Hour 2: Best Stugotz Dismissal (feat. DeMaurice Smith)

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Speaker 8 This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 10 DeMorris Smith has written a book. He will be joining us here in moments.
I don't believe the shipping container has recovered yet from the eruption of Mount Cody.

Speaker 10 Everyone's shaking their heads. They're shaking.
We were just talking during the break. Greg Cody is still seething.

Speaker 10 He doesn't understand why his computer wasn't immediately just brought right back to him.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, well, that would have been awkward and against the show being interesting if we had just brought you your computer earlier. But he will hold on to this for months and it's okay.

Speaker 10 We actively enrage him as a form of content. Another person around here who is perpetually enraged at an assortment of things going on in sports is Stugat.
We've got a category all his own.

Speaker 10 We've got a separate dismissals category for everyone else, but this is the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Stugatz dismissal, which is the best from the last year.

Speaker 11 And now the SUI nominees for best Stugats dismissal.

Speaker 12 Stugats dismisses David Sampson.

Speaker 14 Way too much David, by the way.

Speaker 14 I came in here thinking Greg Cody was going to be at Gret Cody Tuesdays. I left five, six weeks ago, and it was

Speaker 14 Gret Cody every Tuesday, and now we replace that with who's asking for more Samson? Wow. Nobody is the answer.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 13 Stugats dismisses Leon Messi playing in MLS.

Speaker 14 You can't have a hat-trick in 11 minutes. I mean, it's impossible.
He is playing in a lesser league. I mean, only the world's greatest soccer player could do it.
It's like doing it against children.

Speaker 16 Well, that's.

Speaker 16 I think you kind of gave the answer away.

Speaker 7 Only the greatest soccer player could do that.

Speaker 16 Do it in a real league.

Speaker 13 Stu Gats dismisses Robert Salah.

Speaker 14 Robert Salah should be fired. They're going to wait if he loses a couple more games.
I would have fired him today. Here we go.
Damn, what if Belichick calls?

Speaker 16 What do you do?

Speaker 16 He's got Will Levison.

Speaker 14 You're Woody Johnson and Bill Belichick picks up the phone today. I would fire him today.
Thank you.

Speaker 16 So bad. Listen,

Speaker 14 you hire this coach, Robert Sally, you get Aaron Rodgers. You don't have to worry about the offense because Rodgers handles the offense.

Speaker 16 You have to worry about the offense.

Speaker 14 Not with Rodgers there.

Speaker 14 Salah comes in, okay, and he's in charge of the defense and that defense that he's in charge of has given up 28 plus points in six of the last nine games fire him yesterday okay very good stugats dismisses bill o'brien's sincerity bill o'brien said he's always dreamed of being the head coach at boston college you know what the b and bill o'brien stands for dan

Speaker 14 bullshit i got an idea nobody and i mean nobody in the history of football has ever dreamed of being the head coach of boston college

Speaker 12 Stugatz dismisses Chris Paul.

Speaker 14 20 years, played 82 games, huh? No rings.

Speaker 14 What's more impressive? 20 years, no rings, or 20 years playing 82 games? Who cares about the fact that he played 82 games? I mean, seriously.

Speaker 11 Stugatz dismisses Mike Vrabel.

Speaker 14 Big Mike Vrabel.

Speaker 17 What has he ever done?

Speaker 14 And seriously, I want to know the amount of coaches who have gone 13 and 21 over two seasons in the NFL because that's how Mike Vrabel finished in Tennessee.

Speaker 14 And he was 2-3 in the postseason, and he's 0-2 in his last two postseason games. We are talking about Mike Rabel like the Patriots just signed Vince Lombardi to be their head coach.
What are we doing?

Speaker 14 He is an overrated coach, and the fact that we're treating him like Hank Stram is absurd.

Speaker 12 Sugatz dismisses Shohei Otani.

Speaker 14 And as it relates to Otani, do me a favor. Do it in a big spot.

Speaker 14 I'm saying, do it with nobody on. All this guy does is produce when guys are on base.

Speaker 16 Do it when no one's on.

Speaker 14 No, he's right. And do it before the game is out of reach.

Speaker 13 Stugust dismisses leagues starting their seasons overseas.

Speaker 14 We need to start college football in the United States. I don't like this.
Like, Dublin has, Dan, I am serious about this, okay?

Speaker 14 Start your season in the United States, end your season in the United States. I don't want to hear about it.

Speaker 14 Dublin does not deserve to get college football's opener. Okay, they don't.
And baseball, same thing. I don't want the season to start in China, end in the United States.

Speaker 14 I want it to start here, end here. Japan, wherever they're playing games.
I don't want it. Why are we giving the start of our seasons away to different countries?

Speaker 12 Why? Sugas dismisses the Philadelphia Eagles' fan base.

Speaker 14 I don't care what Philadelphia is tired of. I'm tired of their fan base.
How does that sound? They wanted to fire Nick Siriani like a month or two ago, and now they're all celebrating Nick Siriani.

Speaker 14 He is the greatest coach in Eagles' history. I said it.
Better than Andy Reid, better than Dick Vermeal. This is the fourth consecutive season.
He has led this team to the playoffs.

Speaker 14 He's the only Eagles coach in Eagles' history to do that. First four seasons go into the playoffs.
He was a playaway from beating Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes in a Super Bowl.

Speaker 14 I don't care about what Philadelphia fans think about anything. And I'm talking to you, Spike Eskin, and I'm talking to you, Angelo Cataldi.
I don't care what you have to say.

Speaker 14 You wanted to fire Nick Siriani 35 days ago, and I'm not going to allow you to celebrate Nick Siriani moving forward.

Speaker 16 How about that?

Speaker 12 Stu Gust dismisses Cooper Flagg.

Speaker 14 Cooper Flagg is a nice player.

Speaker 14 Cooper Flagg is a good college basketball player, but teams tanking their NBA season to get Cooper Flag because they think he's going to fix their NBA organization, get out of here.

Speaker 14 That guy is not good enough. I am not impressed with Cooper Flagg, not from an NBA standpoint.
From a college standpoint, he's fine. He's one of the best players in the country.

Speaker 14 NBA, for me, his game does not trade.

Speaker 17 He's the consensus number one pick.

Speaker 16 I don't care. A lot of concerns about that.

Speaker 14 I mean, number one picks have gone wrong before, Dan, and they'll go wrong again.

Speaker 14 I mean, I would say, if you look over the course of time, that more number one picks haven't worked out than have worked out. How about that?

Speaker 12 Stugats dismisses Draymond Green.

Speaker 14 That guy has no reason to be as confident as he is. I mean, seriously.
He's got a lot of reasons. Steph Curry is his reason.
Stugats.

Speaker 14 Put him on the wizards, Dan. What kind of career does Draymond Green have? Seriously.

Speaker 10 Draymond Green.

Speaker 14 Right place, right time. Fair.

Speaker 16 Thank you. It's not.

Speaker 14 The rational confidence. He ain't wrong.
He had nothing to do with the winning.

Speaker 10 I mean, guys, he is wrong.

Speaker 10 He is an unprecedented defensive player.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 10 Like, there has never been another basketball player who plays that defense at that size.

Speaker 14 Now put him in Washington. Wow.

Speaker 15 Literally the best ever is what you're saying.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 14 He'd be a Shanghai shark.

Speaker 3 I mean.

Speaker 13 Stu Gus dismisses Simone Biles.

Speaker 14 I don't want to say this. Like, I love Simone Biles.
I do. I really do.

Speaker 9 All right.

Speaker 14 I get how great she is, the athleticism. She's amazing.
Everything she's been through, I get it. But she won a gold on the vault for simply being Simone Biles.
Here's what I like with the vault, Dan.

Speaker 14 I need you to stick the landing. I don't like any hops, okay? And Simone Biles hopped on both her vaults.
And Rebecca did.

Speaker 14 I don't care how high you jump. I don't care how many twists and turns you do.

Speaker 14 You need to stick the landing i'm telling you if rebecca okay if she does the same vaults as simone biles and biles does rebecca's you know who wins biles sugas dismisses the luka donchic anthony davis trade this is a nothing trade it's big names i understand why it's news it's a nothing trade the lakers are not winning an nba title anytime soon the mavericks are not winning an nba title anytime soon in fact i would tell you the bigger trade made yesterday in the nba was the one that got the Spurs to Aaron Fox.

Speaker 14 You want to know why? That team might win all the championships soon. This is not a trade that lands you Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
This is not getting Moses Malone if you're Dr.

Speaker 14 J in the Sixers, the missing piece, and then they went faux, faux, faux, faux. This is not that.
This is a trade again with two middling teams and two superstars who barely play.

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Speaker 14 dan lebatard i had rachel and emma both home and i was in a fight with rachel and i said if you roll your eyes one more time there's gonna be a problem a big problem And she said, really?

Speaker 14 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 4 Stugats.

Speaker 16 Oh, goddamn.

Speaker 8 I mean, that's where i didn't have an answer this is the dan lebatar show with the stugats

Speaker 10 That is a loaded category. It always is.
I think that's the fifth or sixth straight year that Stugatz has done that to Chris Paul.

Speaker 10 Demorris Smith was listening to some of that. He howled with laughter at Hank Stram.

Speaker 10 He served 14 years as the head of the NFL Players Association, and he's written a book, Turf Wars, The Fight for the Soul of America's Game. And look at him right now, Greg Cody.

Speaker 10 That is a man who looks like he is relieved and radiant that he no longer has to deal with any of that bullshit.

Speaker 11 It is so good. Well, I got rid of two a days for the players, but I do two a days myself now.
So that's how good things are.

Speaker 10 You're exercising twice a day, are you? Look at that. You're showing off the guns.

Speaker 11 always the guns bro just bring the guns nice

Speaker 11 um how much uh have you enjoyed getting out of the rat race how much relief is there to not have the daily headaches the daily uh complaints brother i you know i didn't know how um i didn't know how beat up i was until i got uh done with the job you know i loved it it was it was almost 15 years okay loved it was way too strong let's just Let's just pump the brakes on Loved It.

Speaker 11 I enjoyed it.

Speaker 11 But yeah, not being there and not having having the daily stress. And I know it's going to come as a shock.
You know, my BFF, Roger Goodell, and I don't spend as much time together. I miss that.

Speaker 11 I miss that.

Speaker 10 He can be crude and he can be cruel. What is the worst of it when you've had a back and forth with him?

Speaker 11 You know, Roger, you know, if you read the book, and I'm not going to spoil the ending, I think Roger does better in the book than I ever thought he would.

Speaker 11 At times, as you know, he can just be tough and,

Speaker 11 you know angry and sometimes a little bit petulant um you know he is a smart guy but he is just a tough guy to deal with day in day out just tough is it because uh he and the league's owners are arrogant

Speaker 11 i mean these owners to a certain extent are among the most petulant people I have ever met.

Speaker 11 I mean, look, you've got guys who are owners who who are destroying each other's sweets. You got one owner pouring beer on one of his fans.

Speaker 11 A couple of years ago, owners were flipping off each other from across the stadium.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's everything that I would expect in a junior high school, you know, ring, but I think it's tough for Roger because he literally works for those guys.

Speaker 11 So at the end of the day, he literally has to deliver for some of the people who can just be petty. I mean, look, look at what's going on in Dallas.
Can there be a more petty, petulant

Speaker 11 display of,

Speaker 11 you know, what we now know is the business of football? I mean, I can't figure out one.

Speaker 15 When you refer to owners as a cabal of greedy billionaires who control the league, is there an exception to that rule?

Speaker 13 Like, who were the owners that you most respected or who were the least greedy?

Speaker 10 The examples you all gave were tepper, by the way. Every example you gave, it felt like all three of those things were demon tepper.

Speaker 2 We're all tepper. Right.

Speaker 13 Who's the exception?

Speaker 11 Look,

Speaker 11 Robert Kraft is probably one of the best that I ever had to deal with because he's ruthlessly smart. He cares about the big picture of the NFL.
Now, at the same time, don't get it twisted.

Speaker 11 Man, Robert will press you up against the wall

Speaker 11 and try to take it from you. I mean, just so you know.
But, you know, of the people that I liked working with, you know, the, the former, the former Mr. Rooney was really good to me before he passed.

Speaker 11 Other than that, I think I'm out of, I think I'm out of good guys.

Speaker 11 There's not a lot of good guys, my friend.

Speaker 10 Well, so let me let me ask you this question because ESPN portrayed you as an asset to the owners and you spent five pages in your book saying that Wickersham and Vennada were owners in, they were in their hip pocket.

Speaker 10 So who's who's telling the truth there?

Speaker 11 I mean, look, I'm not going to get into a he said, you know, she said, I'm the he said, though, of course, but I'm not going to get into that with those guys.

Speaker 11 Here's what I didn't like about the article. I spent over three, maybe four hours talking to Seth and Van Nada.
They write a big piece.

Speaker 11 I think I'm in that article for almost, you know, less than one-fifth of their private sources.

Speaker 11 And the other thing I didn't like about the article is: look, I mean, you know, we've been around this track for a long time.

Speaker 11 i was never unwilling to come out and exactly lay it on the line go 10 toes to the line for the national football league players never a day in my life that i didn't go to the freaking line for our guys i had a problem with the fact that the article shrouded a bunch of billionaires in secrecy and if those guys wanted to lend their names to the article and meet me toe to toe fine But there was only one dude in the article for the most part who went on the record and everybody else was stuck in the shadows.

Speaker 11 And by the way, if that's the way that they want to write an article, more power to them. I like Don.
I think he is a very, very good journalist. I just didn't happen to like that piece very much.

Speaker 10 What do you make of all the recent reporting that Pablo and Don Van Nada have done about the disarray that the union is in now that you are gone?

Speaker 11 Miss Me Yet.

Speaker 11 I mean, you know, this is a very, very hard job. And I never shied away from the war that has to happen between players and management.

Speaker 11 I mean, again, I'm not talking to anybody who doesn't know the history in the National Football League.

Speaker 11 20 years of litigation for free agency, 15 years of fighting everything from Kaepernick to Bounty to Ray Rice to Deflategate, fights about COVID.

Speaker 11 When I took the job, the head of the league's concussion committee was a rheumatologist.

Speaker 11 So at the end of the day, I mean, it's easy to kind of portray someone as maybe in the back pocket of the owners. I'll tell you one thing, there isn't a dude on the other side of the owners who was

Speaker 11 unhappy to see me leave. And I think at the end of the day, the job of the executive director at the NFL Players Association better be one where you understand that this is a group of 31 killers.

Speaker 11 And these guys will not only make you take everything that you're entitled to, but you better be able to fight them for taking things away from you.

Speaker 11 And if the players don't get their heads around the fact that when this CBA comes up, the league is done paying pensions.

Speaker 11 Done. They don't want to pay pensions anymore because literally no Fortune 550 company is paying pensions anymore.
They're done paying pensions.

Speaker 11 The league league bought the 17th game for something like $1.6 billion over 10 years. That means the 18th game has to be worth about $2.5 billion.

Speaker 11 If the players aren't ready to fight for $2.5 to $3 billion for that game, the league is going to bring the fight to them.

Speaker 10 Did you consider tying the cap to not only revenue, but valuations?

Speaker 11 It's hard, Dan, because here's the problem with valuations.

Speaker 11 On average, a professional sports team only comes up for sale around every eight to 10 years. I know that Forbes does a valuation every year, but that's a non-realized valuation.

Speaker 11 So it's easy to say that we can try to tie it to valuation, but if that valuation is an asset that does not get sold or otherwise does not get traded, it's hard to tie a monetary amount to that valuation so that it actually becomes part of the revenue that goes to players.

Speaker 11 So I get it. I get the thoughts about valuation and everything, but it's really, really hard to do.
I mean, look how long it took for private equity to get into the business of the NFL.

Speaker 11 But, you know, over the next few years, we're going to see how that plays out. And I'm just making a prediction.

Speaker 11 Private equity ownership ownership in the National Football League is not going to benefit coaches. It is not going to benefit the facilities.

Speaker 11 It is not going to benefit the people who work for those teams because private equity is interested in coming in and cutting overhead.

Speaker 11 And coaches' salaries, employees' salaries, facilities are all overhead. So at the end of the day, we'll see how private equity happens in the National Football League.

Speaker 11 But if I were a group of coaches right now who don't have a union, I would be sweating bullets right now.

Speaker 10 The name of the book is Turf Wars, The Fight for the Soul of America's Game. When you mentioned those crises that you mentioned, what was the worst of them for you?

Speaker 11 I think the worst was

Speaker 11 the worst from

Speaker 11 just a pure frame was probably somewhere between Kaepernick and Anthem.

Speaker 11 And here's why. It was the worst because I think we saw the players at their best and I think we saw the owners at their worst.

Speaker 11 So, you know, if you wanted to kind of describe it, it was tough because of that tension in the middle. I will tell you that during the anthem, I was never prouder of our players.
Why?

Speaker 11 Because while the country was literally throwing chairs at each other in town halls, You went to, or I went to every team facility and guys were having great conversations about race, class, politics, gender, police brutality, and it was calm.

Speaker 11 It was absolutely calm. And this was coming from a group of players where the average age is under 28 years old.

Speaker 11 The flip side of that is when the league allowed this narrative to turn on the players without really stepping up to protect them until one moment, and I'll talk about it into a second.

Speaker 11 But the league allowing the narrative to turn against these players without the owners of the National Football League standing up to either protect their players or to protect their brand was the first time that I saw the owners knuckle under.

Speaker 11 And that

Speaker 11 was literally the textbook of the day until, if you remember, Roger gave a press conference

Speaker 11 from his house. I mean, it looked like he was in a bunker, but, you know, to each his own.
But if you remember, Roger did a press conference from his house saying that

Speaker 11 he got it wrong about Anthem and he got it wrong about the league. And here's the deal.
I am not sure he had the owner's authority to do it.

Speaker 11 I think he did it on his own.

Speaker 10 But that's my opinion. He only did it, though, because Mahomes put his voice on it.
Like,

Speaker 17 didn't that happen hours after Mahomes

Speaker 10 said something?

Speaker 11 It may have, but remember,

Speaker 11 it also happened way after all the players took a knee after

Speaker 11 President Trump's statement in Huntsville, Alabama. It was way after

Speaker 11 players unified on that weekend and everybody knelt. So I think Patrick lending his voice was huge, but let's be real.
One player lending his voice

Speaker 11 doesn't necessarily mean that the commissioner of the National Football League decides to act.

Speaker 11 I think they were both courageous. It's probably the last thing, nice thing I'll say about Roger on the show because I have a limit, right?

Speaker 11 I mean, you can't say more than two things because then people, then people will think that, you know, I'm a shill for the owners. But no, I think Roger coming out and saying what he said

Speaker 11 was a pretty brave thing.

Speaker 10 How haunted are you personally that Kaepernick's career was ended forever a martyr on your watch?

Speaker 11 It's a tough one.

Speaker 11 I mean, look, we represented Kaepernick. We fought for him.

Speaker 11 I think that

Speaker 11 he was not the last

Speaker 11 martyr for the National Football League. I don't believe that.
I think in the future, there's going to be players who are going to stand up and pay the price.

Speaker 11 But Dan, you know, John Mackey was a martyr for the National Football League as well. Dave Megassey was a martyr for the National Football League

Speaker 11 as well. All those players who sued for free agency between 1972 and 1993, many of them lost their jobs.

Speaker 11 But the reality is there is

Speaker 11 success and the protection of civil rights

Speaker 11 and literally anything that we want to fight for in this country, when has it come

Speaker 11 without someone paying a sacrifice?

Speaker 10 Put us next to you the moments that you're reading the details that Pablo Torre reported on, yes, absolutely, there was collusion, even though an arbiter ruled that there was not collusion.

Speaker 11 That was tough to read

Speaker 11 because,

Speaker 11 you know, I filed the lawsuit before I left.

Speaker 11 I wasn't there for the judgment.

Speaker 11 I had never read it until Pablo and Mike Florio's show.

Speaker 11 Well, first of all, it didn't come to me as a surprise because after all, I filed the grievance in the first place. What hurt was

Speaker 11 that was a moment when I would have filed another grievance on behalf of every player in the National Football League, going back as far as the statute of limitations and the facts would have allowed me.

Speaker 11 I think at the end of the day, that collusion ruling is as significant as the collusion ruling

Speaker 11 after

Speaker 11 the the 1992 case

Speaker 11 of the NFL players against the National Football League. I really think that that decision was as important as that 1992 case

Speaker 11 of Freeman McNeil. And if you remember, it was that case that led to the class action where Reggie White was the lead plaintiff, among others.

Speaker 11 This is a game of leverage.

Speaker 11 And the National Football League owners push you to the

Speaker 11 it's a family show, right?

Speaker 9 You can let it fly.

Speaker 16 Let it fly. It's fine.

Speaker 11 The National Football League owners push you to the wall and that is no different than

Speaker 11 um the baseball owners in in the 90s it's no different than the nba owners during their strikes they push you to the wall and the only leveler the only

Speaker 11 thing that prevents them from running the players over is the collective strength of a union number one

Speaker 11 and as history and marvin miller told me, your ability to wage

Speaker 11 an unmitigating warfare campaign that usually involves litigation. And so everybody talks about the 1994 strike for the Major League Baseball players.

Speaker 11 And don't get me wrong, it was an incredible show of strength. But what happened in tandem to that? was three collusion rulings that led up to that.

Speaker 11 And those collusion rulings against the major league baseball owners coupled with the willingness of the players to fight

Speaker 11 made that union at the time the largest and strongest sports union in the country.

Speaker 20 Folks, fuel your game day with the unbeatable crunch of Hampton Farms, the official peanut of bowl season. Perfect for sharing with friends, tailgating outside the stadium, or cheering from the couch.

Speaker 20 Grab a bag from the produce aisle of your local grocery store and savor the game one peanut at a time. Let's get nutty.

Speaker 14 Holidays?

Speaker 6 Fun. Holidays as a dad?

Speaker 2 Tough.

Speaker 6 Travel, gifts, matching pajamas. Don't get me started on matching pajamas.
It's hot in Miami. My wife says, why don't you want to do this with us? My daughter's crying.

Speaker 6 Anyways, school parties, hosting a family. Next thing I know, I basically put Christmas on my credit card and have no idea what I spent where.

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Speaker 6 That's 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with code DAN. And don't give me those matching pajamas, I swear.

Speaker 21 Folks, the leaves are turning.

Speaker 7 The weather's getting a little chillier. That means the football games are more important.

Speaker 21 That means football time should be Miller time.

Speaker 7 Game day hits different with a Miller light in your hand. From jaw-dropping touchdowns to fantasy heartbreaks, my fantasy season's over already.
But you know what makes that better? Miller time!

Speaker 7 It's the beer that's been there for every moment. 50 years of great taste, simple ingredients, and that iconic golden color you can spot from across the room.

Speaker 7 And here's the kicker: it's just 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 6 The original light beer since 1975 and still hitting different five decades later.

Speaker 7 So, whatever your game day looks like, remember Miller time is always a good time. Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.
Go to millerlight.com/slash Dan to find delivery options near you.

Speaker 7 Or you can pick up Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time.
Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 4 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 22 Bood ball.

Speaker 22 Football. Football.

Speaker 22 Football. Football.
Football.

Speaker 4 Stugats.

Speaker 22 Foodball.

Speaker 8 This is the Dan Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 19 Dee, how do you feel about these hold-ins? I'm not a fan.

Speaker 19 I feel like if you were there still, you wouldn't be allowing players to be going and, you know, participating, semi-participating in practice. I feel like you're starting to lose leverage.

Speaker 19 I feel like you, when you were in charge, you start like a colony in Antarctica and anyone's holding out, you send them there and keep them as far away from camp as possible.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you know,

Speaker 11 I'm not going to second guess strategy of the players because I'm not there. And I also think it's not fair.

Speaker 11 I mean, I get to say whatever I want while I'm working out. And usually the heavy bag gets more of me than I get of the heavy bag.
So I'm not going to second guess strategy.

Speaker 11 What I love, though, is that players are fighting. And sometimes I wish that they would take the fight a little bit earlier to OTAs rather than waiting until training camp.

Speaker 11 Because as you know, for most players in the National Football League, well, I would say most except a handful, very few players in the National Football League have a workout bonus, which means that these players are going to OTAs for free.

Speaker 14 I know.

Speaker 11 So I love the idea of the fight.

Speaker 11 I think tactically, sometimes it would make sense to bring the fight to the national football league a little bit earlier have you seen the new superman movie

Speaker 11 wow talk about left left field yes i have uh don't know where this is going but yeah dig it i dug it i really liked it do you have any other follow-ups aslo is that all you have for crypto what do you make of crypto

Speaker 11 uh look i think any movie superhuman a superhero movie with a dog i dig it man i i watched the old uh roy rogers shows when i was a kid you know and he had the dog i like the John Wayne movie, The Cowboys, where he had a dog.

Speaker 11 Any movie where there's a good guy and he's got a dog, I'm in.

Speaker 10 Put it on the poll at Lebatard's show. Are you in on any movie where you've got a good guy and a dog? What stopped fully guaranteed contracts during CBA negotiations?

Speaker 11 Well, I think according to the

Speaker 11 looking back at that ruling by the arbitrator, I mean, he ruled that the management council urged teams to not do fully guaranteed contracts.

Speaker 11 So at the end of the day, I mean, one of the reasons that, again, this is not a second guessing.

Speaker 11 You asked me what I would do and you wanted to pretend that you were, you know, sitting by me when that ruling came out.

Speaker 11 You file a ruling because collusion is the way of business for professional sports owners. It's the way of business.
I mean, think about it. There was collusion in baseball.

Speaker 11 There was collusion in 1933 when the owners barred black players. There's collusion in the 1970s to prevent

Speaker 11 free agency. There was collusion

Speaker 11 in 2011 when they all locked the players out. The owners engage in collusion as a way of business.

Speaker 11 And if an arbitrator gives you a ruling that suggests that the people who are running the National Football League are engaged in collusion,

Speaker 11 I have one choice, and that's to light the fuse, right?

Speaker 23 Have you seen the movie Weapons?

Speaker 11 Well, this guy's, I mean, I think the first thing you have to do is go off geek. Yeah, just go straight to decaf, man.
Just go, just go right to it.

Speaker 11 No, I have not seen weapons. I do want to see weapons.
I want to see Nobody 2.

Speaker 10 What are you most likely to watch? What on television are you watching these days?

Speaker 11 Wait, I have one question. Is there a dog in Nobody 2?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 23 I haven't seen Nobody 2 yet.

Speaker 11 Just ask it. Just ask it.

Speaker 23 You got some movie questions for me?

Speaker 11 Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. What television show are you watching right now? Which one do you love?

Speaker 23 I'm watching Bloodline.

Speaker 9 Oh, nice. Oh, good show.

Speaker 2 That's a good show. That's a good show.
That's a good show.

Speaker 11 Good show. That's a good show.

Speaker 5 Is that Keith? That's a good show.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm watching Family Matters. It's a rerun.
Don't watch it.

Speaker 11 So what was your question?

Speaker 10 I have other questions before we get you out of here, and Greg Cody does too.

Speaker 10 What are your greatest regrets? Do you regret in any way? Labor experts said 10-year deals aren't something that you make. So what is it that you regret? Is there anything?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I don't know what labor person says that. I know it wasn't a dude who sat in the chair with me.
I mean, it's easy to sit in your,

Speaker 11 you know, sit at your university and say, hey, 10-year deals are

Speaker 11 not good. I'll tell you one thing.

Speaker 11 If we don't have a 10-year deal, how do we get through COVID? Right? I mean, we were able to leverage the 10-year deal, the length of the deal, to make sure that every player

Speaker 11 got paid their full salary. A 10-year deal makes it that

Speaker 11 a collective bargaining agreement is impervious to the owners coming back and taking things away from you. I think that's one of the things.

Speaker 11 And look, I teach all over the country and I have healthy debates with law professors and economists and a lot of people who teach. Virtually none of them do.
They all teach and that's great.

Speaker 11 But when you're sitting in a chair and you understand the unilateral, uninhibited power

Speaker 11 of

Speaker 11 owners to take things away from you, let's play it out. You sign a collective bargaining agreement for five years.
Two years are great. The third year, somebody opts out.

Speaker 11 Year four, you spend all of your money in a war for year five. You make it through the year five deal.
Year six or year one of the new deal, now you're out of money.

Speaker 11 Year two, nobody likes the deal anymore. Year four, what are you? Out of money and unwilling to fight.

Speaker 11 So one of the things that the long-term deals gave us is the largest, most uninhibited growth of a sports league in history.

Speaker 11 The year-over-year TV deals that really drive revenue in the National Football League, the length of those deals allowed the league to go in and absolutely crush those television deals, meaning more salary for players, but most importantly, the inability of arming the owners with leverage to take things away from you.

Speaker 10 NFL is increasing its international stamp.

Speaker 15 Goodell refuses to rule out a Super Bowl in London, smart or bad?

Speaker 11 Man, I like London. I mean, I'm not going to go to a Super Bowl,

Speaker 11 but, you know, will I go the week leading leading up to it and do some fish and chips and maybe see a good movie or a show in London? I'm always there for you, champion. Always there for you.

Speaker 11 What movie do you think?

Speaker 4 But that's good for the league, though, to play a Super Bowl in London or not.

Speaker 11 I mean, don't tell him, but watching a movie in London, it's the same language as watching it in the States.

Speaker 10 Fill in the blank here for me. Just quick answers.

Speaker 10 The owner that I think is the biggest killer is blank.

Speaker 11 Biggest killer?

Speaker 11 Biggest killer, Robert Craft.

Speaker 10 The closest I came to a physical fight with a player was named Blank.

Speaker 11 Player? Never. There's a strict touching, no touching of D rule.

Speaker 10 The angriest a player was with me, his name was Blank.

Speaker 11 Richard Sherman.

Speaker 10 You want to give us the backstory there?

Speaker 11 Richard is literally one of the, if not the, but one of the smartest players that's ever served on the executive committee. And we would have, you know, knock down, drag out fights.
And you know what?

Speaker 11 i loved every one of it um i i did i loved every one of the fights we had with richard because he's very passionate he's very smart um and he's willing to to again go go 10 toes to the line so you know there were times when i'm i'm sure i made him absolutely crazy and i know that one of it was during during covid and i had to make a really quick decision about moving games because um i forget what team it was that we had to move the game from Sunday to Monday or Tuesday because of an outbreak of COVID.

Speaker 11 I had to do it

Speaker 11 before I called the executive committee. He was upset about it.
He was absolutely right, but it was also a call that I had to make.

Speaker 11 And so I'm not having any problem with Richard, but man, I'll tell you what now I'm never getting in a fight with NFL players.

Speaker 11 Those guys just put you to sleep.

Speaker 10 The owner that you came closest to getting into a physical fight with was named?

Speaker 11 I mean, probably

Speaker 11 I'm not going to kid you. I would have loved to lay a lick on Jerry Richardson when he called me a name at a meeting.
I'm not going to speak ill of the dead, but I guess I just did.

Speaker 11 But, you know, I mean,

Speaker 11 you know, what are you going to do? I mean, if somebody calls you a slur, you know, they deserve a good old country slap, right?

Speaker 9 Yep.

Speaker 17 He did what?

Speaker 11 Called me up.

Speaker 11 Called me uppity at a meeting.

Speaker 10 In front of people.

Speaker 11 It was on his way walking out, and he has a southern draw so maybe you know first of all you know it's hard to understand somebody who talks with marbles in their mouth okay that's the second time i've spoken ill of the dead i'm not going to make it a third but yeah uh we were at a meeting in uh i think we were at the super bowl and it was a meeting where um

Speaker 11 I had arranged for Peyton Manning to come to a negotiation meeting, which was supposed to be, read the book. It's in Turf Wars, read the book.
But we were supposed to have a meeting.

Speaker 11 Literally, it was a meeting just to show the fans and everybody else that

Speaker 11 we were trying to get a deal done to avoid the lockout.

Speaker 11 And Jerry Richardson went after Peyton Manning in a way that I consider to be the most condescending conversation I've ever seen between an owner and a player. And the kicker was

Speaker 11 devolves.

Speaker 11 The meeting just goes absolutely crazy. And we get it done.
It's over.

Speaker 11 Everybody kind of stands up and we're walking out and they're walking out and Jerry Richardson says what Jerry Richardson says to me as I'm walking out next to him.

Speaker 11 When I turn my back to get back to the table, the players are absolutely apoplectic. Apoplectic.

Speaker 11 And I'm thinking, oh man, these guys are really coming to the defense of D, you know, that he was disrespected the meeting. Oh no.

Speaker 11 They were all apoplectic because Jerry Richardson was mad at Peyton Manning. So nobody gave a damn about D.
Smith. Every player was pissed off that

Speaker 11 they had disrespected the, you know, what someone considered the GOAT.

Speaker 10 Turf Wars, the fight for the soul of America's game. Good seeing you, DeMorris.
Thank you for making the time for us.

Speaker 11 Thank you, buddy. Always a pleasure.

Speaker 10 Likewise, Greg, are you done simmering? Are you in a better place? Because I have felt the heat off of you throughout the entirety of the last hour.

Speaker 15 Happy as a clam. Don't worry about me.

Speaker 21 Look at my big smiling face.

Speaker 15 Clam, you know it. He knows I'm happy.

Speaker 10 Clam, you know it.

Speaker 10 Clam, you know it is what you offered us there.

Speaker 17 Is it true? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 10 I think my favorite part of that was watching DeMorris's face as Stugats dismiss people at the start of this. The Hank Stram reference.

Speaker 2 I think it was...

Speaker 8 You watched Superman?

Speaker 21 Folks, the leaves are turning.

Speaker 7 The weather's getting a little chillier. That means the football games are more important.

Speaker 21 That means football time should be Miller time.

Speaker 7 Game day hits different with a Miller light in your hand. From jaw-dropping touchdowns to fantasy heartbreaks, my fantasy season's over already, but you know what makes that better? Miller time!

Speaker 7 It's the beer that's been there for every moment. 50 years of great taste, simple ingredients, and that iconic golden color you can spot from across the room.
And here's the kicker.

Speaker 7 It's just 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. The original light beer since 1975 and still hitting different five decades later.

Speaker 7 So, whatever your game day looks like, remember Miller time is always a good time. Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.
Go to millerlight.com/slash stand to find delivery options near you.

Speaker 7 Or you can pick up Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time.
Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.