm like, okay, UT Ohio State. That's the reason for the trip. But if I'm going to be there. a day and change early, I should also do a work thing when I'm in Austin.

Sure. Of some kind. So I noticed that Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker has a new book coming out in October, which is really good. It is partly about death row in Texas. Oh, wow. And justice in Texas. And I said, what if I could go interview Lawrence

Wright on Friday. Oh. And then Texas, Ohio State on Saturday. Now, is that the most Bryan combination you've ever heard of in your life? I mean, when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, you know what I'm saying? So I went to Lawrence Wright's house

on Friday in Austin. Incredible. Read more about that in the next few weeks. Okay. And then Texas, Ohio State. You know, I always live on this principle. that a happy life is a life that seems contradictory. It's one of the reasons you and I get along so well

because you live by the same principle. So, wait a second, you're going to go talk to this nonfiction master about death row in Texas. And then the next day, you're going to act like this football game on the field is the most important thing in the universe. And it truly will be for that three and a half hours. And it's like, yeah, exactly. You know what?

That's happiness. I mean, just the dichotid me a lot. When I was in L.A. the other week, I went to a high school game in Orange County. And then I went to Compton to do interviews for a story that actually I need to have in by tomorrow. But that's a whole other thing. But yeah, but it's just like, yeah, you get there and you just like, wait, I actually like my job. I could do something while I'm down here.

Like, let's make it worth it, you know? Absolutely. And both things have their pleasures and joys that are equally wonderful. Absolutely. Enjoy a discovery. It was fun. I saw one of our mutual friends, you and I's mutual friends down there speaking at UT Pals. Lawrence Wright. Kurt Goldsbury. Oh, Kirk. The Ringers' very own, who's a professor at the University of Texas. Love Kirk, man. That's awesome. We interviewed Reese Davis on stage on Friday. It was a big weekend.

Where did you eat? I had a lot of barbecue. Of course you did. Here's the thing. The schedule was so nuts on Friday that I did not have time to just go get in a barbecue line. Okay. Like one of these several hour events that barbecue has sort of sadly become. There's a lot of upsides, but also barbecue, you remember when we were kids, barbecue was not standing in line for an hour for gourmet food. It was not a big deal.

Although, you know, we would drive to Luling from Houston to go get barbecue every night. But you know what? It was on the way to Currville. So, yeah. There were people out of the door in Luling. I've been there. No, no, no, no, no. Not at the main street market or whatever it's called.

So I just went over to Terry Blacks. Okay. Got the line, got through the line in 10 minutes. I was so happy. I was just sitting there eating ribs and jalapeno cheese, sausage. By the way, picks of all this are on my Instagram page if you guys want to check any of this out from me. I am so jealous. Did you go to Kirby Lane?

Are you a Kirby Lane guy? I am, but I went to Magnolia Cafe, which was the 24-hour place that was our go-to-choice when I was at UT. Still open. Okay. That's right. I still search breakfast tacos at 11 o'clock. I actually went there on Thursday night as soon as I got off the plane. Look at you.

My buddy pick me up. Saturday. Uh-huh. You start a big college football Saturday at college game day on ESPN. Mm-hmm. They were, of course, out there. Herbie was calling that game for ESPN. Mm-hmm.

They set up shop by the LBJ presidential library, if we're doing juxtapositions here. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I get you. Lawrence Wright, UT football. LBJ and Pat McAfee. Uh-huh.

It's the range of possible people and entities. It's such an interesting place, man. It really is. I went and hung out backstage at Game Day, which is always fascinating because itself, it is kind of a scene. He's standing there, and here comes Matthew McConaughey walking by.

Of course. Because he's going to do the kicking segment with McAfee. Here is Fox News's Will Kane. Oh. Is he a Texas ex? He's a Texas guy. He's walking through. And it's like, okay.

All right. Sure. Will Cates here. Why not? Then I spot a man in Rayban sunglasses and a burnt orange sports coat. It is one Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. And I turned to somebody and I said, oh, he's hanging out here. backstage at Game Day

and they said, oh no, he's going on the air. And I said, excuse me? Yeah, yeah. Ted Cruz is going to be on Game Day. And that's when I snapped a picture and I tweeted it out. FYI, Ted Cruz is here. And the responses, Joel, were just like,

I'm hitting the Ohio State money line right now. I mean, that, I want to be. want to call him an MFer. He showed up to the championship game. Not saying that we would have beaten Georgia, but I definitely didn't want him wearing TCU purple on that day. I don't think he helped. Absolutely not.

He didn't go to any of these schools, by the way. No, and I'm sitting next to some very nice Ohio State fans who were hanging out there too, and they're like, why is everybody booing Ted Cruz? And I was like, this is not just the fact that it's Kami Lib, Austin, Texas, who doesn't like the conservative senator. This is Senator's shattered mirror. He is the ultimate bad luck charm for any state of Texas sports team.

Nobody wants this dude around here at all. At all. At all. And then he went on college game day and did an eight-minute ad for the Protect College Sports Act. What the hell was that? I mean, again, when I worked at ESP,

almost a decade ago. Politics became the third rail, man. You just could not talk about it. You just really had to bow. Also, like, what they considered to be politics happened to be things about culture, identity. Like, this is literally politics. This is a bill before Congress.

Yeah, it's literally legislation that he's lobbying for and as a sponsor for. And ESPN Game Day turned the floor over to him. And I assume you being the TV historian, you are, that has never happened before in Game Day history, I was saying. Unless you count week one of Game Day when Nick Saban and Pat McAfee were stumping for

the same bill. Which is his self was a very weird segment. Yeah. Considering there was no, on the other hand, no pushback to them. But to have him come out there and just do an interview with Reese Davis

and it's funny because I had asked Davis on Friday, I said, you know, college football, like everything feels like it's on the table. right now. We're in this crazy period of transformation and change. What do you think game day's role is in this current era? And he said something like, you know, first of all, they want to celebrate college football. They're not going to denigrate college football and say that the system is broken, which we've heard from some advocates of this bill. Oh, it's broken. Never mind, everybody's watching it. There's a bazillion people in front of the game day said. I mean, seriously. Yeah.

There's that. But he also said it was informational. You want to talk. talk about you want to let people know what the issues are in front of it. And that to me is where this segment failed. Yes. Did you learn something? If you're a viewer who's probably, and by the way, this describes a lot of people who are fans of college football

and even fans of politics, you're a viewer you've heard about this legislation. You may not totally understand it. And certainly you don't understand the arguments against it given how much support there is from the president and other people. did you learn, truly learn what's in that bill from that segment?

I would contend that you did not. Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, they never, I mean, it's the same tired tropes about how the game is broken, that it puts athletes and sports teams at risk that, you know, college departments are going to have to cut these teams. and then so women's sports are going to, you know, they're going to lose support and all these other, you know, non-revenue sports are going to lose support and, you know, colleges. So he said something Ted Cruz said this. He said, if there's only, the way that it's going, there's only going to be 40 to 50 competitive football schools and everyone else goes under.

And I would like to, a good follow-up question is, as opposed to what? there are only 40 or 50 competitive football schools anyway. But also you're saying that the year after the losing its program in FBS history entering last year, one that had an undefeated national championship season. That would have never happened before under the old system. Ever. Using the new rules for everything they're worth to win that national championship.

Yeah. And so again, also, I mean, obviously, I'm against this. Like, I mean, there's no need to me, you know, pussyfooting around it. But if there's only 40 or 50 competitive football schools, who cares? Like, right just before we, actually, it's within our lifetime that the Ivy League schools opted out of major college football. Like, they were once power. They played all the same schools as everybody else. You know, they had, you know, for regional or whatever, but, like, everybody was Division I.

And then some schools said, you know what? We can't afford to do this. we're not interested in this. It's just not us. Yeah. It's not part of our identity in the same way. It's part of identity at Ohio State. Yeah.

So I just, again, it would, so again, nobody ever, there was not a lot of room for pushback. Um, in this particular segment. So again, so you're right. Like, how could anybody learn? Because nobody, he never really went into any real detail about what's in the bill, but also there was no, um, being even interested in what the other side of the arguments were. Did I hear this right that Cruz called a player transferring from one school to another a trade? He did, yeah.

No three, he said no more three or five trades, just one or something like that. Have you watched college football, Mr. Senator, a trade? I mean, what are you talking about? Like, you just, that's not what's happening here. It's not. I read the piece in the athletic from Stuart Mandel where he said that he reported that Cruz's people went to Game Day and asked for time. And that Game Day said it was an easy decision to grant him that time to come on.

To me, it was an easy decision to say, absolutely not. It's to say, we are a college football entertainment show. And this is just not the place for this kind of interview. Brian, we get offered. politicians all the time. Like there's people that we like people, I know some people think that we only interview politicians, uh, now, but we get offered politicians all the time that we say no to. Yeah.

And if we can say it, if we can say it, surely, college game day can do the same. Surely college game day can say it. Yeah. And I think if, if they had said yes, I would have done almost the Trump rules where I would have taped it in advance. Mm-hmm. I would have had said Reese Davis. By the way, Reese Davis, who's really good at this sort of thing. Mm-hmm. And I think could in another scenario thread the needle between doing a true political interview

like his fellow Bama grad, Caitlin Collins, would do on CNN. Mm-hmm. And an interview that you could do on Game Day where you're saying, hey, this is this thing that's out here. Let's inform viewers. Let me ask you some tough questions about it. Push back on a number of points. I think he could do that. Ted Cruz just went out there.

and filibustered a ton. Oh, yeah. Did let him get any questions in. And then at the end, he looks at the camera and he's like call or he's looking at a reason and goes, call your senator. Like there's a call to action on game to him. Oh, God, that feels so inappropriate. It was so whack.

It really was whack. And I think people that think that's ethically specious are right, that that should not have happened. I wonder if they learned anything from this and if they would ever do this again. Or if they're going to open the floor up to the NAACP, as you know, they said, you know, they've indicated there's some willingness to hear opposing arguments. The NAACP, CBC, Senator Chris Murphy, a whole bunch of other people are against this legislation. I have not seen them on ESPN yet, but now balls in their court. I'm sure that, you know, if they want to, you know, give them a little airspace, they should be able to do it.

You kind of have to do it, right? I think you're them at this point. I don't know. And honestly, just to back up two weeks, if it had been me and I've been running game day, and I don't know exactly who is now that Jim Gairo disappeared right before the season started, but I would have said,

hey, Nick Sabin's on the show. He's one of the biggest surrogates for this bill. He's doing a commercial for this act. Yeah. We need to do it right here. Right? We can do it ourselves. That's another question.

podcasters, including us ask ourselves all the time, do we need a guest to do this or should, are we the people you actually want to hear from on this? Right. And we got him right here. His name is coach Nick Sabin. We can ask him all these questions. And by the way, if people want this bill to pass, who do you think is going to be more effective? Ted Cruz or Nick Sabin?

I mean, that. Come on. Nick Saban could convince people that this is actually a good idea. Yeah. He has that power. Right. Even in college football where people are. People hate Bama.

They're like, Nick Saban, man. That's the guy. I wish he coached my school. Absolutely. He's a very convincing person. To the extent that there's ever will be a commissioner of college football, people have always said, if such a position existed, Nick Saban would be the ideal guy.

But yeah, they just, they didn't want to do that. And, you know, it's interesting because I have seen a similar panel on ESPN before within the last year. And they had John Calipari and Jay Billis on there. And Jay Billis is on the Chris Murphy, CBC, NWACP side. I just want, they, I'm sure Jay Billis would have been willing to go. Absolutely. But, I mean, the thing about Jay, man, he would have told their ass up.

I mean, it's, it's very difficult to beat Jay Billis in an argument, bro. Jay Billis and Ted Cruz, I would happily watch that debate anytime. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, sometimes you and I talk about game day like this and, you know, put out some criticism or whatever. It's like, to me, it's the part of the, the part of the, is like, I genuinely enjoy watching game day. It's a really good show. It's the only pregame show

that actually sounds like it's made by people that watch and like the sport. I was dipping into the NFL on Sunday, and it was like, dear God. Sure. Like, this is so bad. And then I'm watching out there, that UT kid that went out and did the kicking contest

with McAfee and Matthew McConaughey and Herbie. Absolutely drilled a kick, like has never happened in game day history. I mean, it was like, it would have been good from 20-point-yard I was straight down the middle. I'm like, this is game day. Here we go.

Yeah. Well, wait, it had to have been extremely hot out there. Dude. It was 94 degrees at kickoff at 6.30. That's horrible. You and I are used to Texas heat. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I was just out there just melting.

Oh, my God. I would have sweated through everything I had having to be out there in that. That sounds terrible. And I'm sitting next to Kurt Goldsbury at the game, I showed up in long sleeves and he's like, you wore long sleeves? And I'm like, this is a sign of my seriousness. Sark's wearing long sleeves. I'm wearing long sleeves.

This is why, this is how we're going to beat Ohio State today. Hey. I'm not kidding. Like, the sun, you know, was just like right over the lip of the stadium. So it was still shining on us right at 6.30 when we got in there. And Kirk and I were like two guys in a sauna. You know, you feel it one day. we're going to be old enough where we're going to be sitting in a sauna just talking to each other like old men.

Yeah, with a towel over us. Uh-huh. Yeah. Now, we were fully clothed, thankfully, for the 105,000 other people in the stadium on Saturday night. But I was just sitting there talking to Kirk, and Kirk said, by the way, fantastic hang, one of the all-time great in-game hangs because he's funny. He knows everything about football, about YouTube in particular, and he's just, it's just cracking me up the whole time. Love it. But we were just saying they're talking to each other, you know, six inches apart as you are at a football game.

and just sweating like crazy so you didn't there was never a moment when you were out there you're like man i wouldn't i wonder if this would have been better for my hotel room oh there were so many moments like that well probably up until about the fourth quarter huh you know how locked in i am just in that setting like i i am i'm here yep even as a college kid i never had a sip of booze before a game or during really i'm like we're here to watch football i want i want these to be member berries for the rest of my life. Okay. I don't want to be like,

man, I was so wasted. Then we won the game. Like, no, no. Then the game ends. Then we can go drink. Then we can go drink like Travis after the game's over. But right now we're going to watch the game. So, I'm sitting there and I'm like, Texas is playing like absolute

crap. I checked into my American Airlines flight. Did you really? During, I'm like, oh, I got the little notification. That's when you know things are going bad when you're checking it to your flight from the game. Checking it in. And the other thing, and this has changed so much since you were and I were in college. It was like the game itself has become so celebrity.

Oh, yeah. I mean, a partial list of people that were there on Saturday, Matthew McConaughey. Of course. Glenn Powell. Okay. Who had an open mic during a commercial and was just standing on the field talking to the crowd. Like, okay. Okay.

Shane Gillis was on the sidelines. Wow. Okay. What? On the sidelines. On the sidelines. Okay. Looked like he was hanging solo.

He was very, very close to where we were. Kevin Durant. Well, that's about right. He, he, impressively for all the Kevin, and I'm not, you know, Mr. Kevin Durant fan outside of his Texasness. Mm-hmm. He reps the long, he's at every single big game that the Longhorns play. And he goes down there and works out in Austin every now and again, too.

I think, I'm sure, and I'm certain that him playing for the Rockets, part of it was the proximity to Austin. Like he's, he feels like a Texas guy in a lot of ways, you know? He was at UT for like nine months. I don't know,

but it was a cold ass nine months ago, man. He was, he was bad motherfucking. It really was. I mean, hey, come back, but like seeing him

tap up Arch Manning after the game was like, this is unbelievable. Yeah, man. Ricky Williams was there. Of course. Personal note for you and me.

Was Vince? Vince? Vince was there. Colt McCoy was, everybody was there. Roe Williams. I didn't see Roy. You didn't see Roy.

He would have been, have been absolutely welcome with me. But it's just very celebrity. Yeah. And then also it's very multimedia. Mm-hmm. Again, go lighten shopper on Instagram if you want to see this. But like, there was a massive drone show between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth.

Like drones over the stadium. Oh, man. That are becoming the hookum symbol that are becoming the longhorn. They're becoming Texas. Wow. I mean, it's like, yeah. Like, again, look at the video I took. It looks like like a sci-fi.

movie. Crazy. It's really wild. They also do so many bits on the scoreboard now at a big college game. They'll do things like, okay, everybody, you know, boo and cheer. Here we go. Would you rather live in the state of Ohio? Oh, okay.

Lots of booze. Or would you rather live literally anywhere else in the world? Huge cheers. I mean, those kind of bits did not exist back in the day. They don't trust our attention span anymore. We were more used to being bored when we were in college. And they shouldn't. They shouldn't because college kids have a lot more things that they could be interested in.

There's a lot of reasons not to come to a game, even a big game like Texas, Ohio State. 94 degrees in the stands? I mean, think about how hard it is to convince people. You can't convince kids to go outside in that kind of weather today, you know? Absolutely not. Yeah. And so, yeah, waiting outside for as long as you've got to and just cooking out there. No, man.

So, yeah, they got to do it now. Also, by the way, the Shane Gillis thing, he's not from Texas. He's from Pennsylvania. He didn't graduate from University Tech. Why was Shane Gillis on the sideline? I think he's part of, like, the move to Austin. Joe Rogan there? So I heard a Rogan rumor and I also heard of Mark Zuckerberg rumor.

Really? Which, what? Again, I have not watched the full TV copy of the game, so forgive me if those people are on camera at any point. Okay. I love this about college football, and I know you do too. college kids on the Jumbotron. Oh, yeah, man.

Oh, my God. Like, adults, you know, 50-year-olds acting crazy at Cowboys games. Hey, I understand, but it's something, a little bit of sadness to that, you know, you're stumbling around and doing all this up. I'm just kind of like, okay, 18 to 22-year-olds going bonkers on the Jumbotron. I'm like, you know, they always say kids keep you young. Kids, you don't know who are on your alma mater's jumbotron. Botron also keep you young.

Yes, absolutely. You're like, oh, there's just like, there's another grandson's like, hey, I'm here. Let's go. UT, everybody. Mm-hmm. You mentioned the miserable first three quarters. There was a woman behind me that I could not see who said the words, why don't you live up to your name, you freaking bum to Arch Manning at one point?

Wow. Wow. Arch, remember that. That's how they talk about you when things go bad, man. You freaking bum. Oh, my God. I'll tell you all about it. At one point, we were like,

our cheek was Chris Jones? Yeah, I think so. If you were watching the game on ABC, there was an amazing shot. Jeremiah Smith, who just did whatever he wanted in that game, catches a pass, they take a shot of it,

and then there's this zoom over Jeremiah Smith's shoulder, and they show Longhorns coach Steve Sarkeesian on the sideline looking pissed off. Was that one of the coolest things you were ever seen in a football game? A great shot. Yeah, you can just see him just like, he, yeah,

when the Chairman Smith is going crazy out there. Yeah, man, that was, that was a fantastic shot. The camera operator who got it, according to ESPN, is Dave Wojik, who operates the lower end zone cam. That is like, so basically imagine somebody's on field level below the uprights. Okay, I know, yeah.

If you walk on a field, you know exactly what that is. You see that guy. Yeah, you see that guy, uh-huh. And those people are often doing stuff like, for replays, you know, like quarterbacks. They're looking for faces a lot of the time. So quarterback throws an interception coming your way and he looks really upset. That's often where that shot would come from.

But man, there's cool stuff on television and there's like Robert Altman level photography. Yeah, man. But speak to which, Joel, what's your favorite Robert Altman movie? Oh, what's the one about the preacher, dog? You know what I'm talking about? Wait, hold on. Reacher. You know what I'm talking about.

Hold on. Oh, man. Joel's looking it up. Yeah, I am. That's true. But, you know, there's a possibility that I've seen the movie and just don't know. I did watch Popeye as a kid. I did see Popeye as a kid.

Boozy's going to come up later in this podcast. So I just want to get my licks in while I'm going to be. I mean, man, okay. You know me too well. That game was 85% just pure unadulterated hell. And 15% one of the greatest in-person sports nights in my life. I was going to say you rank it as a UT fan. I think it might be number two.

Number one is always going to be Vince Young running into the answer. Right. So it's even over the 2004 Rose Bowl against Michigan. So I wasn't at that game. Oh, you weren't? Okay. I watched that game on television. Okay.

Ricky Williams breaking the rushing record against A&M was pretty exciting after Thanksgiving in 1998. Yeah, man. I also posted this clip on my Twitter time. timeline. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herv Street were calling the game and they did one of those cool booth shots, you know, where it's the final play and Fowler calls it. And then he's laying out because that's what you do after the game. And then you just see Fowler and Herbie mouthing the words, wow to each other. They don't want to say that on the broadcast, but they want to just have this little moment. It's pretty cool. I mean, you know,

again, the one thing that I was talking about this on, well, maybe I didn't, talk about it on tailgate, but I tweeted about it. Man, the great thing about college football on Saturday, man, is it you're going to probably see something you've never seen before, dude. And that's, like, I think nobody had ever, Ohio State had never lost a game under those circumstances. And I think Texas had never won a game under those kind of circumstances, you know, whatever, you know, down 20 or whatever, going into the fourth. So it's just, and just like two premier brands, this is, I mean, so this is actually, I know a lot of people get mad at Fox and ESPN for taking control of college football and sort of making it this,

you know, monopoly or whatever. But the cool shit about it, man, is there sometimes they make these guys play or sometimes they just say, you know what, we should lock up, man. Texas versus Ohio State, like, that is a great television product. And I'm so grateful for everybody that makes something like that happen because it's just so awesome to watch. Yeah, man. I mean, that's where we tolerate network interference, right?

Like if you have a hand in them not canceling this game, given the way that college football has rearranged itself, and there's more SEC games now and all that stuff, like, thank you because that was awesome. Absolutely. That's why we show up. No more San Jose State ball state games. You know what I'm saying?

Like, we get that all the time. And so when teams are willing to step up and put something on the line, like you get magic. And that was a magical, even though, you know, I'm not a UT fan. if Vince Young or T.J. Ford's not playing. I can understand how amazing that was. And I was happy for you, man. The first person I thought of when you guys was like, man,

I bet Brian is going fucking nuts, man. I know you're going nuts. You were correct. There's photographic evidence of that. And I got to say, and you know this feeling, when your team, when your alma mater wins a huge game, it's very natural to go looking for doubters. Maybe it's a national TV guy who

crapped on the longhorns, someone who put up an unfortunate tweet or post on a message board. Yeah. Well, after the game, I found one such doubter. Hmm. Who's that? Joel, it was you. Oh, man.

I listened to that whole tailgate episode the next morning. I'm getting it. Oh, my goodness, gracious. I'm getting it, man. Dude. And first of all, what you were saying about Sark and everybody during the third quarter, that's what we were saying in the stands.

So that is totally understandable. Here's what the best part was. So Texas wins. Van and Tater trying to get you to do the horns up and kind of mess with you. And you're like, hey, can we talk about the eyes of Texas controversy from 2020? That was the most horseshit change of subject I have ever heard of in my life. I was trying to explain to people where my beef, it goes back further than that. Have I ever told you that I'm related to Donnie Little via marriage somehow?

I don't think I knew that. On my mother's side, I'm related to Donnie Little. He's like an uncle or something. For people that don't know, Donny Little was the first black quarterback to ever play at University of Texas. But yeah, so you look, man, look, Tailgate exists to ruin my reputation as a journalist. Like that is a vehicle solely to make me seem like an unsurious person.

So, you know, I'm getting it today. and I will take the slings and arrows. I was wrong. I admit it. And yeah, sorry. It just was one of the great pivots of all times. It was like, okay, he's going to have to eat it. Okay, you know, the game's over.

And again, you were not, nothing you said in the moment was wrong. And like I said, I was saying it, but then it was just, it was like, wait, what? How did we get to this 60-year-old controversy at this one moment in time? And I was just, anyway, I was laughing. But wait, hold on, Grant. Because you, so you, because you're not watching from the stands, right? Are you, are you watching the game? Are you watching the game on your phone in the stands, though?

No, no. You're not trying to get any other, okay. Because you did see. Only after the fact did I see all that stuff. So I don't know, I've never seen this before in college football televised history, and somebody can tell me if I'm wrong. So they did do the Eyes of Texas before the game. Yep.

But they did like some sort of close captioning or scroll of. the words on the screen? From ESPN. Yeah, and I've never, I've never seen them do that for a school song before. Have you ever seen that? I think maybe they've done it

for school songs just because they know that 95% of the audience has no idea what the words are. Okay. I think that's because none of us know anything about college football

except about our own teams. That's true. That's true. So I think that's probably, like you and I, what if we tried to sing the Notre Dame Fight song right now? Do you know, three cheers for Notre Dame.

That's about all I got. I mean, I always end up being held to the victors. So, yeah. So, huh? We can hum it, but we can't sing it. Oh, and speaking to television shots, do we want to get to the Beau French? Man.

Now, here's a pivot that we absolutely should make because he made it for us after this game. Mm-hmm. So it was a crowd shot. This is what, again, I'm kind of just, seen only highlights from the game. The television is just a shot of the crowd that was taken during the game for television. Mm-hmm.

And it was a diverse group of students or should you would just say non-white students? That was... Largely South Asian... A largely South Asian collection of students in one spot of the stadium. But yeah, diverse. And he tweeted what? Oh, my God. Let's see.

We got to... Now I got to find... Hold, can we pause real quick? Mm-hmm. Okay, hold on. I should have had that right off the top. Why didn't I have that there? Because he's not apologized for it yet, by the way.

I'm reading a headline here that he doubled down. Yeah, with Beau French, who is the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commissioner this November, tweeted after the game with the screenshot of that TV shot, I heard UT graduation this year look like this. I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined. The next tweet about this is that like body cams exposed criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners.

It's everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine. I didn't even see that second tweet. Yeah, man. That was later that night. I was late at that. I mean, Beau Fritch, man, who also, I should mention not a UT grad. Okay. By the way.

But he has a real vested interest in what the student body looks like all of a sudden. Exactly. How disgusting is that? I mean, that is Bo French. This is nothing about what Beau French said that night is like out of character for him. That is exactly who Bo French is. And that is who Republicans have up for a major statewide office in Texas. And again, this is not guy on Twitter, though he also very much is guy on Twitter.

This is somebody who's going to walk into a statewide office in November in Texas. Yeah, man. Yeah. He's tweeting that during the University of Texas game. I mean, dude, I feel like, like, and I've seen a lot of, you know, a lot of state Republicans, like, even John Cornyn's, you know, has, you know, called for, condemned those statements and called on him to apologize. Of course, he's doubled down. But, I mean, Beau French is somebody who was too.

racist for the Tarrant County GOP. Like he was an active, he was big in the Tarrant County GOP, and basically they had to get him up out of there. And it's just I mean, what are we supposed to do with that, you know? This is an amazing collection of responses from Republicans. State Senator Drew Darby, who's a Republican.

This is racism, plain and simple. Should we talk about 60 minutes, as long as we're reacting to things that happened this weekend? Yeah, why not? So 60 minutes season 59 premiere right after football on Sunday I'm watching that

famous 60 minutes open where the correspondence identify themselves and my first thought was finally America knows how to pronounce Douth it has any writer

gotten as famous as Ross without with so many people not being totally sure how to pronounce his surname. I mean, if you don't check out his podcast, there's just no way to, you know, doubt it. Doubt it. They did three pieces. They led with what you call in TV a great get. An interview with the Air Force Colonel who was shot down over Iran and rescued.

Yep. They didn't name him. No. He used his call sign, Bravo. Mm-hmm. Nor O'Donnell did the interview. What did you make of the first? first piece from last night on 60 Minutes?

I mean, there's two pieces of it. It's obviously a great get. And that's totally in keeping with the 60 Minutes legacy, that they get those kind of interviews. And allegedly, this goes back to the old regime. Like, as soon as that pilot went down and it was recovered, 60 Minutes was working to get that interview. And then Barry Weiss stepped in to help using her connections at the White House.

So it was a long process of getting that. So, I mean, to get the interview itself, that's incredible. Now, the substance of the interview, you know, I guess it kind of depends on where you come from on this. And I would have to compare it to other pieces on the military. But knowing what we know about Paramount, CBS, Barry Wise, it'd be fair to say that this kind of seems soft, right? And you got, and the thing is, Pete Hegseth does not really deal with the media that much. Like, that's just not, he's not in front anymore, right? Like, that's just, you think?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's, he's taking the opposite tag, which is, I'm going to stop the media at every possible opportunity. Yeah. Covering the Pentagon. Yeah. And from reporting, we know now, I think with the Daily Beast and CNN, some people that have reported that Pete Hegseth was desirous of having this piece done. and even lobbied for both of those pilots to appear, only one did.

So you might ask, like, why a guy that does not like media, that is, you know, very skeptical of media. Like, why was he so excited to do this piece? There's a reason for that, I would say. So, yeah. So on the one hand, it's a story of heroism. It's a positive story out of the Iran War, which that's probably harder for, to get in the,

newspaper or on television. There's not many of those. That's reason one for him being desirous. And reason two is his stated feelings about David Ellison. Yes, right. Remember that press conference in the spring where he said the sooner David

Ellison takes over the better? He was talking about CNN. It seems important that Pete Hexeth praised David Ellison and then gave David Ellison's news network the exclusive Iran story. Yeah.

Huge scoop. That's right. I'm just, I'm not, you know, Woodward and Bernsteining too hard to connect some dots here. Right. And I don't, and I don't, you know, underestimate all the lobbying that went on,

not just from Barry Weiss, but from the actual producer of that segment. Mm-hmm. And Noro Donald and everybody else to get that done because that's, again, that is a story that every news network, every newspaper would have taken that. Every, every, that is one of a hundred percent, everybody wanted this story of how this,

pilot was rescued, both pilots. Right. But, come on. Yeah, man. I mean, again, it is a public service to get that interview. But again, there wasn't a lot of questioning.

They did say something about a largely unpopular war, right? In the narration. Right. But that was about the only way that they hinted at it or, you know, any other problems that are going on with the war.

Right. So can I ask you about that? because I had the same feeling when I'm watching it. I'm like, was there a way to ask Hegson about the fact that the reason this guy's life and the lives of the people that rescued him were in danger was because Donald Trump started a war with Iran?

Was there a way to do that in the interview and thread that into the piece so it didn't just sound strange and discordant? It could have been asked the way you just did to be honest I mean I don't I don't think there would have been anything out of pocket about that but I have to assume

either it happened and it didn't make the final cut because of whatever or that's not a question they were allowed to ask yeah or just or just sometimes it's like you're told that he's just not going to engage on that

you know the only thing he's interested in talking about is a specific rescue there are ways that can be handled right it's not that it's off limits it's just that he's not gonna I mean look he has no interest in engaging on that question. Of course.

With anybody except, maybe with nobody is the answer to that, right? I was going to say Fox News, but I'm not even sure he wants to engage with Fox News on that question. He doesn't want to engage with anybody. He wants, this is a piece of pure, daring, do, and heroism. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And, you know, and I was like, and I did go back and forth on that a little bit. I'm like, do you think, you know, even in wars that are misbegotten, is there a straight story to do about this happened to this person you know

here are the people that went and rescued him or do you have to put in that question not just narration but an actual question to the Secretary of Defense I think so because we need to the Pat Tillman incident is another reason why I think journalists should always be asking why we're

risking people in their name for this sort of stuff right um and like peak heckseth got to have a pat tillman that didn't die basically and it's so you get to have a hero and everybody gets to look like a hero and we were never going to you know we were going to get and we didn't take matter how many people it took to get him and they get to look very heroic and very and i mean competent like this this appears to have been one of the few competent portions of the operation and there wasn't much pushback and i mean again I don't know.

I mean, I, would you, would you risk not being able to run the story for that? I don't know. I don't work at CBS. I don't think. Do I think the people who run CBS News would have risked it? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So yeah.

So, what would you have done in that circumstance? I think I would have wanted to ask Higgs. Yeah. I think you would have wanted to ask the question. And even if he didn't engage on it. Mm-hmm. And even if you said, hey, look, we have. like a narrative here, so we're going to have to pick our spot of how we do that. I would have wanted

to tell the audience, we asked and he didn't answer, right? Or we asked and he said he would just wanted to talk about the rescue. Just so the audience knew that it was in our minds. I mean, that's some of it sometimes, right? Sometimes you don't get the answer from the principle you want. He's not going to be like, you know what? You're right. The war was a mistake. You're right. It's not going to say that. But you do want the audience to know that you were thinking about it. if you're a show like 60 minutes. Also, and by the way, I would recommend people read

Zachary Cohen and Brian Stelter's piece on CNN.com about how this interview came together, not only the lobbying from CBS, but Pete Hanks' interest in getting both pilots on camera. One of them declined, according to CNN, but getting both pilots who were rescued in Iran. Here's the other thing about this. Nobody doubted Barry Weiss's enthusiasm for booking.

she was a booker at the New York Times in the opinion section. She's been a booker since she's been at CBS News. Remember when she got like Hillary Clinton for random hits? That's not what's at issue here. What's at issue is the reporting and the treatment and the framing and the fairness of the story. Right. Of the actual story. She has a fantastic roller decks.

But it's just like to what extent is that serving the viewing public? That's the question. always been the question. Yeah. And by the way, they didn't hire so that they could get more celebrities on the air, get more, you know, get more gets. That's just, that's not what happened here. So, yeah.

Second piece was Leslie Stahl on pardon procurers. Mm-hmm. How many, how much, when I was watching this, I was watching watching this plane last night. And when she mentioned Boozy's name, I just was like, I can't wait for Joel to see and hear this. I was such a special moment. I was so excited for her to say Boosie badass.

It was so funny. I was like, yeah, man. Do you think that's the first time Leslie saw it ever heard a little Boosie? Yeah, 1,000 percent. Gotta be. Got to be. One thousand million percent. I mean, man, people who don't know Boosie or follow him on social media, man.

They don't even know the half. Like, they just don't. You don't even know the half about Boosie. But, yeah, I mean, I thought, again, that is. a good story. Right? It's a really good story to get that and they did some, you know,

hidden camera work. Hidden camera work. It's some things that, yeah, they've not done a while, but they had a lot to say about the pardon brokers, but not so much about why that market exists. Like, they do talk about it. Like, it comes up. It comes up.

It comes up. The expert that they were interviewing, the law professor. Yes. He mentioned it. Yes. But it did, it was one of those pieces where I was like, the scenery here is very interesting. So they have this guy who's like a wild animal procurer. Second time he was procurer here. And somehow he was trying to get a pardon.

Yeah. So then he participates in the CBS exercise where they get the people who are helping with pardons to come and they put some hidden cameras in there like Mike Wallace against the crooked insurance guy from 1978. All that is very interesting. and it's all very well done. But I came away like you at the end of the thing,

I'm like, but this is all because Trump is handing out pardons in this particular way, right? That's the story. Right. And the fact that somebody would spring up to lobby Trump or just put this name in front of him so he can go, yep, that sounds great.

That's all just all feels very downstream from the actual story. Yeah, right. It's just, I mean, yeah. So it was good, but it was also like, okay. Yeah. It left for a little something to be. desired. Brian, what's your favorite Boosie song?

Mind of a Maniac. Okay. All right. Number one. Okay. That's what the big one. Okay. I was thinking about that during the UT game, actually, just coincidentally. Really? You know, I'm more of a wipe me down guy because that just really, you know, that's an era when I was out in the streets a little bit more or whatever. So, you know, but yeah, I hear you. Okay. That's my second choice.

Second choice. Third piece was John Worthheim on the Rams. Yes. Sean McVeigh. We got to see him shirtless. Did you know that Sean McVeigh was ripped like that? That was amazing. I didn't.

I mean, God. That was the funniest part of the whole thing was that he'd taken a shirtless pick with his wife on a boat. Yeah. Sean McVeigh take vacations. I guess that was kind of a buried, buried lead there. All the Rams saw in the locker room. And it was funny. And it was also like, coach's rip.

Do you think he has better abs than Matt Stafford? Oh, yeah. He's got a, I mean, I don't know. if he's going to talk because Aaron Donald, well actually, I mean, Miles Garrett has the best body in that locker room probably. I mean, that, yeah, he's, Miles Garrett is a freak man. He's cut. But Aaron

Donald is like a 300 pound guy with abs. Like, he has like cuts. Like, there's nobody that looks like that. And I was like, man, you know, Sean is Vey right there with it, man. I didn't, I had no idea. This piece was fine. It's a

sort of the classic third piece. on 60 minutes. We need something fun. We need something light. We got the famous football guys in here. My one question about this was like, we now live in this society where information is instant and things change. When the Rams got blown out on Thursday night. Got their ass kicked, man.

They got their ass kicked, lost by multiple touchdowns. When it was announced Sunday morning in the NFL pregame shows that Miles Garrett was going to have to have surgery. and miss at least four games. Was there any thought about having John Worthyme get to a studio and re-record that narration? That's a good question. Because I was like, this should have been, we can do this now. Like this should be part of the piece.

You know, this doesn't have to be locked days in advance. Now, this is the kind of piece you do want to lock days in advance because it's a little bit of a, it's a week one. I wouldn't say Evergreen because it's kind of a week one story, but NFL story. but it's also just like I think you want to at least tell viewers hey even if all this stuff was taped a while ago we know what happened in the NFL over the last couple of days

right and the head coach I mean I guess yeah the head coach of the Super Bowl favorite going into the year and yes it's like things kind of went off the rails over there in Australia but yeah I'd you know yeah man it was I mean it was about what you would expect from the third the third piece it's interesting too that you say that because I was like, man, just myself, I was working on a piece about doubting Bill Belichick

and I, you know, leaned on some folks to get some sources. And I need to call them back and Peter, you know, but I was like, you're going to have to put a hold on that story real quick, you know what I'm saying? I mean, since they beat TCU, there have been developments in that program. Yes. You didn't just run it anyway, yeah. Yeah, it's not really time for that. So I don't know how that works.

But, you know, again, when it's a little more evergreen, they probably want that to be the story. They have to do the least changes, too, I imagine. The last moment of the show, the Andy Rooney slot, was Ross Douthit. Douthit. I said that correctly. You did it. Talking about AI and essentially saying, like, hey, AI is really important right now

and not just, right now means like in the next year. It's important we do this. I didn't totally understand what was going on here if he was teasing. a Ross doubt that on AI piece that's coming up, if he's working on something, or it's like, honestly, we didn't get Stephen A or John Cleese for this segment,

so we just need somebody to talk right now for a minute. So you were confused about that, too. I was like, is there something going to happen? It was really weird. I mean, I think it was partly like, Ross is our biggest get,

so let's get him on camera. It's what we just need to find something for him to do in the opening episode, even if he doesn't have a piece, so we're just going to have him talk for a minute and be the smart guy. But honestly, I don't know if it was just me. I watched this twice. The audio on that thing sounded really, really screwed up and strange.

And if we had put audio like that out on the press box, I would have sent a note being like, what happened? It was really odd. And they were trying to also, there was all this stuff that was in Ben Mullen's piece in The Times a while back about trying to class up 60 minutes or actually just modernize it. It's plenty of classy. modernize it, make it more

2026. A little sleek. A little sleeker. So they took like a magazine style cover that's behind these guys' heads when they are gals heads in Leslie's case, when they announced the piece, and they just made it horizontal. That was the change. It was like, guys, it still looks exactly the same. I don't even think most people notice the

difference. Right. Also, I mean, again, we heard so much, I mean, obviously we know they were scrambling, man. Like, they've had to do a lot of changes to just get up to speed and have something to show. And I guess by the standard of what we thought it might look like, they succeeded. But that's 60 minutes.

Like you, I thought this was a whole, like all this shit. Scott Pelly, like, Tatanya sign, all these people out the door, you did 60 minutes.

Like, where is, where are you going to be doing the other stuff that's supposed to modernize all this? And like, you know, I guess maybe it'll be online and there'll be other little segments or whatever, but like maybe that's to come. But all that height.

I talked about that on Thursday a little bit. That's attention, right? Mm-hmm. You have to modernize it or you say you want to modernize it. I don't know if you have to. It's still like a wildly popular television show. Yeah. But you also don't want to make it so different that the people who tune in are like, what the hell is this?

Yeah. So it kind of has to be 60 minutes. There has to be a stopwatch. but again, watching how they knack. And again, before we give Barry Weiss, before we have to hand it to Barry Weiss, I just want to say, this was a hit television show. She didn't create a hit television show on Sunday night.

No. She just didn't screw it up yet, at least like in terms of the bigness of it. I'll put it that way. It may have screwed up the editorial, but like, okay, it felt like a big episode, a season premiere type show. We'll see on the ratings.

I don't know if those are out. yet at the point we were recording this, but it was as popular as it had been in a very long time last season, right? And so by that standard, but, you know, they're going to be judged by that, but clearly it doesn't matter. Like, that's the, you know, I don't know what David Ellison, what his plans are, what he really wants to happen over there, but results are clearly not, you know, ratings, accolades. That's, that's not the standard he's using over there. over to judge what's going on, so who knows? Do you think 60 minutes would put

Ted Cruz on for an eight-minute segment on the Protect College Sports site? Hey, you know what? That might, is that next Sunday? We need to find. We were us. Talk college football.

They can talk about all the trades that are going on in college football. Oh, man. I mean, just please talk about Ivy League football, man. Anyway, don't get me started on that. My last weekend reaction. Okay. The CBS,

NFL pregame show. Yeah. Otherwise known as the NFL today. Mm-hmm. The venerable NFL today. Not quite as venerable as 60 minutes, but it goes back to the 70s. Mm-hmm. They did it on the road at Minneapolis.

So it was really like a kind of game day light kind of atmosphere. And I don't know how much you watch this, but they came in and it's James Brown and the crew and everybody's cheering, you know, some people are cheering behind them. Yeah. The people look a lot older than the people at Game Day. It kind of looks like if college game day was filmed at the villages in Florida. Oh, my God. You know, like, hey, and we're all behind him here.

I never thought about how much older the NFL fans must be than college football fans. Now you mention it. Way older. And especially people, that was a late game. Oh, man. So that was like four and a half hours before kickoff from. get my timing rights and just think of who's coming to the parking lot that early yeah somebody just trying to beat traffic and they had a funny moment where they did the game day thing where

they did the big overhead shot and you could see that there were only people behind the set yeah then there was this area in front of the set there was like you know a tiny number like like one deep it was like guys if we're gonna just lift all the best parts of college game day don't don't do the overhead shot when you don't have a crowd out here. I mean, man, just go back to the studio, bro. Just go back to the studio. Or do it from a bar or something. Like that, that's what radio shows do, right?

Yeah, bar would be kind of fun. Yeah, like, right. Next door, you know. Pick a sports bar in Minneapolis. Yeah, go do it. But anyway. It was funny. They also did, you know, game day, they bring out the food.

And all the hosts eat the food. That's always my people that my son will just come and say, oh, look, the food's here. You know, like, I don't even know what this college game they're talking about. But look at that. I want to eat. That little spread, uh-huh. Nate Burleson was passing out the new Arby's steak nuggets because it was a sponsored segment to the crowd.

What? It's like, you want some steak nuggets. And I just, that was so funny to me. Oh, my God. So try hard. I don't want to, I don't even know if I should say this, but have you, do you remember the Simpsons joke about Arby's? No.

Oh, man. Where it's like, I can't remember there's like some roadkill or something in the, it happens in the backyard. All right. At home, it's like, let's just throw it over in the RBI's parking lot. I'm sure they don't know what to do with it. It kind of messed me up. Because I love the beef and cheddar at Arvarez.

I do too. I grew up loving the beef and cheddar. But it messed me up for a little bit, I got to say. Arby sauce or horsy sauce? Oh, Arby sauce. What about you? Horsesies sauce. That's always scared me.

So, yeah, Arby sauce. Yeah, that's the right answer. I'm not a spicy guy. Russell also. He's so perfect for CBS. He was like, Robert Saul is a culture guy. I'm like, do tell. Okay. Can we get to just leave it there?

We're going to explain Robert Sala and all the success he's had. I thought the Tiki Barber thing got people out of like, let's get this guy because he seems like he'll be good on camera. He presents well. And I like, I like Russ as a person. Like, I don't have any beef with him. But I never occurred to me that he would be interesting in that role. No. Yeah.

Absolutely not. But again, he's very CBS in the sense of like. like we're not going to, he's never going to embarrass you, right? He's just going to, he's going to, a nice opinion. Yeah. By the way, the difference in hype between Russ and Kyle Long. Oh, man, I know. That was almost Noah Eagle versus Luke Keekely.

He was shot of the booth. I was like, whoa. Yeah, man. No, man, no. The other notable thing from the CBS pregame was they brought out the new and temporary number one crew of Jim Nance and JJ Watt. Mm-hmm. Can we agree that James Brown, J.B., as he's known to Legeons of fans, doesn't say anything by accident.

You know, he's smooth, he's on message, he knows where he's going. This is what he said when they came out to do a live shot. Jim Nance and J.J. Watt, boy, that rolls right off your tongue. Is Tony Romo coming back to the number one crew, Joel, I ask again? I mean, I just No No Right?

No I find that very hard to imagine He may come back But not in that number one seat Yeah I mean he's good He's good too I mean that's the thing

Yeah Likeable person so yeah There's stuff to play out here That I don't understand But That did not feel like The introduction Of the temporary number one crew

To me That felt like Here it is. Here it is. Maybe we'll make an announcement at some point, but here it is, folks. I mean, you know, everybody gets, you can't get Wally pimped, man. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that is a very competitive job.

Anything that can be used against you, there's so many people waiting to feel your spot, like, at this point in broadcasting. So, yeah, it's unfortunate for Tony Romo, but, you know, JJ White, he was in right position. He's been good. Yeah, more than capable. of handling it. Yeah. And also I watched, I heard a lot of Ross Tucker.

He got bumped up to the number two booth with Ian Eagle. Mm-hmm. And they had Colts Texans, which was honestly maybe the best matchup of the day. That was one I was like,

Bill's Texans. Bill's Texans, thank you very much. Bill's Texans, which is the matchup that I can't say, but that I was looking forward to the most really, really fun, crazy game.

He sounded great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was like, oh, well, maybe we're all locked in here. I caught a little bit of that. Yeah. What did you think?

Tomlin. So I was on the plane yesterday and I'd not get to see him in full. The first week I thought he was pretty generic. Yeah. I did not think he was used well. I think the thing is these pregame shows are so broken. It's hard to tell a lot of the time because they just don't have time to show what makes them talented.

Right. That's right. Bill was a fan of his halftime thing this week. But I was otherwise encumbered. So I did not see it. I was watching the game, but I didn't see it. see that part. All right, you got anything else?

Well, are we closing the show? Are we almost done? We can, I'm, the floor is yours. Oh, no, well, I get, I just got to say something because this is me being responsible. Today is my baby's second birthday today, little Lonnie Bell Anderson, man. So just the sun, just a ray of sunshine, man. Just the light of my life, bro. So yeah, so he's turning two today.

So we're gonna have a little fun with her. Thank you. Yeah. observed that was the party we yeah we did a little stuff yeah we had the cake and took her to the park and we even did the family photo shoot the whole nine so yeah it was it was it was it was dope it worked out is there anything more fun than a child's birthday not man i mean first part you get cake you know you said you get the cake and then yeah man they're just i mean the thing is Lonnie's not really at an age but she did kept she kept saying party party so she knows that something cool was going

you know and it was for her and it was for her and it was for her and And her big brother allowed her to celebrate. That has been a difficult thing. That's always a lot of tension. Yeah. It's not your day. But he gets, you know, we worked him in, make him feel like he's a part of the whole thing.

So that helped. So, yeah. That is so cute. Yeah. All right. That's a press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis.

Predaxi magic. By Isaiah Blakely and John. Not bones. Jones. Boom. Follow us over on Instagram at Pressbox Ringer. If you need to email us, pressbox ringer at gmail.com. I'm going to go sleep for a couple of days before coming back with Shoemaker on Thursday.

You need a break. I need a break. Also, in the ringer headquarters here in Los Angeles this week, Logan Murdoch and Howard Beck. Really? You may be hearing from them on the press box. They're coming into it some fun preseason stuff. So we're going to have more. Various issues.

I got a text Logan. He didn't tell me about this, man. Okay. Oh, really? he didn't no i mean you know he texts me about all kind of other stuff he can't wait when i fuck up on the internet or whatever people are yelling me he didn't say anything about this so i'm gonna have to follow up with him oh wait till here's your podcast oh my god i'm just kidding all right jall see you next monday with more lukewarm takes about the meeting looking forward to everybody