The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Domonique Foxworth on A.J. Brown's unhappiness, Potential WNBA labor strife, Shedeur Sanders "comments" | 10.03

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Bomani Jones is joined by Domonique Foxworth for another edition of Foxworth Friday. They start the show by discussing the strangely successful Eagles season so far and whether Jalen Hurts can keep AJ Brown happy. Later, they break down Napheesa Collier's harsh criticism of the WNBA commissioner and why they believe the WNBA is heading for a work stoppage. Finally, they react to Shedeur Sanders' silence when being asked about Dillion Gabriel being named the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. 00:00 - Introduction 06:10 - Eagles' ups and downs 17:00 - Liam Coen vs. Robert Saleh 27:50 - WNBA Labor strife incoming 41:00 - Could Caitlin Clark start her own league? 49:00 - Shedeur Sanders: Mimetime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. He only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Foxworth Friday.

Dominique Foxworth was going on. Not much, man. Feeling good. Feeling good. How about you? Hey, man. It's all right over here. It's turning autumnal.

And I realize that I have lived in this city quite a while, that I'm like, ooh, is that a little crisp in the air? It feels good, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, I've never been that person. Now I'm like, if we can get a little orange in these trees. I mean, I think like, now that I don't go to school, I feel like the fall, like, there's a sweet spot in the fall that's just the best. Like, the fall sucks when I went to school because it was like, all right, summer's over.

It's the end of fun. But, like, now, as an adult, like, summer's great. I mean, all the seasons have that thing, but as an adult, it's like fall, when it get a little bit cold, you get into the 60s? Yeah. Yeah, summer, I don't know if it's because of the global warming or just be aged.

Summer don't hit exactly like it used to. Like, summer got a bunch of dope activities, man, but summer got a lot of that heat. Yeah, and I mean, I don't know how much of your summer you spend up there in Manhattan, but I love that city, but it's such a wonderful walkable. city. However, in summer, it's like two blocks I'm soaking and it's just, it's not, or you're going damn funky ass subway. See, that's the thing. The dilemma of summer for me on where to be is that

you pay the price of the winter and the summer really pays off in a lot of cool ways when it pays off. So I used to do like all my travel in the summer, but then I was like, wait a minute, I'm doing this wrong, right? So you can't really, for example, do if you want to do like southern hemisphere travel. I mean, you could go during the summer to be winter somewhere else. It's not how I was raised, but I suppose you have the option. So, you know, you kind of got to do that early. And now I'm trying to spend a little bit more time around here. But then your homies be bouncing around at all these different times and everything else.

Like, it's not, yeah, I think you just hit it, man. Some of them have something different when it meant what you didn't have to, which was go to school. And I think you and I, when you just said homies bouncing around, you and I probably have a couple sets of friends, which I imagine a lot of people do where it's weird to, and it's a newer group, my newer group of friends who don't have kids

who have adult kids and have like a good amount of money. Like it's a weird place to be when you text your homeboy and he's just not there. And you're like, every time you text him, he's like, no, I'm here, I'm there. Like, that just was never something

that I had to consider and there's a certain group of my friends. I know where they ask gonna be all the time. And they tell, Tell me when they're going to be somewhere else. They're so excited. They've been telling me about it for months. And I'm like, I know that Johnny going to be in Mexico in May.

Because Johnny been telling me for a year, he'd go to Mexico in May. But some of these people, especially in New York, I come to New York often and I text some of my New York friends who are like later life friends who are doing interesting things. Like, hey, I'm in town. You're going to grab data? I'm in Paris. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I realize is that, like, I ain't got, like, a crew.

Yeah. I have, like, lots of friends in different places, but no, like, crew. And crew become kind of important in New York because one thing you do on the weekends in the summer here is a very broad term called go upstate, right? You go to some pretty place that's not far away, but that's a crew endeavor. Yeah, that's definitely a crew endeavor. I mean, the crew, the adult crew is, like, like in many ways it's substitute,

especially if you don't have kids. It's like, there's some things you can't, you can't go to like, I went to Martha's Vineyard for the first time this year. Eh, you can't really do that alone. Like, that's not a show up alone. You got to, if you don't got family or kids or whatever, then you need a crew.

Yes. I'll go across the world by myself. To the cat skills, I'd like to have a crew. Right? Like, I'd like to do things that you do with crews, right? This is, I'd say, not just a person, right, but a crew, because I also feel like like you go to the places, just two people, damn, we're going to get tired of each other quick.

Do people still have like, I mean, maybe it's just me, but I think my friends are, my groups are kind of like you where it's like, yeah, I don't know, something here or there, something there, whatever, but are there, I guess there, most people probably do, like, stay in the area that they grew up with and their high school crew, still a crew. That's nice. No, no, no, no. People in New York got crews, okay? Here's what I have concluded, though, about the crew-up nature of New York, and it's a very, very important thing,

which is I got here with just a little bit too much money. Crews are we getting through this together. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like the crew is developed in part by necessity. We work together. We in here networking. You know, we've been, like,

I've seen you at a few of the same events because y'all are all out here trying to do the same thing. I don't traffic in those spaces. Like at the point in which I got to this city, I wouldn't live in that life no more, right? So I got a crew. My crew don't all like really live here though, right? Like we have the group chat dinner.

Yeah, that's our crew. That's our crew. That's a crew with four people who live in three different cities. Yeah. And one person who, yeah, lives in kind of lives in another continent, another person whose job takes them all over place. I never know where none of y'all are. And then you, like, just pop up.

and going a solo trip to a fucking Ricky of it. I'm going to Vietnam tomorrow. Like what? Yes. Vietnam. It's wild times, man. It's wild times. Speaking of wild times,

I'll get us to the football. This just happens. Me and Dominique just have such a good time. We'd be able to do this as often. So we get together, we get reacquainted, and everybody else gets reacquainted with us. And I feel kind of like I talk about the Eagles a lot, but on one hand, I should talk about the Eagles a lot.

Like people complain when you talk about the Cowboys too much because they're not good. But the Eagles are good. And we talk about them a lot because the fun is, good, but we get to talk about them like they're not. Like if we're being honest, it's much more fun to talk about a team that is not that good than it is to talk about a team that is good. There's just not nearly as much material, but a team with a really good record that does

not really good things, buddy, that is the cash money spot. And when you're like me and you feel that way about the quarterback and the coach, you are rich with material. I mean, it's the perfect lane, too, because people love to get mad. Like, there's one of two things I feel like people fall into these groups. If it's a local fan base, they need somebody yell at. They're going to watch you, retweet you or whatever, because you make them mad. If it's other people, I think they like to understand what's going on and feel smart.

And so it's great if there's a four and no team, but I'm able to tell you what's wrong with them. So then when you go out, you're like, hey, I know you like them. However, they, I mean, they don't never throw the ball on first down. They think they're going to run like that. That is the sweet spot into the Eagles. They're giving it to us the same way the Chiefs gave it to us last year. It's just perfect. Close games that they shouldn't be close in.

Oh, yeah, they feeding the beast. But the difference is, and I had literally forgotten about this. Like, I don't think I've really talked about it. I think Deonté Lee, who we had on earlier this week, and for the people who have said it, don't you worry, he'll be back. I had kind of forgotten about the epic collapse of 2003 where they started 10 and 1 and it all fell apart

and it fell apart in such a way that I know I felt this way. I know my buddy Nick felt this way. We thought it was impossible for them to bring Siriotti back. And then at the beginning of last year, Siri Hadi had the thing where he got into the argument with the fans and I have a tweet that people love to break out where I'm like, look, y'all just going wait before y'all fire him

because you're going to fire him. And don't get me wrong. they're going to fire him. They just won a Super Bowl before they did. So now they're out here, and you know, you watch the film in ways I don't. I see the homie Dan Orlovsky make the point that all A.J. Brown out here doing is running goes and hitches.

Like, that's all it is. It seems to be an offense that you run when you don't think you're a Super Bowl MVP quarterback is actually that good. Like people get mad at me for saying Jaila Hertz ain't that good. What do you think about them? They around them every day, and they telling you that he ain't that good.

It does feel like it's funny. I just had this random thought, and just before I got on here, I just looked up time on the play clock before you snap the ball, just because I was wondering. And I know it's an obscure thing to look up, but they're 31st in the league for with 6.5 seconds on the clock on average before they snapped the ball. And the reason why I looked that up is because it feels like if you are playing in a game that you don't feel like you deserve to win or you're better in your opponent, you're trying to milk the clock. I guess I was trying to figure out why they run the ball on first down so often when it's not working and just get an idea for what they're trying to do.

And it seems like when you have an ultra-talented team, we want high pace. More plays we play, the more chances we have to demonstrate that we're better than you guys. If you want, if you're in a close situation or you feel like you're a weaker team, you have fewer plays. Like, then it increases the volatility of the situation. Like, we only got to. 10 plays, we might win on five. If we got 50 plays, we ain't going to win on 25. So it was just weird to me

to see that that was also consistent with the way that they were playing. And I think you mentioned earlier they were like never again. I think they also looked at the reason why they were losing and it was turnovers and it was interceptions from

from Jalen and they were like never again. We're not, We're not going to do it unless we have to. And I know Dan pointed out the fades or the goes and hitches, they run a little bit of slants. They also don't run very much play action, which is nuts to me.

When you are a team that is known for running the ball, and the play action that they do run, if you watch it, you'll see it's like, it's not real play action. It's just like he kind of faints the ball in the direction out of shotgun and then throws it deep. There's so many effective plays out there that they could be running that they could steal.

from teams that they play against, like the Rams that they just don't. And it doesn't make sense to me that they don't want to win games, like put teams away when they're obviously better than everybody. Yeah, and this, you know, I think that as the year goes on, it will continue to look like it looks right now, which is to say it will become clear and clear that the best team in the NFC is the Detroit Lions. Right now, they look like the best.

They out here playing like the best, and I think it's just because they are the best, and I know that people still struggle to wrap their minds around that idea, but they out here looking like the best. However, they are never as terrifying as the Eagles are terrified when the Eagles choose to terrify. And because the Eagles terrifying can be done with pressure with four, right? Like the idea that they can still just mob on you. Pressure with four, and we have sharks back here.

That part's not going to change. Yeah. They've gotten weaker at the pressure with four, but I mean, also a lot of it is injury related. Apparently Jalen Carter has some sort of injury situation that's slowing them down, Nolan Smith's out of there, but they still do have. I mean, Jordan Davis, we saw a couple weeks ago where he kind of single-handedly won that game. So, like, they have the talent there. But they kind of transitioned from where they had waves of pressure up front to now. feeling like a more linebacker-centric, a more secondary-centric team. And that dude, Quignan Mitchell, like, we don't talk about them enough. Like, we get a lot of attention to the exciting whites and Zach Bond.

But Quinyon out there, man, he's playing defense in a way. Maybe they'll call it a little closer because he's a little grabby, but he's locking people down, man. And it's making it easier for them to do so many other things because they aren't, aren't dominating up front on offense or defensive line the way that we kind of come to expect them to, and we still kind of give them that benefit of the doubt. But on offensive line, in particular, like, that's kind of the problem with the running game right now. They're not, they was pushing people back last year. They're not doing that now.

Well, let me ask you this, too. Have we simply become more sophisticated as, like, fans and media, or is A.J. Brown just really good at it. And what I'm saying is his give me the damn ball speech sounds more selfless than anybody's giving me the ball speech. has sounded, right? Because we talked about this. This used to happen all the time, and the underrated part of it is just because we win and doesn't mean it's right, you know?

And so for him, he's like, yeah, man, you know, I just think we'd be a lot better if we got me to ball. And guess what? I think the exact same thing. Like, that is always a tricky situation when the solution is do the thing that's best for me, but that really is the solution and nobody else

to say. I think that's an evolution of media, honestly. So I'm going to Evolutions of media are better. Some of them are worse. This is one that I think is better is that we take people's complaints, not all of them, but some people's complaints, people with credibility. We take their complaints and then we go match it up with what we see it. And we all see it. And the funny thing is A.J. Brown is not the spearhead of this conversation. Oftentimes it's the receiver who's the spearhead of it. And then we go back and look and like, you're going to, y'all winning, y'all fine. You just being selfish. A.J. Brown is. is late. He's saying it after we've been saying it. Like, get him the ball. He's good. These matchups are in your favor.

And so, yeah, I think it's easy when he's saying what we're saying. He just said it after we said it. And he used in the Bible. It always helps to use the Bible. People like that, man. People like that. He did use the Bible. They tried to say he was talking about something else.

Well, what was you talking about? And he used books last year. It's like, yeah, hey, I'm just reading. man. Just love to read. Self help. I'm all about that. And also, Jesus. Now, throw me the ball. I appreciated him reading last year because it was a physical book on top of that. I ain't even realized nobody his age was still getting down like that. It was a prop is what it was. It was a Kindle. We'd have thought he was looking at plays. He was like, let me bring this book out here so y. Y. B'all can see this. But you know who is the big winner from A.J. Brown's

situation? Is Devante Smith? Because something I will always remember is last year when A.J. Brown had one of the, it was in the locker room where he was given the quotes. Mike Silsky, the great Mike Silski, columnist in Philadelphia, always made the point of that day. He was like, Devante Smith was over there saying the exact same thing. Right?

So like, AJ Brown doesn't he gets to say it all? Then DeVonte Smith, I wonder if he's over here like, I bet y'all would listen to me if I was taller. I don't know what it is, but he over there saying the exact same thing. But, I mean, to be fair, to Devante Smith is he ain't saying it in the way the same way you know

I'll never forget this it was when I think I forgot who he was in a beef with it might have been I don't know I shouldn't speculate but AJ had some sort of on-field issue with a player and it stuck with me that he responded to the video it might have been CJ now he didn't play with him but anyway it doesn't matter some DB that he was mad at

and DB was talking all this trash online, and AJ put up a video that said, I'm with the shits. I suspect that AJ Brown knows what he's doing what he's talking to the media. I do not think that AJ Brown uses indirect communication in the locker room. I don't suspect that he is quoting the Bible

where people are pissing him off. I think that he's saying what he need to say to them in the building. And Devante can't speak for him, but generally that's not his vibe. He seems like a, I mean, not that AJ's not a good guy, but Devonthe's like, hey, I'm going to go with it. I'm cool. AJ has told us he's with the shits. Speaking of direct conversations implied being with shits, we talked on Monday about Robert Sala,

low-key threatening to kill Liam Cohen. We are not, I mean, look, we're not treating it like that's what he did. I will end your fucking life is like, we treat death threats with a level of seriousness that we haven't treated this one with is all I'm saying. Like I don't know what the gap is

between I will end your life and a death threat. Because apparently there's a space between the two. No, there's no space between the two. I think that, okay, here's an example for you. There are certain places, certain rooms

in your house that is okay to say and do certain things. If you said and did the things that you say and do to a person in that room on the street, you're in trouble. Keep your hands to yourself and don't call me out my name. Unless. Right?

And that's how I feel about things that take place on the football field. They were still inside the white lines. Inside the white lines, can say and do certain things. But I'm going to make the point that the example that you are providing is undergirded by a notion of consent that clearly did not exist in this case because Liam Cohen was trying so hard to run away. He turned around and came back.

But I think that it's the consent is implied. You don't show up to a football game and think your life's not going to get threatened. Oh, implied consent. That's a dangerous face. Not on football. Not on football football. Football does not require enthusiasm

with the he told that man, I will eat your life. By the way, it doesn't sound like that's how he normally So, no, it's definitely not how he normally talked.

But I've threatened a life or two on the football field. I didn't meet it. I've had my life threatened a couple times out there. And then afterwards, it was good. These aren't players.

They don't matter. matter. I know what you're saying. I hear you. I hear you. Time and place, right? Time in place makes certain things possible. I just, that is the obvious explanation for what it is. It's just so funny to me. And as I look back on it, I was like, yo, Robert Solid was really talking a big game and then came back the next day like it didn't happen. It was like when Pac-Man Joe's lost his mind in that playoff game where all the crazy Bengals did crazy things. And then like 10 minutes after the game, He was like, oh, baby, I'm good, I'm good. It's a wild place, man.

Like, I think it's not a normal workplace. I mean, we have labor issues that other people can understand and relate to, but there's some things about the workplace that are different. One of those things is when you leave your house in the morning, your life might get threatened. It might get threatened. It's a workplace for fighting your coworkers is on the board. It's a workplace that I think you would have appreciated.

Well, I will say this. You knowing me the way you know me and different things about me and my time in this business, yes. Which you said to be very early in us working together has stuck with me forever is that what you missed about football was the accountability. Loved it, man. And I was like, oh, yeah, I totally 100% see that. We did an interview once with Rashad Mendenhall on HQ. And he said, it really took him a long time. Sean King, you talked about this too, getting into media and realize maybe not everybody else is soft, right?

Because all you do coming out of football is think that everybody else in the world is soft. I mean, yeah, but there are, I don't want to sound like some Manosphere podcaster guy, but there are some values to a place where, and it don't feel good to be the one who's getting a But it's real, man. Like, I can't say that it never hurt my feelings when a coach or a teammate was like, get it to fuck together. I didn't love it. But I do miss the times when I'm able to tell somebody, which I can't anymore,

I can't directly tell somebody, get it to fuck together, which I could at one point. Or also, you didn't need to tell them. Right. They knew it's man coverage right now, third and three. you got to stop this guy from catching the ball. If he catch it, we ain't got to talk about it. You know accountability. Love it.

Well, the thing that also seems to be the case about the football accountability, and you tell me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds as though the vast majority of the times when people are giving you those words, they are correct. Yeah. Right? Like, the thing that gets unwieldy, I think,

at these other jobs is, this motherfucker might be telling you anything. You're like, what are you talking about? that is not actually apply to what's going on here. It sounds very rare. It sounds like when somebody gives y'all one of those speeches in football, and you're like, but wait a minute, brother, you got this all wrong. You got to understand, no, what happened in that situation.

There's no what had happened was. And I, again, there's some drawbacks to it. But overall, it's a place that I would, that I enjoyed being in because of how straightforward it was. And there's, and I find myself, I consider myself, be pretty empathizing and compassionate person. When people fall short of my expectations in life, I'm willing to listen to the excuses or explanations and extend you some level of grace. That's gross. And balancing that with my kids is, I mean, it's a thing where it's like, look, okay, your computer ain't work. Fine. You got, you lost your login for whatever. All right. You had practice and all this other stuff.

Yeah, it was real hard. Did you get the assignment done? on time. No, that's on you. You can tell me all excuses. I'm sorry. I love you. That sucks. It's happened to me before two. But we're going to have to figure out how we can fix this. But what we're not going to do is say, oh, no, it's not your fault. It's all is our fault. It's still your fault. It's still your fault. Whether you want to accept it or not, it's your fault. If it ain't your fault, it don't matter. It's your problem. You tell me all this shit. You still got a zero. You still get taxed some points on your grade. And you can tell. I had come home and straighting some shit out recently.

It stressed me out because I don't want to hear that shit, man. I don't. You know what it's interesting in hearing that. I feel like, as we've talked about these last few years of Patrick Bahomes, the thing of those years of Baham's that I've truly come to appreciate is, hey, man, Cam Newton was like this too. No excuses. Like, okay, well, I guess we just got to figure something else out.

Hey, man, maybe I should have thrown it a little softer. And then his wide open ass would have caught the ball. And he says that without sounding passive aggressive. Like, look, like, this is who he is. I recognize that I could be like eight different people. You saw, I mean, you saw Cameron Ward last weekend. We asked. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. I can't believe how much the, the one that got me, and we played it when he was like, ass, uh-huh. Like, we just, he's just like, there's no need for us to be dishonest about what's going on here. Right. There's no need for me to tell you. And I'll go on to go in depth later on. We can talk about specific ass behavior

and specific reasons why we ask. But first, the headline and Big Bull loves above the full, we ask. We need to know it. We can't be unassed until we address it. We ask. Right. And by the way, he did that while I think being a touch more dignified

than people realize, or diplomatic is the word I'm looking for, because he did. not give the most obvious answer to what the most ass part, like what the muscle of this is it the, I don't know if it's the muscle or the hole in this case, right? But we know, you know what, it's the hole because it's the stinkiest part of the team, which is their coach stinks. There we go. Yeah.

And the thing is, their coach knows. Yes. Maybe it's not going to be Cameron Ward telling him, but he knows somebody's telling them. It's exactly it. Everything else that's going on is the muscle. Everything else is the booty. But we talk about ass. We talk about the essence of it. We talk about the epicenter.

It is a defining trait. All that other stuff you can find elsewhere. Right. You can't find that. This is like, it's y'all's purpose, unfortunately. Time to take a break. More with Dominique in just a moment, but first, Ryan, you got some Draft King picks for the people. That's right. We're using Draft King's Pick 6. I like Ashken Densky over 65 and a half rushing yards against the Indianapolis Colts this Sunday.

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Bonus awarded as non-drable pick-six bonus picks that expire in front. 14 days. Limited time offer. See terms at pick six dot draftkings.com slash promos. Dominique, you are a labor guy. You have worked for the National Basketball Players Association. You have passed president of the NFL Players Association. Nefisa Collier sat down and gave a four-minute statement at her postseason press conference that I mean, anybody that's ever wanted to, she was kind of like Cam Ward, if Cam Ward didn't raise his voice, and they were like, oh, Cam Ward, what do you think about the commissioner of the WNBA? If we keep it a butt, she asked. So I loved it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not something I would have done. I think that there's fair reasons to criticize the way that she went about it, like the private conversations. Like, I don't think. that you can, I don't love sharing what happened in these private conversations. But sometimes you're going to make some mistakes and the bottom line got across. You need to find some ways to create leverage points where you can in CBA negotiations. Perpetuating the, and she's not creating this, but perpetuating, finding ways to put gas on the fire that the commissioner is unfair or incompetent. or anything else. Like, that works in negotiations. That tilts the favor, that tilts the energy,

the public energy and the internal energy in your favor until they do something about it. And also just destabilize it what's happening over there from a strategic standpoint. I'm not saying that this is all strategic. Some of this to me was also like she wanted to get this stuff off her chest. But the fact, there's a written statement. She was prepared. She obviously was waiting into her exit to use it.

So it doesn't become like a storyline. for her team going forward, but I loved it. We can discuss the individual things that she accused Kathy of, but it's just, I mean, it's going to be a fight. And I think you and I were texting about this, and you made the point that's a good one is it's the most important one. Y'all don't pay them enough. Y'all don't pay them enough to think that they won't shut it down.

She got her own league, right? They got the old other league that's going on up here. That's where she said the conversations were being had, which was funny. Was like, yeah, this was at the unrivaled, at the place that pays us more fairly. She says some crazy shit. Right. Like what can the WNBA take away from the FISA collier other than a low-paying job, right? Or like a relatively low-paying job.

But what is it that she got to be afraid, man? They're going to blackball me out of the WNBA. Let me tell you something. you get black ball allegedly Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL and everybody going to go out there and play football. That is not what is going to happen in this league. If you decided to do something retributive toward her on debate, no, no, no, no, no. That ain't, that ain't, that ain't, uh-uh, uh-uh, they go have. It ain't just going to be about them T-shirts.

They press up and go out there and wear. Nah, Doc, that ain't happening. I would, I want to say this about the private conversation part. And for people who don't know exactly what Kyle said, one thing she mentioned, well, first of all, one of the all-time great quotes. When she said, we have the best fans in the league, best fans in the world, we have the best athletes in the world, we have the worst leadership in the world. And she is referring to the commissioner as Kathy over, Kathy Engelbert is her name, over and over and over again. Like this was, there were no strades to be caught here. It was direct.

And one thing she said was that Kaya says that young players like Angel Reese, Kaelin Clark and Paige Beckers are making so much money for this league, but they receive so little money for their first four years in the league, right? Which I thought was a very interesting phrasing because you could argue that after those four years, they'll probably still be underpaid, but she kept it very specific, you know, to the context of the first four years. And then says that the commissioner has told.

told her that those women should drop to their knees and say thank you to her for the media deal that she negotiated and the argument that the WMBA platform is what allows these women to then make their money off the court, which number one is wholly incorrect. I think we would all agree that the platform of college basketball is what built the stardom of those women. You tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think that's very clear. I think, yeah, that's absolutely obvious. But I think what Kathy is saying is once you leave college, then you can't get endorsements if you're not doing something. Like if you don't have an American league to play in Nike or Under Arm or whoever is not going to pay you the money to be a state farm to be a part of their product if you're playing overseas only in games that we don't see or necessarily care about.

Hey, brother, I hear you. Caitlin Clark can play for the Globe Trouters of the Savannah Bananas. Don't you worry. They'll have been someplace to put her. But anyway, those last two things where she said, where Nabilizakal, you said that that's what the commissioner told her. Those were in private conversations and she offered them in public. I would make the argument that when you say something like that in private, you know that ain't staying private. very long. Now, what Collier could have said was, I know that the commissioner believes and then said

the exact same things, right? Maybe it would be a similar violation of trust, but it lands differently. It goes over differently. But in the end, I don't think any of that matters. Now, what I don't know is what this carries on and continues into because, so people got mad at me. Because during the All-Star festivities they had, when the stood buds were out there live stream in life, and Kathy came and kicked it with them. And somebody was making some criticism of the fact that this was not a good look for the league.

And I was like, look, I don't really know about that. I just hope that everybody here understands that this woman is not your friend. And I got hammered by a bunch of people who made the argument that these are grown women. They've gotten this far. They know better da-da-da. And I'm like, look, my existence in sports

is just a little bit different. Dominique, I think that you would agree with me on this. It takes some of y'all boys a while before you realize this because the commissioner daft you up that he's not your friend. Matt Shaw, I don't know if you saw this, but he wrote his manifesto for wanting to be the president of the union, which is really interesting. But an important point he made was somebody from the PA should also be on stage to welcome you not just into the league, but to welcome you into the union.

Because ultimately, the commissioner is not your friend, right? This is something that people struggle with across the board. I was a little bit surprised that people were upset with me for making that statement. There is your proof if you didn't get it, though, right? So maybe everybody understood it already, but I feel like if it was already really understood like that, Defi Sikalia, you don't need to get out here and say this in front of the world. But this is the truth. That's not your friend.

They're about to go into a labor negotiation that's going to be really hard for a lot of people to watch because this league doesn't just sell itself as a league. It sells itself as a cause. It sells itself about something greater and, you know, a lot of girl power girl boss type stuff, right? And now you bought to see that girl boss is going to try to break y'all because capitalism don't believe in none of that shit that y'all are talking about right now, right? It's the same thing when people like, we need black owners. They're going to do the same shit these other people are out here doing. That's what's going to be like a part of watching this is going to be that part.

And I love hearing it from Collier because I'm like, okay, so you recognize. It's a war going on outside. No one is safe. So we need black owners is, so you just want another reason to be disappointed in them. I mean, first of all, what it requires to become an owner of a team is an extensive vetting process.

And oftentimes they have already been minority owners on other teams. They've worked their way all the way through this process. Trust me, they are not, whoever becomes the owner of a team is not going to be. the freedom fighter that you believe it should be. No, they weed those out.

Yeah, so they, yeah, they, they, we doze out. And also there's, there's, yeah, I, be careful to the way that I want to say this. But I get that there is a value to feeling like we're closer to an equitable society if there is representation, right? It's hope that no one thinks that the representation is going to change the status quo. You just saying like, oh, maybe the path is a little clearer. That aside, I remember working at the NBAPA and also after I left, I just kept saying about Adam Silver because he's the nicest guy.

He's so charismatic. I mean, charismatic's the wrong word, but he comes across as very genuine. He's a kind guy. There were some issues that came up that made it very easy for him to put himself on the right side of it. He was the opposite of David Stern. He showed some respect to the players in a way they didn't before. And I was the whole time saying, like, look, when it come time to make some choices, I do not want us to have positioned him as the friendly owner or the friendly commissioner that cares about us.

Because then it makes it so much harder, particularly in the media, when we're trying to galvanize some support. Everyone's going to say, but Adam, he's a good guy. Like, yeah, he did a lot of good things. but right now he tried to cut out throat. And I think that's the point. And you made this point about their league being kind of a cause. Also, I think there's a ton of other contexts around talking to and talking about women's sports that there's a defensiveness. It feels like if you're telling them, don't like this ain't a good look.

Don't trust that this is, that she's going to look out for you. You would have said that to anybody and have said that across other sports. But I think it probably comes across as like these. women need some help. Yeah, I wasn't like, listen here, young ladies. I know. You need to know. It was more like, hey, young blood.

Yeah, exactly. Let me put you on game. Let me put you on game. And she's showing up at your little party. And it's, oh, go Kathy. Go Kathy. Right? And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

Kathy bad news. Defeisa Collier did not need to hear that for me. Uh-uh. The piece of collier, so maybe I got it all the way wrong, right? Maybe it ain't all in the piece of college. call you. I could be the one that got in bad, but she sat there with a straight face and ran through that whole thing. I wouldn't know what question to ask after that. What are we supposed to do? That's the kind of thing where you be in there like, yo, is this happening? She answered all the

questions that you could have asked. She was like, she got to go. Because that would be my question is like, so what do we, what do you do next with her? What do you want? Like, I'll try to get her to determine what you're like, nah, get her up out of there. So whether she was at the dance party or not. And that's the thing is like you run this risk that you don't run for the W because of the point you made about the money that they make is there's enough money and there's enough success and opportunities for basketball players and a lot of football players also that they never have to confront.

That was the issue with quarterbacks. You never have to confront that you are one of us, not one of them. And quarterbacks, they don't find out until later. Like star quarterbacks don't find out until later that you are, they try. treat you like you one of them, but you actually are one of us. And I think that the WMBA players don't have a, they don't have a hard time. Like, they can go dance with her. But when they pick up, they check, you know, they don't have a hard time being reminded

that they don't really care about us. 9% is insane. Madness. A salary cap for a whole team is $1.5 million. Madness. They play games in arenas, brough. Madness. In arenas.

They're not out here playing like, like you don't get a little red ticket at mid-one. Madness. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And on top of it, it's just like the franchise values matter to me also,

a lot more than anything. And people are like, well, they aren't making money. And like, that's a fine thing. That's an investment. They don't own these teams.

Like, yeah, I'm fine for not making money if I'm a co-founder of this particular startup. if I'm a consultant or some hired help, you're going to pay me the market rate because I'm not going to be around to cash in on that stock that you guys are going to be around to cash in on.

So like telling me that, while you got a $100 million franchise values, like, I don't give a shit how you manage your money. Yeah, I mean, you can shut the whole thing down if you want. Go right ahead. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's always on the board. You have the option to shutting this down,

but clearly you don't want to shut this down because clearly there's a value that you derive. When Balmer first bought the Clippers, I forget who it was that wrote the article about, yeah, and watch all the losses they're going to take just for the tax benefits that are provided by this. Like, come on, man, these people ain't out here because they eat money. The other part is, let's just say you double the salary from one and a half to three million. That still feels really low. I still think that there is a very, we don't have a great answer for what is fair, right? or what is an appropriate wage for people participating in this league.

I saw Monica was on first take on Wednesday, and she made the point about how female basketball players no longer want to be treated like they are second class. But I'm not exactly sure what qualifies is first. You know what I mean? Like I personally just don't have the answer for what exactly that is. Is it about money? Is it about the accommodations that are provided as a team?

I know that what it is right now isn't going to work if for no other reason than respect is conferred upon people in this society through money. That's the bottom line, right? Forget about what the balance sheet says. If you pay somebody $10 an hour, you know what they think of that person.

And that's a big part of what we're dealing with here. Absolutely. And I don't know, to your point, what exactly is fair and it's impossible. Like, because we've been trained to kind of tie, to tie athletes income to a percentage of revenue because that's how we've kind of always negotiated it. And so we can continue to use that,

which may not be the best way to determine how valuable a player is. It's fine, but we'll continue to use that. I don't know what the exact right number is, but I'm going to need you motherfuckers to get in the neighborhood. 9% of money, 9% of revenue. Like, I'm going to need you to get in the neighborhood. Right.

So. By the way, right fast, on the revenue split, because revenue splits have been getting smaller and smaller and smaller over the years, I want to give a measure of perspective. When I was a kid, them splits was well over 50%. Yep. On the side to the players. Like, they were in the, like, 65% range in some case. I think the NBA at one point was 65% on the revenue split.

And every year, the pie gets. bigger and the split gets swallowed. Now, of course, this is a larger societal issue, which is corporate profits, higher than ever, wages flat, right? The rich people keep getting more money, everybody else's situation stays flat. Shab and his manifesto also made this point about, yeah, the salary cap has gone up by whatever multiple, but the franchise values were gone up by 10. Yeah. And I think so we use revenue split, but revenue is one of those terms that could mean a bunch of different things depending on how you define them. And so like we would have audits when I was at the basketball union to go figure out where all the money was. And every year, they would have to

give us some money because we found some way for them to try to take some revenue and say, oh, no, this ain't basketball revenue. This is some other revenue. And the reason why you use revenue is because, like, yeah, profits, you can say this cost that, whatever, you can change. You can play with the books, but you can always play with the books. So it's hard to figure out exactly what, um, what, what, what the right number is, but you can't really get around them. So I guess that's my major point is like, I'm not going to come definitively on what people deserve or how much they should be paid.

But I know what feels unfair and that feels unfair. I think that this is interesting as the idea of a labor, if it comes to the point of a work stoppage, which I think it probably will. I think this is the rare case where the owners have more to lose for the work stoppage than the players do, because this is not you're going to be missing your $1 million a week check, right? A whole lot of these women can just go over to Ben and Jerry's

and scooped they way to the same money. The way they fucking getting paid. You know what I mean? Like, in fact, they might not want to come back to work. And, I mean, if unrivaled, like, the stars can go do stuff like that. And those are the people that they care about. Like, let's be real about this. Like, if Caitlin Clark held a one-person strike,

they would pay more attention than if there was 50% of the league, the bottom half of the league said they're not going to show up. Kaylin Clark Barnstorm and tour. Cash. She could make money for everybody. Right, because what the WMBA doesn't have is brand equity. Exactly.

Nobody cares about your teams. Right? There's no individual franchise that rings out in this country, right? You lack the brand. inequity. Wherever Katelyn Clark go, that's where the circus is going to go, right? Or like her as an example, because I don't want to act like she's the only person, right?

But if they really wanted to, bro, if they really wanted to do this up, Caitlin Clark and her squad versus Angel Reese and her squad. Oh, yeah. And before every game, they pretend like they're shooting for teams. But in the end, all it turns into is

Kalin Clark and Sophie Cunningham. Iowa versus LSU, baby. Bring it back. Bring it back. Bring it back. Bring it back. Boy, let me tell you something. They'll make all the money. In fact, the NBA will change up their whole situation. They'd be like, yo, we got to come over their new approach. The brand equity point is, you know, they would make a ton of money if they just had the Angel Reese team. Just travel through the Midwest and play collection team. And they bring Caitlin Clark all the major cities on the East Coast. Right. We're just going to show up with your crew in major cities to East Coast.

Do a, dude, do I do like full all rassling where like, like, Caitlin Clark come out from the back. You know what I'm saying? Or like, Angel Reese just sneak into the game. Just, just, just come out. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, was Andrew Reese checking in? She wasn't even supposed to be here. The brand equity point is a great one because we, we've thought about or discussed having our draft as a players union have the draft telecast, our own separate draft telecast, where you wait for the draft to happen. and all the players are at a union party.

And then they do the whole charade because there's no reason that you have to be there. Once they call your name, we can have the charade at our place. And then we also like bounced around the idea some players wanted to like start a competing league. But the conversation always ends on there is brand equity. Like these people are really steel us fans.

They're not going to show up for the Pittsburgh Stallions. Like that don't get. them excited. There's some value to that that you can't lie about and the WMBA can't say the same thing. Like they'd have been, they might have had a better chance if all the women's teams were just the same name as the men's teams.

Like there might have been some brand equity there. But like, don't nobody care about the Valkyrie? Yo, people got really mad at Ethan Strauss for making that suggestion of making them all. So like the W. Nicks, or the W. Nets would probably be a better example. The W. Hawks or whatever was. I'm not exactly sure why people

got so mad, but this is actually what happens overseas. Yeah. Like, it's not the worst. For them, it's not attaching yourself to a better known brand is, I mean, look, man, the Boston Braves, which one was it? A lot of those baseball teams, like, that was a thing that you would have the same name, Giants and Giants in New York, for example, right? Like, you know, the football Giants, the baseball Giants, like, people, yeah, people attach themselves. This is how it goes. I want to switch gears a little bit before we get out of here. What did you think about that boy should do?

doing that pantomama situation. For those who don't know, the Browns put Joe Flacco on the bench. They're going to start Dilling Gabriel. I would like to remind you that I told you guys, Jadour Sanders is going to get to start at some point because everybody else is terrible, but he's still the third string quarterback, and so he was asked about it

and he moved his lips and no words came out. And that is exactly what happened. He acted like he pantomimed talking to the media. It would have been better if that was you just like a figure your speech, you know, like when people, when quarterbacks do quarterback speak and essentially they're moving their lips but not actually saying anything, like Shador should have done that.

I don't know, man. Like, it's the... I mean, that was a great time for quarterback speech. Just going to keep all chopping wood, baby. Yeah, yeah. Like, I can't, I control what I can control. Like, this is a message to me that I got to be better. I know that my opportunity going to come.

I don't know, man. Like, it's so many platitudes that you could have rolled out. Like, I hate to be joking. judgmental on these sorts of things. So, like, ultimately, it probably won't have a major effect. I don't give a damn about it. But it does speak to, I think it speaks to how he is in that building, which is, again, I don't want to make too far of a leap, but it's just like, if you're unwilling to say

in that moment, man, I love my teammates. We just try to get a win. I do whatever do to get support. I don't know, the bullshit. Or even say no comment. Just like that is, I don't know, it just feels like it draws attention and it opens yourself up unnecessarily to some bullshit. Well, let me ask this question. What conversations have Jimmy Haslam and Kevin Stefansky and Andrew Berry had such that I don't really be hearing nobody talking about firing them?

You know what I mean? Like, I understand that Jimmy Haslam's the one that's got to. to eat this because the big part of why they're here is they made one of the worst quarterback decisions of all time when they brought a nasty ass to Sean Watson in and gave up the world and gave up all that money, right? That's part of how they ended up in the situation that they have now. They went and got Joe Flacco, which to me, knowing what we've known about this franchise since it came back to life in 1999, you did that because the fans like him. The fans enjoyed that year. So you knew you weren't going to be good. So you gave him a feel good. And then you tried to

make some cheap plays underneath him to maybe get a quarterback. That's fine. I get all that. But that normally don't save nobody's job. Like it is amazing. And I don't think any of this is necessarily Stefanski's fault. But if none of these young quarterbacks show that they got anything, then what are we saying here?

Like, did he also not have to let the guy that couldn't quite get it right with Baker? Yeah. I don't know. It's a good point because normally you don't stick around if you've been this bad for this long. They snuck into the playoffs. Was that two years ago? To your point, Joe Flacco feel good. He threw back-to-back, pick sixes, and then

we wasn't feeling good no more. I think you could, if you're someone who's like, yeah, I don't want the results to taint the decision process. I want to trust the people that are doing. Like, you can make a great argument for Andrew Barry having done a good job,

especially if you are going to take the Deshawn Watson decision off his jacket, which I think we all have already taken that off. Like, we put that on the owner. Like, the roster that they've been able to continue to put together has been pretty good one. And so, like, I guess I get your point based on the results.

Normally we move on from these guys. But based on the process, again, if we can get off the Deshaun Watson thing and say that's not on them, which is combined with moving on from Baker and having Baker play through injury and not accepting that there should be some discount rate on the way that we grade him. Like that ain't on them. Then they do it a good job. I know. But it's amazing that they are.

That's all I'm saying. Like, I wouldn't know the conversation that everybody, like, how down does everybody have to be on the Deshawn Watson decision that the people ain't clamoring in that way? Or maybe they are because it's Cleveland and they, you know, they ain't even got cookies at the double tree, man. They'd be salty as hell all the time. I would say that every time. just so everybody understands.

They ain't got no, man. Like Cleveland, the briefed moment I was there was like Baltimore just not as charming. Baltimore got some charm, man. It does. That's exactly what I'm saying. But what if you take the charm out? Yeah, that's fair.

Charm city my ass. Like, like, you think that's what you're all, that's maybe that's what we call Cleveland, charmless city. That's the thing. When I, um, when I, um, when I, I had to defend Baltimore on the East Coast. I try to remind people that Baltimore's not the East Coast City. It's a Midwest city that happens to be on the East Coast.

Like, it's a rust-belt-ass town, baby. So, like, don't compare us to D.C., Philly, and New York. Those are different types of cities. We are fancy Cleveland. We off-the-hook Pittsburgh. That's what... Yeah. We are fly-ass Detroit.

Like, that's us, eh? But we're not a low-budget D.C. Because that's not... We're not going for that. Not even I aim. The first time you said that, I was like, oh, okay, this makes sense. But with your door, it's, look, I'll tell you again, one day he's going to play. There's just no way around it because, like, Dylan Gabriel, man, I saw him out there in the game,

and it looked like when they let there's a little homie going through it, and they let him get a touchdown at the spring game, that's how he looked out there. And they put my man, he going to make his first career start in Europe against Brian Flores, crazy-ass defense. Yo, he'll be standing on his tippy toes, look at that calculus. That's right. I forgot he's 5'10, right? Yeah, he's like the littleest left-hander. I hope that they got some design QB runs in there, man.

You got to because that's the thing is there's no soft. spot. So I agree that like trying to look for a bad team to start your quarterback is probably a bad idea. But there are teams that are good, but kind of stagnant and stationary. You know, like we do what we do. We good. Brian Flores team is good and confusing and shit. It's got to be fun to be somebody like Brian Flores and you have the opportunity to do this. Right? Like, I've talked about this that year. that Ohio State won the national championship in 2014. They lost one game that year.

And it was J.T. Barrett in his second start against a Bud Foster defense. And you do, but I am watching my own eyes from the sideline, Bud Foster against somebody who had never done this before. And you can tell he was loving every minute of it. Like, watch what I do now. Watch what I do now, right? He out there, and again, it's a little dude. Watch this.

Yeah. Watch this. And from week to week, the film can only help you so much, Brian Flores' defense, because he recognizes it's a level of intelligence on defensive players that we don't quite extend to them, but it requires it. And it's the, it's like the third, fourth order of it is whereas you're thinking this because I'm doing that. I know you're thinking this, so I'm going to do that, which is based on what I did last week in a week prior to that. Like when you watch the Vikings' defense from week to week to week, you recognize that he knows that. He knows that.

that you watch and film. And he knows that his tell is this. So he knows that when you see this, you're going to think that, then he goes the next level. It's the chest shit that we appreciate about quarterbacks that we don't talk about about defenders. He's the one of those Belichick guys

who's been able to take that. Fair point, yeah. Right? Like to be that super adaptable, you don't know what's coming. And I think it may be in part because... Yep. Don't tell anybody I said this,

but maybe this is the level that he's supposed to be at, right? The supreme defensive coordinator where you just let him have the whole defense, like a big, like a big, Vanjio type guy. Honestly, perhaps Bill Belichick without a Tom Brady. So might argue. Yeah, that's fair. Well, we got to get that man to Tom Brady there. Yeah, there we go.

We'll just go get, you're right, we'll just go, we'll just go get him one of those, right fast before I get out of here. I feel like we don't talk enough. It is in part because, like, I got off that narcotic. But ain't nobody black and blacking it up quite like the Falcons with the black quarterback, the black head coach, the black general manager, you know, they trying to get it all done. Michael Pennick's, thank goodness, finally had him a game where I thought he looked like it was good because it had not been looking great up until that point.

Now, granted, they played against a bad, well, bad Washington because Jane Daniels was not playing. But Drake London seemed like another receiver that's a little bit in jail down there. Yeah, yeah. It's the, it's not the, I mean, all those skill players, man, that's the funny thing is you see them play in individual plays from Bejohn to London to Kyle Pitts, where you see a play, you're like, oh, he's ridiculous.

Any team that he's on better showcase him and they should be good. But it never quite comes together for an extended period of time for any of them. It's funny that you pointed that out about them. It's something that I'm aware of, but I don't feel about it the same way. I feel like I would have a little while ago. I feel like it's just a couple years ago when the Ravens had an all-black quarterback room, that felt like a bigger deal, which is absurd. considering that they have all black guys

in the most important positions of leadership except for Arthur Blank out there with a skinny mustache. Arthur, by guy, man. Hey, look, some of this ties to Michael Vic, but there's the day before Arthur got there and the day after Arthur got there.

There's a whole generation that got no idea how sorry the motherfuckers were for a lifetime, dog. A lifetime. And then finally, when it looked like they was going to break through to the other side, The man of the year got called soliciting a prostitute on Biscayne Boulevard the night before the Super Bowl.

Then had a ball through right over his head. Maybe because he was still thinking about what he didn't get. You know what I'm saying? He was still, his brain was still in jail. Or maybe his brain was still on the streets. I don't know. That's just, I don't, uh, can't imagine. I just can't imagine that cross, like,

we give a lot of people some measure of, like, grace because, like, you're dealing with some addiction or something. If that wasn't addiction, that's, I don't know what it is, man. I don't even want to psychoanalyze it. It's just mind-blowing to me. And I know you bring it up a lot. Don't stop bringing it up. It's like the cookies in Cleveland.

Please. Can't do it, bad. It's just such a ridiculous thing, right? Like, you think it's ridiculous to go to the double tree and they ain't got no cookie. Magic getting caught the night before the Super Bowl solicited and a prostitute and you playing in the game. Trying to get some cookies. They'd have done at their hotel neither, huh?

They'd have none of the year, though. The man of the year. The man of the year. Honestly, it's the man of the year part. Yeah, really. Like, there's a whole lot of other people that if it would have been them, it wouldn't have been that big a deal.

But it was the man of the year, right? Like, there was some cat that if it would have happened, he wouldn't even been ashamed. He'd just be like, yo, my bad, Joe. You know, the bad of the year, that shook up, that shook up morale. Oh, was it called the Walter Payton man at the year back there? They didn't name it.

Oh, yeah. I hope not. I think Walter Payton, I think he was still alive. So I don't think they had changed it up. But yeah, no, no, actually, Walter Payton, yes, he was still alive. Okay. I feel like I took it to a dark place and that is my fault. And that is Dominique Fossworth.

Check him out on the Dominique Fossberg show, available. We're all fine podcast. giving away for free. My brother, I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this three times a wig. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, hit the voicemail line. 3-2-3-9-6-77-67-67. It's your world, baby. Hollop about whatever you want to holl about. 3-2-3-5-6-7-67. Remember, follow the right time.

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