The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Shedeur Sanders' debut reaction, Ranking LeBron James & Tom Brady | 08.11

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Bomani Jones reacts to Shedeur Sanders' debut for the Cleveland Browns, discussing how people are already losing their minds after one preseason game.  Later in the show, Bomani talks about what Marino Rivera's Achilles injury at the Yankees' old-timers day reminded him of and lists his top 5 athletes of the last 25 years. 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. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. Be sure to stick around with us.

We are going to wrap up our list of the top 25 athletes of the last 25 years. We're counting down from five to one. Also, something from the weekend that wasn't really funny, but Anyway, first up, guys, something happened this weekend that it's going to be good for business. It's going to be bad for my health. I have been doing a stay off a Twitter situation, quite honestly, because, like, what foe? Number one, number two, I'm already pretty aware of how stupid I am. I don't need as many reminders as I now receive without being balanced out by the occasional adder boy.

You know what I'm saying? It just, I don't feel like this is good for me at this point in time. So I stay away and people keep me hip to what's going on. Ryan keeps me hip to what's going on. My friends, A, sometimes keep me hip to what's going on. But then also I pop in every now and then, right? Just kind of jump in, see a little bit of what's going on, get a taste of the action. You know, I need to be aware of what the discussion is.

Now, of course, much of that discussion is the discussion of the bots, but y'all stupid asses be over there talking to them. So, you know, I can find out what some of y'all be thinking too. Anyway, Friday night, Cleveland Browns played a preseason game, and Shador Sanders through, Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong, two touchdown passes in that game. That's correct, two touchdowns. Two touchdowns.

I saw some clips of it. I did not see the full game because, preseason. Two touchdowns. I did see the numbers. It was six yards per attempt, which is utterly unnoteworthy, but preseason games are weird, right? To say they only had six yards in a preseason game doesn't necessarily mean that you played poorly. But the other part of it is throwing two touchdowns in a preseason game doesn't necessarily mean that you played well. is very little that regular people can take from watching the preseason game. Now, if you are a film eater, you'll be able to do that. If you're somebody in the league or whatever,

you'll probably be able to make something out of it. Otherwise, preseason games are for everybody's favorite confirmation bites. I think we can all safely agree upon that, right? if you think somebody is good and they play well in a preseason game, boom, you have a measure of verification. If you think somebody is going to be bad and they played well in a preseason game, it's only a preseason game. And the converse also holds up. Shador Sanders got the start. Ryan, I did not realize that there was a discussion around him. prior to the start from people who are Shador Sanders supporters who felt as though he was being set up to fail by being asked to start this preseason gap. I did not know that this was a thing.

I see that people, I know Robert Griffin was one person who said, and I don't want to extrapolate that he's everybody, but I did not get the feeling that he was alone in the expression of this sentiment. No, there is a, there is definitely a corner of the internet with, again, whether it's bots or real people, that were saying that Chardour was being set up to fail because he had never gotten any reps of the first team offense, going out there with a lot of second team receivers, and then again, start, yes, playing in this pre-stitch.

So he would have been better suited for success, playing with third and fourth teamers? I didn't say the argument was shot. Okay, no, you know what I mean? Like, I'm trying to figure out, like, what would have worked for you under those circumstances if that's the way you see it? Because it's not like I don't understand.

I see there's a kernel of logic. in that. But what I'm saying there is, you would probably go find a way to be mad regardless of how it goes. Man, he can't be out here throwing with those guys. They're too good. Oh, well, he didn't actually get to work with it. Oh, okay. I mean, I think it would be relieving. Let me tell you something. I don't know if football is anything like my business, but man, when you work with bombs and then you be out there working with people that's good, when you get out there working with people that's good, man, that shit like you put on a new pair of socks. Like, damn, you don't say to yourself, I can't walk in these. I don't know what this good feeling is like. No, that's not how much.

that works. Right? But anyway, sure I got out there. He did what he did. Again, I don't feel qualified to give an evaluation on it. I'm not inclined to do it. I also am pretty straightforward about this. I come into this believing that, or believing is not the right word. I am skeptical of how good he can be in the NFL. I think there is data that indicates that he is not an NFL quarterback. I also think that we've seen enough to indicate that he vis-a-vis some of his now. peers. He may not be good enough to play in the NFL, but being good enough to play in the NFL and being good enough to be on an NFL team. Those are two different things when we talk about quarterback. I think we all agree. There are 96 quarterbacks in the NFL. There are

not 96 quarterbacks in the world who are good enough to play NFL football, right? The Browns got five quarterbacks that ain't good enough to play NFL football. One of them, Deshawn Watson, his old nasty ass, isn't going to play this year. Joe Flacco, I, I I mean, I don't think Joe Flacco went to high school with me, but he could have. Right? Dylan Gabriel, who nobody thought was going to go in the third round. Kenny Pickett, who is already a journeyman. And let me just make sure I get this part right about Kenny Pickett.

Kenny Pickett is a journey man. My computer went slow trying to look it up. They ain't even want to know. How my man, a journey man already? And he got drafted in 2022. He is a journeyman in year four. You're throwing it out there. So that's who we got.

Watson, Sanders, Pickett, Flacko, and Dylan Gabriel. Everybody is going to get a chance to start this year because I don't think any of them are good enough to play. That's my read on this situation, right? All of them are probably going to get a chance to play, though I guess one of them will probably get cut going into the season, but they'll probably just put one of them boys on the practice squad

and then roll all in and that's out. Anyway, I've been ramming a little bit, talking in circles. I just want to get to the point that for me, personally, is important, which is, could y'all please not lose y'all's minds about this? Kenyon. Can you? And what made me realize I needed to talk to you and ask very kindly that y'all not lose y'all's minds

is that Shadoa Sanders through two touchdown passes in an NFL preseason game. Not even, it ain't even the last preseason game. You know the one where they halfway pretend like it's football? I don't even think it was that game, baby. Nike put out an ad, an ad behind Shador Sanders. And the ad said, let me make sure I, I want to make sure I get the words exactly right.

Okay, the ad said only a matter of time, and it was a picture of his fifth round pick doing the thing with his watch. I hate to be this guy, Ryan, but he doing it with the wrong arm. It looked like he wear his watch on the wrong arm. That's always something you could have pointed out. It's on his right arm. I'm just saying it's just saying it's on his right arm. That ain't the arm you put a watch on? Right? You're spending all this goddamn money on these watches

and you ain't even wearing it right. Right? He'd be having the hardest time trying to wind that bitch because the thing goes on the wrong way. Anyway, when I was a kid, you could be all kinds of criminals and anything else and Nike ride with you

just as long as you was still actually good at what you did. Now Nike don't even really care about what you did. Like Nike is not just doing it or look at what you just did. Nike doing ads for, hold up. We're going to get there in a minute. Just you wait. Just you wait.

That's what I just realized. Has the plot been lost this badly on everything? Where a dude throwing a couple touchdown passes in a preseason game, a dude does not even a starter. How you get Nike ads and you're not even a starter? And it's not his fault. I want to be very clear about. this. It's not his fault. I get the feeling that Shador Sanders is trying to do everything he

possibly can correctly at this point. I don't know if he realizes that they handled the draft process badly, but I do believe that the way he's handled things since has been different. I thought the clip of him running into Tony Grosie, who's a media guy up there in Cleveland, talking about how Tony never has anything positive to say about him. I thought that was a great look for door because he handled it in good spirits, right? Like, he wasn't angry about it or whatever. He was just like, come on, Tony, come on, man, what I got to do? I thought he handled all of those things really, really well, right? But nothing was proven from that gang. I was talking to one friend of the show, who I know is listening, and I'm not going to name him just because he and I talked about it,

and I don't want to relitigate our conversation on here. I don't think that's fair. I don't think it's appropriate. But the point that he made was those two touchdown passes proved that should do it could play in the NFL. And I'm like, see, there we go. There goes the confirmation bias. That's it right there. Right. Like, no, no, no, throwing two touchdown passes into preseason games never proved that. A whole lot of guys are throwing two touchdown passes in a preseason game and then wound up going to be the Orkin Man. Like that's not an uncommon thing to go down. No, no, no, no, no. We're not proving anything. But what he did was entrenched the people who still believe that Shador Sanders has been a victim of collusion by the man.

Still believe this, right? I don't know what'll disprove it. I also know this. I have seen a comparison. I talked to one of my guys that works in Cleveland doing media there, and the comparison that they're making up there to the surrounding cult of Shadur is to Tim Tebow. And I want to be clear about something. If Shador Sanders were to play in the NFL this season, I do not think that he would be the worst quarterback that I have ever seen. And that's why you can't compare him to Tim Tebow, because that is the worst quarterback that I have ever seen play NFL football. You see my face? Well, I mean, some of y'all are listening. You hear my, you hear my face. Do I sound like I'm joking. Does this sound like hyperbole?

It's the worst quarterback I've ever seen in my life. Don't do that to Shador. That's not, he didn't earn that. You know what I'm saying? Like, I get why you might be worried, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It ain't going to be that. And look, I understand that Shadour prays a lot. At least I believe he praised a lot. His daddy talk about

praying all the time, right? I don't know if anybody has ever been as prayed up as Tim Tebow was for that run, ever. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, that was wild. I ain't never seen somebody stink for as long as he was stink. And then, just need to be good for two minutes. And then he made it work, right? And then they had that game against Pittsburgh, right? Wow. I'm bringing that up because that was a really, really miserable couple of months to go to work. It really was. It stunk. I'm, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just telling you

right now. I ain't never heard people say more illogical shit in my life as I did. during that run, a Tebow mania. And a big part of it was people really thought that, like, this was entirely powered by Jesus. Now, I don't know why it was that Jesus was always running late. Jesus always struck me as being punctual, right? I don't go to church like that. So, I mean, I want to pretend like I know everything about Jesus, right?

Maybe people saying all the time, you know, Jesus, you know, culturally speaking, we believe that some people run late. And many people who believe in facts believe that Jesus belongs to some cultures. therefore maybe that was your extension. I have no idea. I just always figured Jesus would be on time. Said Jesus was always running late, always in a hurry. Damn, get to the end.

Like, damn, my bad. Damn, who made it just in time, right? I don't think you do a sadist can possibly pray. I think you have to be a preacher's kid to pray enough to be able to have the sort of not luck, good fortune. He was blessed and favored. I think that's what they'd be saying that Tim Tebow had at the end. Don't insults you.

do a sound just like that and don't assume that his life is quite as charmed. There's a lot going on that can never happen again, right? That's all I'm saying. It's a lot that happened. That can never happen again. I'm going to just tell you this. I ain't really trying to argue with y'all about him until this actually turns real. Like when it actually turns real and he gets to play, we'll see. And if he doesn't get to start to begin the year, which I still think it's in the cards. But if he doesn't start to begin the year and you're a should doer person, don't sweat it. He's going to get his chance to play. everybody's going to have their chance to be right with this collection of quarterbacks. You're going to see it. Save your energy. You can't already be fighting like this in August.

You're going to be out of breath by week two. If this is what you're doing, pace yourself. Wait till he gets there. My guess is if they have their druthers is going to go Kenny Pickett to Joe Flacko, to Sodor Sanders, to Dylan Gabriel. that's going to be my guess on what the order is and how they go. That's, that's, and I have my logic for it. Kenny Pick it, because if it doesn't work for him now, you need to go ahead and cut him. You're not really betting on the future there. Joe Flacco there, because, I mean, come on, now we know this is preposterous. But he's the one that the people will be calling for because Browns fans feel like they've seen success with him.

So then you put him in next. The, the highest levels of management clearly feel good about Dylan Gabriel because they took him third. That's why you save him to the end because you give him more time to get ready and then they throw Shador out there because if nothing else, the owner would like to be rid of that hassle because at every turn, Jimmy Haslam be telling people Shador wasn't his pick. To be fair to Jimmy Haslam, I think the reason why he does that is because as far as we know, he himself has made two selections of quarterbacks as the owner. And one of them was Johnny Mansell and the other one was Deshawn Watson's old nasty ass. And I just think it's, it's better for everybody involved that you not be

Jimmy Hasam's pick, including Shador Sabbath. All the people who are offended by the way to Haslam's like, hey, that wasn't my pick. Shadourd need to be glad because that was that was how we would know he was sorry is if Jimmy Haslam made the decision to take him. Jimmy Haslam didn't take him. That's why we say he might have a chance. But pace yourself. We got plenty of time for y'all's silliness as the season progresses. then once the season gets going, y'all can be silly about it and there'll be other actual football going, so I won't have to pay attention to y'all. Please, just wait. Do it for your boy. All right, guys, something happened this weekend that, whoo, not saying that what happened

is funny, but it reminded me of stuff. Okay. The Yankees. It's obviously a funny situation. It is, right? It is. It's not not funny. It's not funny. The Yankees did Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium, which is a big deal for Yankees fans, right? They really get into Old Timers Day.

And Mariana Rivera did Old Timers Day, and he tore his Achilles tendon. Ryan, I didn't see how he tore as Achilles tendon. Did you see how he tore as Achilles tendon? They did not confirm it because they, like, if you see it in the reporting, He ran out to first any kind of trip. So they're not sure when the injury happened,

but he was still out there running around 55 years old. What was I was trying to figure out? Like, do you try to leg out a double? Right? Like, or was he really trying to get his legs into that cutter? Like, we're... I think it was just a false step, like, try to get a fly ball. Yeah, but yeah, so he tore his Achilles and that's bad.

But my man, Terry, sent me a text. And I was so glad he did, because it wouldn't have made the shovel until he said this. and I don't even think Ryan know about this. He said the Texas said, it's time to remind people why they stopped playing the old time was game in the NBA. Are you familiar with what happened with this? I'm not.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So if I am not mistaken, the first old tivers game, I mean, the first rookie game was in the year 1994 at the All-Star game. Now, you will remember the 1990. All-Star game if you were my age because that was the one where Scotty Pippen

had the red shoes and he cut his hair down and so his shit looked like this. Like it looked like somebody was just grabbing them by the top of the head and carrying them around. Y'all remember that if you saw it. Like you're like, wow, why Scotty keep that box for so long because he ain't had a fade option? Anyway, the year before, they had had the All-Star.

I mean, the old-time was game. And the thing about the old-timers game was like Oscar Robertson, in 1993 is still playing in the old timers game. Like they'd get some dudes out there, right? And apparently they was really out there playing hard because that 1993, all-toppers game had two catastrophic injuries. One of them was to David Thompson,

who I believe Torres-Peteller tendon or his ACL, and the other one was to Norm Nixon, who I think towards Quadricef's tendon. Ryan, I could tell from your face that you looked up and found out what had happened. It said all-timers game. Yeah, I mean, one, this is before my time. So I didn't know this existed. Yes.

And but the idea of 40-year-olds going there and sent to doing a run at the Y is just incredible. But we were watching the heroes of yesteryear. They were dropping like fly. Of course, of course they were. They were, I mean, like, we were carrying dudes off the floor, because I'm sure the problem was, yo, they can't get the dudes to play hard in the regular All-Star game, but they got them to go hard enough that they were injuring themselves in the old-tomers game, and so they were like, tearing their quadriceps.

Yes. It was like, yo, we got to stop. We can't do this anymore. We can't have it anymore. and so they stopped doing the old timers game. But that then led to us having an even better situation of an old timeers game. I keep calling an all-star game, but it wasn't. It was an old-timers game.

And I need you guys to understand this. Apparently, they only did this one time, okay? One time. But in 1985, Ray Perkins was the coach. at Alabama, and he had a bright idea. Why don't we have a game at the spring game, where on one side, we have the current team. On the other side, we have a team of Alabama alumni, and they played a game of tackle football. You heard me, a game. A game of tackle football.

Okay? So on one side, you had Kenny Stable who is now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but who at that point was too old to play NFL football anymore.

He had just retired. On the other side, Cornelius Bennett. Ryan, are you? you at all familiar with Cornelius Bennett. That's before my time as well. Okay, so here's the thing about it. I understood that he was before your time.

I don't know if we still create players like this anymore, but there are guys who are like, okay, O'Dell Beckham will be a great example of a player like this. Gotcha. In that O'Dell Beckham will not make the Hall of Fame, right? Right. But if you was there, you know what we're talking about here. Yeah, people will remember Odo Beckham.

in a way that they won't remember. Yes. Like someone like Torrey Holt or Isaac Bruce or something like that. That is a great way of looking at it. Cornelius Bennett is an all-time great college football player who was that type of NFL player. But an all-time great college football player, the idea that Kenny Stabler ever was on the same field with Cornelius.

Probably in his mid-40s. Correct. No, it was right at the end. It was right at the end. He was right at 40, right? And they're lucky that it wasn't like the new days where the kids. show up and go to spring day, like going a semester early, because then Derek Thomas would have been out there running down Kenny Stabler.

Okay? Now, when I say in Alabama alumni team, John Hanna wasn't out there, right? It wasn't an alumni team of Alabama greats necessarily. It's people who were still thought it was a good idea to get out there and play tackle football against 20 year olds. Ryan, this game was played in 1985, and there was a player on the alumni team who played for Alabama in 1942. In 19. Who could have served our country?

Might have. What are we doing here? Who signed off on this? Right? And also, if you are Cornelius Bennett, you can't like go full speed, can you? Like, you can't actually get out here doing this, right? Look, in our day and age, you? right now. We got 25-year-olds out here tearing their Achilles tendons.

Yeah. Playing basketball. We can't be out here having old timbers day no more. I didn't think it was possible for somebody to get hurt in an old-tabres baseball game. Are you serious? I mean, to be fair, tearing your Achilles and pulling your hamstring are the two injuries that you can get, you know, trying to run. Yes. But still. Oh, my God. I just, I saw that and I was just like. At once, this is tragic. On the other hand, here we go. Here we go. It's not funny that Mariano Rivera tore as Achilles. It is funny that Alabama played the alumni game. And I got there because I got to remind everybody of the 1993 Old Timers game with those catastrophic injuries where while you may not have found those injuries to be funny,

it did make you laugh, which is not quite the same thing. Quite often there are stories that come up in the news that are understandably not funny, but they still make you laugh. Don't ask me what I'm talking about. Top five coming up next. All right. Here we are. the dream we all dreamed of, the top five in our list of the top 25 athletes of the last

25 years for the year of our Lord 2025. Now, remember for those of you, we're only dealing with North Americans, all of whom had to be 25 or under on January 1st in the year 2000, right? Okay. Now, we're going to run down for you, the top 25 athletes, or so far where we've gone on the list. Number 25 was Randy Moss. Number 24, Cam Newton. Number 23, Albert Pooholz, number 22, Ray Lewis, number 21, Tim Duncan, but you can kind of put them where you want. Number 20, wild card selection. For all you know it all, so wish it was your list, put your own name on in.

Number 19, Katie Ledecky, number 18, Mike Trout, number 17, Lamar Jackson, number 16, Aaron Rogers. Number 15, Aaron Donald. Number 14, Peyton Manning, number 13, Kevin Durant. Number 12, Kobe Bryant. My bad, I thought somebody was. shoot. Sorry about that. Number 11, Steph Curry. Number 10, Patrick Mahomes. Number nine, Michael Phelps. Number eight, Shoahe Otney, number seven, Floyd Mayweather, and number six, Serena Williams. Sorry, sisters. But, but, but, let's go to number five. Some own Biles.

Now, one characteristic of everybody that I have got in this top 10 is you can make an argument for every single person that they are the greatest of all time at their sport. Right. Like that is where everybody in the top 10 got. You can make an argument about Simone Biles that the gap between her and number two is as big a gap as there is between number one. and number two of anybody on this list. Right? Like, it's absolutely in the cards that you can make that argument. We got some other people that will talk about that I will tell you on one, on the number one answer, why I would not say that about that person. But to me, the reason that Biles is so impressive. And again, it's not like I'm a person with a very sophisticated

understanding of gymnastics. I can only tell you but so much. Like, I bristle a bit at the people who talk about Serena Williams in the way that they do, just because if I ask those same people who tell you that Serena Williams is the greatest female athlete ever and ask her why she's better than Steffie Groff, a whole lot of them start stumbling and asking, like, who was that again? You know what I mean? Like, that didn't, that felt like the sort of thing where you just say it over and over again and people will go along with it. You watch Simone Biles compared to everybody else, and it's like, is this what? it was like when Jim Brown was playing, like where you look at somebody and they are just that much

more physically talented than everybody else. But in the case of Biles, it's one thing to be so physically talented and be so explosive. But then this is a sport where you can't do that, but not have the grace and body control. The game is really grace and body control. So like to do the things that she's capable of doing and then have the crazy body control and just be out there over and over doing things. It's not like she's just doing things that other people can't do as well as her. She out of here doing stuff that they can't do. Hard stop. Right. And so much of gymnastics is like set up by what you're trying to accomplish. Right. And that's how a lot of scoring is done. That's how a lot of, you know, a lot of your judge against your peers. And where, and where she was setting

the bar was so, I mean, a gymnastics fun, but so much higher than everyone else. And she ain't even have to be perfect at it because nobody could come close to Eva, doing things that people couldn't even dream of trying to do. Right. Right. There's no need for a gold medal in everything and every time and you had the thing that happened in Tokyo with the twisties and all of this stuff or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens, right. But no, no, no, no. As Americans, we watch a lot of gymnastics because it'd be on the first week of, the Olympics and America is good at it. Right?

That wasn't what was going on here, man. We were watching this because this was, this was greatness. This was something unlike anything. I'm not sure the next time we'll see people who can do the kinds of things that she could do. I don't know if we'll ever see anybody relative to her peers in that sport who would be able to do the sorts of things that she did.

And also when you look at the longevity of her, right? Right. We're almost like we've talked more, we're more about peaks of the longevity in this list. But you almost have two peaks. Yes. For someone, for gymnastics where your careers are so condensed, they're so short. And you have so many people coming up behind you to have the run in 2016, she did and the run in 2024.

And honestly, they're talking about her potentially doing, like being in some of the teams in 2028. And it's not out of this world that that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. So much better than everyone else. There's a different discussion as to whether it's time to go, you know, get a job, right? Of course. Like after a certain point, it's like, wow, look at you with your.

four bachelor's degrees. Right. But it'd be dope on campus, right? Like there's, you know, like there's an element of that. And don't forget the thing was she didn't go in 2012 because she was a little bit too young. Right. Like one thing about gymnastics and the idea of longevity that has changed is that once they put the minimum age in at 16, because it used to be all those children out there. And children, there's flexibility stuff that you could do when you are a child that you cannot do when you are like an adult. The whole game changed. up and this sort of longevity became more possible at this point. And I guess there's also just more ways for her to make money for being Simone Biles off of this. But no, she's it. She, she, she, she,

she gets this number five proudly. And by the way, H town, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like north side suburban, no less. We don't get that many times to shine on people over there my part of things. I see Simone. Simone comes in number five. and now we go to number four. Tom Brady. Ryan, I don't know about you. I was about to say his full name, but I find a few things quite as pretentious

than people that got multiple middle names. Yeah, it's a lot. Essentially when it's like almost he has four first names. Yes, that's exactly. It was it Thomas Edward Patrick Brady or Thomas Patrick Edward Brady Jr. Jr. Come on, man.

I just take it. Like how big is your social security card? Is that shit like this? So you can get everything. It's like one of those big checks. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. Ed McMahon gave you your social security card, right? Like, it was really good.

But what makes Tom Brady is such an interesting person to put on this list? And you guys know, I value peak over longevity. However, the longevity is so staggering with Brady. And the idea of winning seven Super Bowls, seven Super Bowls. I mean, we'll be talking about here. Scott Casmar makes a very good point, and he's not wrong, and he lays out a pretty thorough case. For Tom Brady is the luckiest quarterback of all time. The Patriots had more horseshoe-keaster alliance than any other team that you could possibly think of.

One thing that is fascinating about all those Super Bowls that they won is how they're all close. I think the biggest point differential on those Super Bowls was the one against the Eagles, and even that, I want to say, was something like a 10-point game and the Eagles had a chance to get there at the end of the game. Like, the margins were always so thin on to Patriots. But, hey, man, by and large, you could pretty much guess the Tom Brady at the very least wasn't going to mess it up. And if there were plays that needed to be made, there was a good chance that they would

be made. And, hey, I think that we tend to overrate comebacks. And I think that we ignore the fact that in order for you to have to make a bit comeback, You also had to go down a long way. But and, and, and it was against the Falcons. They were never going to win the Super Bowl anyway under anything. Like, nothing was going to happen. They could have been up by 100 points.

They would have dropped a goddamn rocking jock basket out. And Tom Brady would have through a bitch through that. And they'd have been going 25 points every touchdown and they didn't win the game too. Like, they were, they were playing the Falcons. But you had to have the steely resolved within yourself to say, we're not out of this yet. we got a chance to go ahead and do it. Patrick Mahomes, most talented quarterback I've ever seen.

When the Eagles was whooping that ass, there was not a moment where I thought, all right, now I think the comeback's about to start. I mean, Tom Brady started his career beating Kurt Warner in Super Bowl and almost ended it

by beating Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. Correct. That's like, this is the kind of longevity we're talking. I remember kind of breaking it down, you could break it down almost having three separate Hall of Fame careers.

Right. Well, this is what I find interesting about that with Tom Brady. The best version of Tom Brady never won a Super Bowl. Right, right? They, the Patriots won those three Super Bowls in four years from 01 to 2004. Then from 05 to 13, that's nine years where they did not win a Super Bowl. Within those nine years, they had an undefeated season, right? You have that 2011 year where I want to say Brady has something like 37 touchdowns and

four interceptions where your number one receiver is Julian Edelman. Like when you look at what the receivers were pre-moss and post-moss, and this guy was doing the things that he was doing and putting up the numbers that he was doing, and how was he doing it by playing exceptionally well and making really good decisions? Yeah, I mean, football used to be so much built like outside in, right? You had these, you know, big receivers on the outside. They're cutting in, you know, that's kind of the West Coast offense. And then they, in that 2011 team with those two tight ends when they had Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gonskowski.

And they were able to almost like reinvent the game on the fly just because of Tom Brady, you know, he had his supercomputer back there. Well, that was the thing, right? Rob Gondkowski is the greatest tight end who ever played, like hard stuff. And Hernandez, look, I mean, can't act like it didn't happen, right? Or he never existed. Hernandez, as your second tight end was kind of nuts. But we're still talking about in the NFL, you're running an offense based on having two tight ends. Right. You can do that with an excellent quarterback like the one that they had.

And the one who out there like, hey, man, this is how I grind. So this is how we're all going to grind. But if you're to ask somebody, what's so good about Tom Brady is that he's really good. Like when somebody says they see somebody in a draft and they're like, oh, he reminds me of Tom Brady. What does that mean? Right. Tom Brady is not here because of traits. He's here because of execution.

And I just can't think of anybody at any sport who was that good at simply. executing. Like, what's it like to go in the backyard and pretend to be Tom Brady? You stand real steel and be unafraid of somebody hitting you? Right? Like, like, like, what is there to mimic? What is there to emulate? And then walked into another team, you know, where he had kind of split the, split the credit for that sort of execution and that will and that, you know, that discipline. And then walked in to Tampa Bay of all places and then made everyone follow him and won the Super Bowl as soon as he got there. Yes.

And it's the overall body of work is so strong that it overcomes my own personal preferences. Right? But look, let's say we talk about peak. Let's put it there. The peak is an undefeated season with 50 touchdown passes. Right.

Okay, that's a... Or winning three Super Bowls in four years. Right. Or having the greatest comeback in football history. Right. It goes over and over again. We can list it. We can list it.

We can go so many times over. And he earned it. Jack, like, if you want to get in there and, like, you want to teach your kids about hard work, he really will. I was about to say the training prayers and the vitamins, but he out there hanging out with Alex Guerrero. You know what I'm saying? I don't know what the hell they'd be over there doing with that TB12. They still doing that. You remember when TB 12 was going to be the way that he got his money, I don't really hear about the TB12 no more. Guerrero's with the Raiders.

Really? He strikes me as raidering. Yeah, he's part of the Brady ownership. Oh, I forgot. That's right. Tom Brady's Raiders too. Yep. Okay, well, they're going to be the most pliable, flexible team in the whole league,

apparently. Addis Guerrero going to come in there and be like, wait until Pete Carroll finds out how Alice Guerrero feels about weightlifting. I think they're, I would love to see those two have a conversation. I'm sure they have different standards, if you want. I would actually love to see that conversation between Tom Brady and Christian Wilkins. that's the that's the conversation i won that wow we'll get back to that anyway number three lebron james's going to happen again ryan yes okay guys i want to be very honest with you here

it's almost a coin flip for me between number three and number two okay so what i'm not going to do is get here and make the case for why lebron is not higher i just want to talk about the greatness of lebron james right and i think I've tried my best on this list to not be at a place where I have to explain to you why it is that somebody isn't or whatever it is to go with the negatives because this is intended to be a celebration of who the people are. If you weren't really of age in 2003, like it's one thing to have been a younger person like in middle school or maybe even high school in 2003. It was another to have been old enough to have a little bit more historical frame of reference. And so I'm 23 when LeBron hits the league. There has never, okay, I don't want to say there never been a player as hyped as LeBron because that's not true.

I was here for the Shaq hype of 1992, for example, right? What made it a little different with LeBron is that with Shaq, he was as big as he was and we had watched him do it for three years in college. There was a bit more of a proof of concept to let us know what was going to happen when he got to the league. And it was immediate. It was instantaneous in a way that with LeBron being 18 years old when he got there, it was not going to be. However, we spoke of what was possible with LeBron in reverential terms that seemed unfair at the time. It seemed preposterous to make an argument that an 18-year-old who was not a center

would be one of the upper echelon all-time greats in the NBA. And despite the hiccups, despite the ups and downs of the first nine years of his career, he managed to exceed all of it. all of it. He did that, right? The thing that I don't think that people who believe, people who believe the Bron is the greatest player of all time and do not believe that it was Michael Jordan have a tendency to just say that everybody who does this is like some sort of Jordan lover, da-da-da-da and everything else, and you just refuse to give LeBron credit for anything. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think you guys get this.

LeBron did more than anybody could have ever possibly asked for him to do. as an NBA player, right? Even those of us who don't have him as number one easily and willingly make this point. Being as good as the Cleveland Cavaliers were with him that first run where you're winning 66 games and your second best player is Mo Williams. What are we talking about here? The Miami version of LeBron, which, hey,

if you want to say that the Miami version of LeBron is the best basketball player you've ever seen. I don't really have room to argue with you about that. It was mind-blowing to watch what it was that he was capable of. Winning three championships and being a finals MVP on three different teams is unreal. The 2016 NBA finals, the top line stuff on LeBron's resume is so unreal and so incredible that those of us who were here and got to see it are absolutely fortunate, right the all-time leading scorer in the history of the NBA and most of us do not believe that scoring was the thing that he was best at he's Wayne Gretzky in that regard like every comparison that we make across sports when it comes

to LeBron is somebody that's way crazy high in their shit over there too like we won getting able to see this and all of these things that we're talking about while he is the combination of the supercomputer brain and maybe being as physically gifted as any basketball player has ever been, while also serving as an unreal, incredible ambassador for the sport. We won having this guy here. He was amazing to watch. He was, we have done all of ourselves a great disservice by locking in so much on the arguments about the best two players of all time, because again, it requires you to find ways to diminish somebody as good as help. And look, there are knocks in criticisms that you can make of anybody else.

But when that becomes the defining conversation, then much of the conversation becomes defined by talking about what somebody didn't do right or where somebody came up short. in spite of how many examples we have of where this guy came up big, where this dude stood tall, and where this guy exceeded all of these things with the weight of a league and a world on his shoulders. He was incredible. We are lucky to have him here,

and he's number three on this list, which is an incredibly prestigious honor. Number two, Eldridge, Tiger Woods. Now, guys, I got to tell you, I wish I had been a radio host with his career first got started or whatever. I didn't really get a crack into it right before, you know, he got run up on with that. Things went sideways. Yeah, with that, yes, this, this, that is a great way to put it. They went sideways.

I will never, well, as I talk about, we should be celebrating people, not talking about the bad stuff. Anyway, I remember that when that report first came out, they said he was seriously injured in a car accident in his driveway. And I was like, you can't go fast enough in your driveway to get seriously injured. something's going on. And then we found that he got run up on with that iron. But no, no, no, not that iron. Yeah. The iron. And how about this?

An iron rather than that iron. Yes, there we go. That is what happened to him. Man, listen. The reason I am putting Tiger Woods here is this is again a gap discussion. And the gap between Tiger Woods and everybody else in his sport was so vast and so great that I cannot ignore, right? I also have to note about Tiger Woods, and I think that this part gets very important.

I can't think of anybody else on this list that, Ryan, they did so much to the course at Augusta to stop Tiger, from being Tiger that a course that never had any left-handed champions just started having left-handlers winning all over the place because they changed it up so much to try to stop Tiger Woods. Now, it's one thing to me if you decide that you're going to change the course because everybody is out here wrecking shop and it's just gotten too easy. The course had not gotten to- winning at minus 20 or whatever. Right, right, right. The course had not gotten too easy. Too easy for Tiger. It was this hard as it had ever been. It was this one dude that should be. showed up. Like that right there, that was, it's so funny. That was the metaphor for we got to work

twice as hard, a statement that Tiger Woods probably has no idea the origins of, by the way. I don't know if he ever got that speech, but the, you don't talk about the man trying to hold somebody down. The man tried to hold Tiger Woods down so bad at Augusta that it is unforgettable to me, 1997. The first golf, the first time I ever went out of my way to watch around to golf was the 1996 masters where Greg Norman blew that lead by the turn against Greg Faldon, Nick Faldon. This was the opposite of Greg Norman. This was just, we just watched to watch a coordination. I remember that in 97. He shot a 40 on the front nine in the first round, which is terrible. He shot a 30 on the back nine, which is unreal, and it never stopped from there.

From there, it did not stop for 12 years. There's Pevel Beach where he beat them all by what 15 strokes or whatever it was. There is the Tiger Slam when that came around. There is winning the ninth, was it the 1998 U.S. Open on a broken leg? It was 2008. We have completely forgotten that happened. He won the playoff round on Monday on a month. on a broken leg.

How the fuck do you play golf with a broken leg? He did it on a broken leg. We can run through all these things that he pulled off in a sport that, generally speaking, this is what my brother and I talked about. My brother plays a lot more golf than me. But golf is a sport

that you can't really appreciate watching on television if you haven't played golf. Like there's no way for you to explain to somebody just how hard the things are that people are doing. if you're not watching. How hard the things are that the worst player in tours do it? Correct. And even if you're watching and have played,

unless you play it on courses of that caliber, you can't understand what it is to say, Tiger Woods managed to stick that on a green from however many yards with a seven iron, right, where everybody else is shooting with a wedge and it's hitting the green and then rolling all the way back down. Right? Like there's subtleties to playing golf that you just can't get unless you watch.

And Tiger Woods made watching. golf mesmerizing in large part because he was so amazing to the people who happened to watch it. Now, of course, a great part of the Tiger Woods legacy is the sort of multiculturalism or the multiculturalism of the idea of Tiger Woods, though Tiger Woods did not lead to this huge influx of multiculturalism on the course. Of course it wouldn't. They don't want a multicultural course, dumbass, right? Like them seeing Tiger Woods play golf and then being like, wow, we could get more black people out here. Hell no. What do you think they're going on? next their wives to come with them that's crazy it's the opposite of why they're out there doing it

they're like damn we got to get more of them boys playing football than ever next thing you know they'll come over here and start playing this right but on the course for the observers and for everything that you ever have known about the social factors surrounding like elite level golf because golf is a people's game to buy everybody who tells you that golf is a rich people's game needs to go to a muni right like right i imagine you played at a few munis um yourself it is it is a game It is a game of the people. No, yeah, it's a game for everybody. Yeah, I think that's the thing that has lost more than anything else.

And when Tiger Woods was out there, he was a man of the people, even though he was clearly not a man of the people in many ways. But everybody could get on board with that. Kids were on board with that. Old folks were on board with that. White folks, gangsters and the thugs, all on board with that, right? Everything, I can't think of even with LeBron. Even with, like, Michael Jordan, I guess is kind of an example.

We're like, yo, we're all here for the. the show, right? Regardless of your rooting for him or not, we're all here for the show. Tiger had us all here for the show. And I'll never forget. I think it was actually, of all people, Doug Gottlieb, who made this great point once, where I saw somebody say, well, you know, with Tiger, he can only win, you know, if his putting is not going, then he doesn't win. Yeah, because nobody's beating him if his putting is on. That was your only hope is that the putter wasn't working that day. That was it. He's that guy. My favorite thing about Tiger now is he's talking about a different mythical athlete

is Mike Tyson. Yes. Is where he still gets us, if he's out there, he still gets us and we still convince ourselves he can win. No, that is. Every time he shows up at Augusta,

there will be a contingent, a large contingent of people's like, I don't know, we'll see how these first two rounds go. He has only won the Masters one time in the last 20 years. Before he pulled that last one, right? Which was his Nicholas in 86. He had one since 2005.

Right. Right. Because they, again, had done so much to the course to make it out, boy, you don't, no one man should have all that power. That's what I would be saying about myself under those circumstances. Y'all got to change up your whole course for me. No one man should have all that power. All right.

Number one, the top athlete of the last 25 years in 2025. You, same bolt. That's right. Look, guys, the man has had the world record for the 100 meters since the year 2008. Okay? We're coming up on 20 years of him holding the world record in the 100 meter dash. I'm pulling this up for you right now so you can know what the progression has been on holding the world record in the 100 meter dash.

All right. Both, excuse me, 2009, he set the record himself twice in 2008, and he has held it by himself since 2009. When he set the record in May of 2008, the record had stood for about eight months. It has stood for a year before that, okay? I'll just run through you. The record got broken in 07, in 06, 3 times in 06, 05, 02, 99, 96, 94, 91, 88, 88, 8, and a lot of that was drugs. But, you know, we can run through. The point that I'm making that you're seeing is these world records have typically held up, okay? The world record was broken in Mexico City in 1968 and then held up for 4,000. years. Now, it's worth noting that if you've ever seen the Bob Beam and Long Jump of Mexico City, Mexico City was putting up incredible times at those Olympics, all right? Bolt has now had that

record for 15 years, 15 years. And I contend being the best runner of the 100 meters makes you the king of all things, because that's the thing that everybody does. That's the thing that everybody has done. Everybody is run a race. Even your fat ass is run a race. Everybody. I know. I know. That's right. I'm talking about you. Everybody has run a race at some point. And he is not just the king of the race running. It was incredible to watch him run the race. And I will point out, and it is entirely possible, that the 19.3 that he put up in the 200 might be more impressive than the 958 that he put up in the 100. He won the 100 and the 200 at three straight Olympics. Now, the reason where I said earlier that Simone Biles might have a bigger gap

than anybody is Carl Lewis was also doing this while doing the long jump. And that matters, right? There's something to that, to have that, to be able to do that also in another event. But for this time period, I have never had anybody blow me away the first time I've ever seen them like Usain Bolt that time he ran that 100 meter dash in Beijing in the finals in 2008. I've never seen anything like it. But you control for all the things, or socioeconomic stuff, for access, for everything else. He did this in the event that everybody's got an opportunity to do in one way or another. and to this day, nobody is coming close, right?

I had gotten this wrong when we talked about it before on the show. Tyson Gay ran a 9.8 in the Olympics in London in 2012 and did not even get a medal. Did not even get a medal. Everybody was so happy to finish in second and third place, because wasn't nobody beating that monster at the front? nobody in the world and he walked away as that dude at the top.

You're the best at the most universally applicable thing in athletics that can be done. You get to be number one on our list of the top 25 athletes of the last 25 years. And I want to thank all you guys for riding with us along the way, checking this out.

We still got the context episodes coming. So Wednesday we're going to talk with my guy Michael Smith about the last 25 years of the black quarterback. Would it change? Would it stay the same? All of that stuff. And then something that you won't want to miss, we invited my good buddy, Nick, right on to come on on Friday. And Nick is going to critique our list of top 25 athletes. Because Ryan, you have worked with Nick. You can verify this. Don't nobody care more about putting the list together than Nick. Nobody's more meticulous about these things. And he damn show more meticulous than me.

He was, he is Mr. List and he, you know, the idea was almost, uh, always put together with the idea of him being the cherry on top at the end of it. And we got a little, little twist on it for you for you you guys. Check that out on Friday. You guys aren't going to want to miss. But hey, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this year three times a week. That was Ryan Brumley. He handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. What's out you guys in a couple of days? Take it easy.