The Big Suey: Cam Newton's Hat Travel Case (feat. Pablo Torre)

41m
"This was Harvard, man."

Pablo Torre takes a step away from his generational journalism heater to join us and discuss the latest details on his latest pod before Dan accidentally leaks his private information. Plus, noted weight-lifter Mike Ryan and the rest of the crew discuss how Cam Newton can travel with the size of his hats.
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Transcript

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Welcome to the Big Sue,

presented by DraftKings.

Why are you listening to this show?

It's a podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebetard podcast.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that.

In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging.

I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries that if they're just there.

If that hasn't happened to you guys, I've done it.

And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

This episode of the Dan Levittard show with Sugats is presented by DraftKings.

DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Whose turn is it next before we bring on Pablo Torrey to select from the bucket?

Because we did a very poor job of getting Jeff Conine, of staying on track, of me maintaining my point.

I lost track of the show there several times.

You guys pointed out that I lost last week, so I want to let the audience know that I did already select a punishment because I know that that has been a complaint amongst many people, fans, Dan.

MetalArc has now hired somebody to enforce that

officially.

I can't tell you.

No, no, no, I have.

No, I'm bringing in somebody to back you up, Jeremy, in the event that you don't have enough backup.

We have someone hired.

I'll tell you about it soon.

Okay, well.

In any event, I selected the Kawhi Leonard, and the punishment is I have to plant a tree.

Now, I would say in the spirit of Kawhi Leonard and the punishment, I do not plant a tree because I will plant as many trees as Kawhi Leonard has planted.

So I would say that that has been paid off already because I've planted a number of trees.

So I knew that you guys would protest this, so I went out on my own and I planted a tree.

And I would like to show you here the photo of me planting the tree.

And this punishment has been paid off.

No, I don't.

I don't know if that's what happened.

That is me.

That's not you.

That's lifeless.

Is that AI you?

Excuse me.

That is me.

That is my raincoat, which you guys have seen me wear many times.

That is my Blue Missions hat that you guys have seen wearing.

Let's keep it moving.

I planted a second tree as well.

Pablo's going to be here soon.

You guys need to do the bucket, please.

A one punishment credit because I planted two trees for the New Orleans Saints.

Oof, you don't want that.

I don't want that one.

They're at home against the Niners.

They're a three-point dog.

Mac Jones.

Mac Jones hurts them back.

That was a mistake.

But Kyle Shanahan did want Mac Jones initially in that draft process, remember?

Nice little storyline, Dana.

Oh, thank God.

New England Patriots.

Thank God.

The Dolphins aren't going to win on the battle.

They did upgrade when it comes to lion, aren't they?

Terror meeting is a Dentech Blucker.

I love Dentec.

Greg Cody has picked the Dolphins to win this week.

Shocking.

All right, here we go.

All right, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rematch against the Philadelphia Eagles.

A point and a half underdog at home.

You know,

I'm going to take the Kansas City Chiefs as a home dog.

I know Patrick Mahomes' history as

an underdog, and I low-durate term.

I'm always going to take Patrick Mahomes as a dog, especially a home dog.

Are you shitting me?

All right.

Now remember, I have a one punishment credit since I planted two trees.

Pablo's now there, and we're well behind.

I have selected the lions.

Well, they got the bears.

You are bare down Billy.

I'm Bear Down Billy.

All right, look, this is what we're going to do.

Pablo's my favorite.

I'm going to take the bear.

The Lions.

Listen to me.

Do you want me to pick for Pablo?

We've screwed.

Well, he's got to do it.

Yes.

Okay, so Just hang on, Pablo.

We're good.

Yeah, we got to get this done, but we also, Pablo's very busy, and he's got to go from place to place.

And we got a finite amount of time with him.

And I don't want to waste it.

You're wasting the time right now.

Like, we could have all picked.

Yeah.

What is in your mouths?

Dent.

Dent tech, sir.

What is in your mouth?

You're so busy, you don't know your sponsors.

What are you, Balmer?

Like, you're silver?

Like, you don't know your sponsors?

What?

Chris, go to prison.

I'm taking the Bucs on the road in Houston.

i love what baker mayfield's doing i'm they're a two and a two and a half point underdog on the road i'm taking them

that might be a mechanical break all right this is for pablo i'm reaching in pablo you have the option to put this game back this team back or keep it it is the broncos

they are playing they're at the colts and they are one and a half point favorite you can put it back and you're stuck with the next helmet or you can keep the broncos why is chris so good at talking with dentech in his mouth um i'll put it back okay it's because it's so damn natural that's why you have the titans all right right, we're bringing this in here.

Dan.

You downgraded.

They're hosting that.

I regret that decision.

The Titans are a five-and-a-half-point dog at home against the Rams.

I like them there, though, Pablo.

Again,

have not lost in a year.

Damn, we have no way to verify.

I lost, but I paid off right.

So the Arizona Cardinals, Tony Thursday.

Carolina.

They got Carolina at home.

Seven and a half point favorite red.

All right, I'll take that.

I'll keep that.

Thank you.

Stop threatening me.

Thank you, Dante.

Pablo, I have a number of questions.

I will get to them one at a time.

First of all, I need an explanation, please,

for why it is that you look so much larger than Samson in all of these videos that I am seeing of your podcast, where you are how tall, Pablo?

What is your height?

Thank you for asking.

I'm 5'10 and 3 quarters inches tall.

Okay, I don't believe that.

I believe...

By my license.

I think he's surprisingly...

No, Pablo is...

Yeah, I concur that.

What?

Okay, thanks for that.

Again, put the picture up.

Not since.

Not since Billy Gill.

Not since Billy Gill sat next to Derrick Henry have we had someone look so small next to someone so large.

Although I think J.J.

Watt has, is it Ion Eagle or is it Noah Eagle that he was next to?

Okay, so he was next to Daddy.

So this is Iron Eagle versus J.J.

Watt.

If I gave you the three of these in terms of size disparities, which Pablo

Pablo wins.

The JJ Watt one looks like it's like the Hobbit technology from Lord of the Rings.

Like they're in the same perspective.

That's the part that's blowing my mind about that one.

The other ones, I'm like, oh, that's just camera stuff.

They are like right on the same plane of existence.

When did broadcasters stop using the booster?

Because I think Al Michaels famously was always the same size as John Madden on that still shot, and that's just not possible.

John Madden felt like a mountain of a man.

Pablo, from your most recent reporting, I want to know just which of the details tickled you the most, okay?

Was it that Wong has been his college roommate, Ballmer's college roommate since 1975, or was it discovering that his daughter worked at Aspiration?

From among those two facts in your reporting, which was the more delightful?

And give me a more delightful one than that.

My favorite one is actually that his name is Dennis.

Like, there's another Dennis.

There's a different Dennis.

There's another Dennis who, by the way, way, Dan, for people who are like, oh, this is just more circumstantial evidence.

And there are those people out there as I wake up this morning bleary-eyed on my couch, having fallen asleep with my contact lenses and fearing retina detachment, which is why I wear my glasses.

I was frustrated.

I just don't know if people appreciate what it takes for me personally to investigate an Asian American Harvard graduate who works.

in the NBA.

Like if I'm, if, if I do this,

that's how you know it's real, I feel like, is the credibility I've earned ethnically.

And so, all of it, all of it being that, all of it being a story with like so many stupid on-the-nose aspects that feel incredibly predictable and for that reason shocking.

Uh, was was Ballmer roommates with uh Bill Gates before he was roommates with Wong?

Is that you?

You wanna, you wanna, you wanna, you wanna recreate the common room of that dorm in which it's Bill Gates potentially?

I have to do the fact check again, whether Gates was in like the same, was in the the same room as them, but they were there.

Yeah, this was Harvard, man.

This was Harvard in the 70s.

Think about it.

Titans of industry allegedly smoking weed for the first time and wondering to themselves, when will we ever own a basketball team that we will use, allegedly, to circumvent the NBA salary cap regulations?

Be honest here, when you heard Adam Silver speaking and going pretty immediately

into, let's see if we can protect the owners here with the way that I speak about this, Did you think to yourself, he doesn't know what I know right now?

Yes.

Yes.

Look, the standard for why I publish things, to be very clear, I'm not like the Joker.

I'm not like, you know, plotting this in a way that's going to get people to, you know, step into the trap I've laid.

I'm not a super villain, but...

I am somebody who only will publish things if I have the fact checking that meets the highest standards of publishing.

Like, Dan, the crazy part about this, and for people who don't understand the power dynamic here, on the one side of this story is not merely the commissioner of the NBA, but one of the 10 richest people in the world.

On the other side of the story is me and you and our lawyer.

So the whole question of like, when am I comfortable publishing something?

It's not that I'm like holding back everything I got.

I'm like actively trying to confirm this stuff so that in the event of litigation or factual correction, neither of which has ever happened with my show, which is shocking, it's because we did it the right way.

And so that's, that's the smile I have is that I had the smile of knowing that I think I could get this.

I think this is a bad look for them because they're not taking the first report seriously.

And I don't think they did, frankly.

And so then you get to prove and hold them to account using whatever they want to communicate to the public.

Oh, I was telling them earlier that the whole mood shift of the board of governors thing since your latest report went from,

no, we all love Ballmer.

He does great stuff.

Everyone likes him.

He's on the finance committee.

This isn't Donald Sterling at all.

This is a guy we all like and he's good for the league and he helps everyone and he's affable and he's at the governor's meeting saying, yeah, guys, same thing I said on ESPN, nothing here.

And then you report what you did.

And what I was hearing two days before about that governor's meeting and how nice it was, that mood has shifted because the additional reporting makes it such that, oh no, he's ensnared here in a way that it's going going to be real.

I don't even know what they're going to try to do to try to explain their way out of this one.

I've heard many back-channeled attempts that indicate, by the way, we've seen since the first report came out the best they got.

So what they're not doing on the NBA Clipper side, if we assume their goal is to shrink the PR footprint of this, what they're not doing is holding back their most convincing stuff.

We're getting all of it, right?

Because Balmer flies to Bristol.

Thursday night, the day after.

That's how panicked he is, right?

Just observing this.

Again, not not the joker, just observing this factually.

So what happens next is that we get the best spin and you've seen it.

And it's incredibly like just paper tissue, tissuey in its flimsiness.

If that, tissue might be generous for what they're trying to spin.

And so the question now of like, okay, what do you do with this one?

The only thing I've heard back channeled, which makes me laugh very hard, is that Dennis Wong, who is an incredibly wealthy real estate magnate, he wanted to save his daughter's job by putting in $2 million into a company that was valuated, by the way, still at the time of his investment.

I don't know if I made this clear enough in the episode.

He was investing in a company that had gone into default, that had its independent auditor resigned, that was facing massive seven-figure litigation, that was facing probes by the SEC and FINRA, the regulatory agencies.

He puts in the $1.99 million, conspicuous on its own.

And he does it at a valuation of over $2 billion.

And so the question is, why would he do this?

He was disclosed all of these facts in the paperwork.

We have the signature, we have the document.

So why did he still do it?

And so the only head of a pin that anybody who wants to spin this has left to dance upon, there must have been another reason why he made a disastrous financial decision like that.

It must have been to save his daughter's job.

And I will just assure you that not only is that insanely nonsensical, because the daughter recently graduated from Stanford, because the company was broken and falling apart, because Dennis Wong is extraordinarily rich.

It doesn't need to save his daughter's job at a broken company that is going into the trash can.

It's also the fact to me that if you were to do that, that's a different potential crime.

If you're just going to bribe a company to save your daughter with $1.99 million, if in fact that is the argument that anybody wants to go with.

So I just don't get it.

At this point in the story, I just don't get what people are trying to do here, but it seems to indicate that they just don't want to see the story for what it is.

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dan lebatard pablo leads all of podcasting in reading while smiling If you listen to ESPN Daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life.

Stugats.

Coming up next.

I'm going to tell you how the Savannah bananas changed the story.

How do you know I'm in bananas?

How do you know I'm smiling?

That's how I find my vocal range.

Sometimes I just say.

Savannah bananas.

Savannah bananas.

Yeah.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

I like how the internet takes your reporting and starts running with it and does its own version of Twitter sleuthing.

Yesterday we saw highly circumstantial evidence of like how Kawhi was very inactive for the Clippers prior to December 10th and then all of a sudden he played 82% of the games.

Billy posited that, well, why would he care about a $1.75 million payment when he's getting paid $40 million from the Clippers?

And my counter to that was, no, this is bookie logic.

It's the principle.

Because if they miss this payment, they're going to miss all the other payments.

I know this is purely circumstantial and not maybe to the standard of your reporting, but what do you make of

the theory out there that Kawhi's camp was very upset about this and it forced Wong to make this deposit and then all of a sudden Kawhi started playing again?

So one big part of that is comprehensively reported and vetted and fact-checked and has not been challenged, which is that September gets paid in quarterly payments, $1.75 million.

September comes, this is his second payment ever.

Kawhi Leonard's second payment ever.

September comes september goes october comes october goes november comes and november goes so this is three months late is this second ever payment right and so the question then is come the rescheduling of this payment to december 15th how do they get the money that's the answer of the roommate dennis wong and the only other by the way owner of the team the only man steve ballmer trusts with a share of his most precious possession los angeles clippers um that's That's the okay.

How do they pay it?

But the question then is: what's it like for Kawhi Leonard and Uncle Dennis Robertson and the agent Mitch Frankl, right?

Like the representatives of Kawhi Leonard.

Because what happens is, what I know is that there are many calls that are increasingly furious because you're three bleeping months late on the second payment, right?

And by the way, Ballmer put in $50 million personally

a year ago.

And so

from a position of something is not right here, what I think is safe to infer from all of this is that the people involved with the Los Angeles Clippers were aware that there was a problem.

And so then the next question is, if you're Kawhi Leonard and you are a master of leverage to a degree that has been, frankly, in excess and more effective.

in that excess than any other athlete I can think of, where he's extracting all these things from the marketplace of Steve Ballmer and not the Raptors or the Lakers, it turns out, but from the richest man in sports.

How do you then make sure that they know you're serious?

And so the sleuth thing in the connecting of the dots, I'm not doing that.

I haven't done that data dive.

Again, this is where I say, you guys, please feel free to look into this, do your research, do your Googles.

I'm not saying this.

But I think it's safe to wonder if you're, if I, let's put it this way, if I was a Clippers executive and if I was aware of this, if, right, these are just the conditionals, if I was aware of this and I had a guy who was right off a

missing the last season for knee problems, I would say at the beginning of the season, finally he's back.

Let's be careful.

But what would be very hard if that same guy was complaining to these entities about how he wasn't getting the payment he was legally entitled to.

The question then becomes the question of load management.

How voluntary is the pain that you're expressing to your team as to why you won't play that night?

That would be an outstanding question for someone to look into.

I will tell you, if you're watching some of what's happening here, the people who are aggregating Pablo because they're seven months behind on this story are having trouble with the headlines and the first paragraphs because it's such a thicket of stuff.

When you say reporting something for seven months, and when people do not know what it means to have a lawyer listen to Amin El Hassan's answers on things because you have to be very careful and when you go on David Sampson's pod and you say quote I would love to talk about what we reported on Wednesday with anybody in any setting under any amount of spotlight that you've got explain to me how hard the last seven months have been explain to me why it is that the NBA underestimated you because the sports media has fallen apart in no one's asking these questions because everybody's in bed with their partners.

So when I had Mark Cuban on the pod, who was the embodiment of my philosophy here, right?

Like I had not ever talked to him before.

Maybe we had emailed years ago because he answers all the emails in his inbox, but I'd never had a relationship before at all.

And he tweets about this as if he has a confidence about what this story is and why it's dismissible.

And I respond to him within an hour, we're taping the thing that aired as the Friday episode a week ago today.

So that's just my philosophy is that I've been ready to talk about this.

What I am not worried about once I publish is my

familiarity with the reporting.

So, and why and why I reported it.

The thing that people miss that I think the NBA is only realizing is that two things can be true.

On the one hand, it can be absolutely true that Steve Ballmer was a victim and that he feels victimized.

Listen to him on Ramona Shelburne in that interview

on the set of ESPN in Bristol.

He is paint.

What do you mean?

You don't think he's in Bristol?

Well, it was a point of contention the past couple of weeks with some people on the show where people were saying it was probably in L.A.

because that's where Ramona said.

Yeah, no, but this is the point.

And then people were saying, well, he had to fly across the country.

And then there's investigating done where Ramona said it was in Bristol, but it was in Bristol because we were right there.

So then I was like, well, hold on.

If they didn't fly across the country, then how do we know any of what we're being told is true?

It was crazy.

I said, dude, Pablo's got this unlocked.

Everybody, like, lock in here, Jeff Conine, pay attention, stop questioning things.

You know,

it was in Bristol.

While he was there, don't do this anymore.

Billy,

Billy, you ruined his last answer.

But you did take that victory lap.

You took the victory lap on the episode.

And whoever said this fly across the country.

Whoever said this made the point.

Well, if the flying across the country part isn't true, then it might be a lot of fun.

He's got to get out of here.

Pablo.

Okay, so

I regret falling into the

pothole.

That wasn't the only one of you fellows.

Palmer's off.

How tired of this story is your wife?

She is so mad at me.

Allow me to continue the thoughts.

Does your wife ever tell you?

Why didn't you just extort them?

I know.

So

you've got a heart out.

Pablo, you've got a hard out.

I have a hard out.

The market rate for me suppressing this is probably higher than my all-in career earnings.

So horrible decision by me to just allegedly maybe offer this and say, hey, please make this go away for a low, low price of $1 zillion dollars.

The last thought I have is just it was stupid what Steve Ballmer did on one level, and he was pained as a victim, truly, genuinely.

But the story here is that he was victimized by a company that he partnered with to try and deceive the NBA.

That's why this story is so fun to me and so ridiculous.

It's that he was using in a non-illegal way a company that was completely comfortable, according to all of my reporting, with doing whatever he needed to get around the salary cap.

And in that way, he was not breaking the law.

He was breaking the NBA's rules.

And this is the guy who ran Microsoft during the largest antitrust investigation in my memory, at least.

And so, of course, he doesn't necessarily care about that if you're to infer that based on his previous fact patterns of behavior.

And so the question for him is, where did it go wrong?

It went wrong when he realized, which was sooner than anybody wants to admit, that this was going bad.

And that point, the question is, what did you do?

When did you know it?

And all of that is absolutely relevant to a larger examination of what this story ends up being in the end.

Yes, it is Capstar Convention per my reporting.

Yes, there are questions that there is more at stake here than that.

When it comes to, so

you were partners with the scammers.

To some extent, what does that mean for the questions you might have asked if you weren't?

And that is an interesting question for the federal government.

And he would have gotten away with it.

If it wasn't for me.

Yeah, that I thought was brutal.

That would be my constructive criticism to Pablo.

I know he's doing the victory lap, but when he said...

I didn't say that.

You just played that.

You just ended up with that.

No, you said it.

No, you said it.

We have more context.

I don't think that.

Play the context.

Listen.

That he would have gotten away with it

if it wasn't for me.

That he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for me.

There's larger context, I feel like.

Yeah, that it was so good, that it was so well thought out, that he would have gotten away with it

if it wasn't for me.

Impeccably produced.

Why does the

replay machine have the thing in its mouth, too?

Why is that happening?

Pablo, you've got to go.

Anyone want to take a guess at

why he has to go?

He's going to play spades with Maury Povich on Nick Cannon's podcast.

That is confidential information.

See you later, Pablo.

Good talking to you.

Nice seeing you.

That's what I'm saying.

Listen to that.

Please tell my wife that I love her.

Thanks.

Pablo can't be good.

I assumed it was some form of star bleeding.

He didn't even answer the question of what was the hardest thing about the last seven months.

He is on a world tour rocketing to fame in stardom because

be texting him to do a NASCAR charter episode.

People do somehow still appreciate good journalism or notice it when they see it.

And he's got the story locked down and the NBA underestimated him and underestimated sports media because sports media has gotten awfully fat in this space for a long time.

And

before that sounds too blowhardy on behalf of Pablo, I just know how hard that was to do and it's why no one does it.

Because it's that hard.

Because it's, you don't, if you're going to go after Balmer and do this to Palmer, And you don't have your shit right, the lawsuit's already on the way.

Like, you gotta, you have to be super careful, super careful not to get a word wrong.

And that's not the media landscape we're living in anymore.

And so, everything he's done there is scary.

And his confidence to me is

aspirational because he knows he's got the story locked.

And

he made the commissioner of the league, who we were talking about when he got rid of the last Clipper guy, how he was in charge and the best.

And look at all he knows.

He made that guy look like he didn't know what he was doing when he got out there on behalf of, well, let's see what's really happening here.

Let's, you know, let's have some benefit of the doubt because his job ultimately is to protect Ballmer.

But he's got in his, he's got in his power structure somebody with so much power and utility because he's good as his jobs with finance and the things that he's doing on behalf of the business.

Silver is Ballmer's employee.

Like, that's how that one works.

I know I know we give silver a lot of power.

The owners of the power, he's the wall between the owners and us.

And it's a wall that doesn't come down often.

And it's a wall that Pablo Torre just kicked in.

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I want to talk about home security for a minute.

For the longest time, I thought it was just alarms and sirens that once somebody breaks in, you deal with it.

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That's reactive.

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There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Hey listeners, it's Mike.

Hey, Billy Gill.

Hey.

Hey, Billy, as a proud member of your inner circle, remember when we were hanging out last weekend?

Oh, yeah, fishtail palms.

The fishtail palms, the great memories we made, kids playing in the pool and in our hands, a nice ice-cold can of Miller Light.

It was so hot out.

I know, but it was so cold in my hand.

We took that first sip.

It was crisp.

It was refreshing.

Oh, man, there is nothing like cracking open a Miller Light with your crew and your inner circle bones.

Hell yeah.

We fist bumped.

Whether it's, we actually really did.

Whether it's that touchdown.

It didn't make a sound, but it just thought.

Bam!

Boom.

Whether it's that touchdown you didn't see coming or just arguing about fantasy lineups, you and I did plenty of that.

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And here's a kicker, Billy.

What?

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What?

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

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Don Lebatard.

While there's nothing official and conversations are still ongoing.

Was that a fake shifter?

Because it was.

It was pretty good.

It was excellent.

I feel like there's legs.

I tried at the beginning and then I lost confidence in it.

Wow.

It was good.

It was good.

You got this.

There's nothing official.

Yeah, that's it.

And conversations are still ongoing.

Stugats.

It is trending towards Nick Siriani remaining the head coach of the Eagles.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

When you said his confidence is aspirational, did you mean that as a compliment or that it's fraudulent?

No, I meant that I wished.

That's the name of the fraudulent company.

Did you do that on purpose, Colin?

You didn't do it on purpose.

I did not do it on purpose.

Accidentally,

accidentally good?

Can I ask you a serious question?

When Cam Newton flies, do you think he wears his hat or he has like a massive hat travel box?

I think it's a travel box.

Really?

Yeah.

I don't like, you think you catch him in the airport just not wearing a hat?

I would assume he's checking a bag that's got like five of those things in there.

Let's ask him.

That's such a good question.

Well, let's ask Jeff Conine.

That's a great question.

Put it on the poll at Lebittard Show.

Does Cam Newton travel wearing his hat or does he lock it away in a travel set?

That's like the worst type of hat to wear in a plane.

But he's taller than all the seats, so that's not going to be an issue.

Like then you lean your head back and like the thing.

No, but his head is way tall.

Cam Newton is enormous.

That's true.

Like he would be the biggest human I think I've ever seen.

I could not believe he was a quarterback.

He's probably huge.

Don't you think he flies private?

Like he probably just puts a hat to the flat.

I don't think he fits in a private jet, if I'm going to be honest with you.

Like private jets seem very tiny to me, and I can't imagine that being a comfortable means of transportation for him.

Maybe he buys his hat a seat.

Put it on the poll.

Do private jets feel very tiny to you?

I also want to bring up what he's saying about Cam Newton's size.

Yes, he is very large, probably has a firm handshake.

The hats, though, have to be...

very valuable hats, right?

Yeah, I actually have some reconnaissance on this.

My brother-in-law met the person that designs the hat, they're out of Montana.

And like those hats go for like $800.

And so how would it's a good question that Billy's asking, and I don't know the answer to it.

I don't know if I even have a theory.

But when he talks about Cam Newton being large,

one of the funniest things to have happened to me around feeling

good for a moment and then not feeling good moments later, I had really good seats one time, really good seats, to a a heavyweight fight involving George Foreman,

one of his last ones, and he became the oldest heavyweight champion ever.

The Michael Moore fight?

Yeah, and I knew I had good seats, and I sat in the seats, and I was really excited about the seats, and then Shaq sat in front of me.

It's a full place.

Like, those are bad seats.

You yelled down in front or anything like that.

Those become immediately bad seats.

You realize that, right?

I couldn't see.

Back to Cam Newton for for a second i've called him like the greatest goal line weapon in the history of the game it's pretty irrefutable billy's not a small dude check out this photo sugat's is in frame also for reference now the hat may add stuff but like the top of billy's head is right at cam newton's chin hand

house too yeah look at those solid look at those shoulders i will say that handshake with stugatz doesn't look great

but i think that might be on

it was just an awkward situation hey buddy we should host a podcast together i can like just see him there the things you guys are doing here though, I understand that Cam Newton looks huge there, but I thought we had already established when he was sitting next to Derrick Henry that Billy Gill, even though people don't know this, is actually Brad Williams, like the size of Brad Williams.

Second reference to Brad today.

What's going on here?

I'm just saying, we've proven already that you're not

size-wise.

When you say he's the biggest human you've ever seen, he would be 6'6 ⁇ , 250 pounds, so smaller than most power forwards, right?

So if he were standing next to Draymond Green, Cam Newton would, an undersized defender,

Cam Newton would look how next to Draymond Green.

You think he would look bigger than Draymond Green?

I think there's more than just height when it comes to like

judging how big a dude is.

That's why I said Shaq.

Yeah, Cam's just got like such broad shoulders.

Man, that guy playing quarterback is just wild.

Yeah.

Unstoppable.

You understand the question that I'm asking.

Yeah, is Draymond taller than Cam Newton?

Not taller.

No, not taller.

More formidable.

No, more formidable.

I don't think more formidable.

That's what I am asking.

I'm making the distinction.

I believe I know what Billy's talking about here.

I feel it when I stand next to Kim Bocamper.

He's a girth.

That's an old man.

No, but I'm

right.

That might be the best.

I don't.

I would not want to match it.

But gnarled can help it.

Gnarled can help it.

Oh, so he doesn't have the flexibility to actually squeeze?

The gnarled hands of football players.

He gives you a full hand hug.

If he's got like a pinky intrigue or something.

Like Baldinger hands?

No, come on.

I mean, not Baldinger hands.

That's a different.

I worked out once next to Brian Baldinger.

Oof, tell me everything.

Flip-flops.

Oh.

Not surprising.

Put it on the poll.

Did you assume that Baldinger worked out in flip-flops at Lebetard Show?

Lifted weights in flip-flops because he's not working out.

It is working out, but he's not doing cardio.

The boys in that gym were not doing cardio.

We were stacking plates, pal.

Put it on the poll at Lebatard show.

Weightlifter who says we were stacking plates, pal.

Douche or no douche.

I mean, he called you a weightlifter.

I wouldn't take that as an option.

Heightlifting weights at the time.

He referred to you as Mike Ryan weightlifter.

That's what he was doing at the time.

You know, six stacks of 45s.

That's what I ate for breakfast satay.

Wow.

You know who else?

Stacks plates for breakfast?

Who, Mike, tell me?

Offensive lineman in the NFL.

Wow.

Oh, so many great battles in the trenches today.

This weekend, we get to see Chris Jones go up against a formidable Philadelphia Eagles offensive line.

I got Kansas City in the bucket.

And man, I wish I was in that building, in that barn for that game.

If you wish you were in the barn for that game, you'd probably check the primary market and find out, obviously, this game at Arrowhead, it's sold out.

It's a Super Bowl matchup.

How crazy am I?

Well, guess what?

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Terms apply.

Swap.

Swipe.

Tap.

Ticket.

Go.

I did a Chris Cody there.

Swap.

Swapping it.

Swap.

Ticket.

Go.

I don't know how much of the audience knows

the facts of the information I'm about to give.

Jeremy, I'm going to assume that you don't know any of of the facts that I have here that represent an ancient time in history.

Sometime I'm going to say, close to either when you were born, I'm going to say that Monday Night Football in the early 90s, okay, Monday Night Football, the property that it is today, in the ratings, it was behind The Naked Truth, Suddenly Susan, and Carolina in the City.

Caroline.

Caroline, excuse me, I didn't know that show.

Caroline.

Carolyn Ray?

Have you ever seen Hollywood Squares?

She was an icon.

My fault.

Spring of the teenage women.

Okay, now I know who you're talking about.

Monday night football was a small thing, and at the time,

roughly around the time, as they were trying to grow the sport over the next 10 or 15 years and grow Monday night football and what Thursday night football would become.

Because I do want to talk about the presentation of football that is making them dominate so many nights of the week.

Caroline Ray was not in Caroline in the city.

Oh, I thought that's the Caroline you were talking about.

Oh, Roy knows exactly who was in that.

And we're not talking about sex.

Roy knows after we said in this room that she was not on that show.

Roy was going along with it with everybody else.

Yeah, but then

you said Sabrina's a teenage she was in that show.

Yeah, but I didn't know she wasn't in the other show until we pointed it out.

I thought that was the mom from Back to the Future.

All of a sudden, oh, I know everything.

Was it the mom from Back to the Future that was in that show?

I kind of felt that.

No, I wanted to be a teammate to you, pal.

Yeah, okay.

Guys, acting like you know who Andy Lauer is, please.

I don't know who that is.

I'm being true.

Wolf.

Don't know who who that is.

Music composer.

Okay.

Look, man, you're getting a little defensive.

We try to back you up.

Well, because I go, I plant two trees.

You guys tell me there's a trend.

You didn't plant two trees.

You didn't plant shit.

There's two different photos

planting trees.

Why do you always try to weasel your way out of these things?

Are two photos of me planting trees?

What kind of trees?

We need to find.

I hope you guys are.

There's the other one.

That couldn't be the

Tom Tree.

Tom Cream.

That's Tom Tom Cream.

That is Tom Cream.

I don't know what to tell you.

I wore that exact same outfit at F1.

I recycled recycled it.

I said, you know what?

It's raining.

Let me put on my.

You guys have seen that raincoat and that hat here.

That's true.

I've also seen that face coaching the Indiana Hoosiers.

The first one, like, kind of looked pretty blurry, you know.

The point I was going to make.

So, punishment, sir, so we can agree and move.

This one kind of looks like you.

I've hired an enforcer.

I'll let you know shortly.

I'll make an announcement shortly.

The paperwork is being drawn up on making sure that these penalties do get enforced this year.

Well, I'm all caught up, so I have nothing to worry about.

Before Monday night football, Thursday night football became what they became, they were trying to, they were groundbreaking and making it three broadcasters.

And at various points, before they hired Tony Kornheiser and Dennis Miller, they were thinking about putting Rush Limbaugh in the booth

to do that and create whatever it is that that would end up creating.

The reason that I bring all of that up is because these things have gotten so seismic that I believe that we underestimate how hard it is for Amazon to do what they're now doing on Thursday nights, the sprawling nature of it, the fact that you don't have any complaints at all about what their broadcasts are.

I saw Jordan Love interviewed before the game yesterday, and I was like, well, I, and maybe this is something they've been doing it recently, but I'm like, I don't remember the quarterback being interviewed before the game.

He didn't have anything to say, but it's not something I've seen very much before.

And I assume it's because these partnerships are interactive.

Have you guys seen that before?

Have you seen it?

I've seen it during XFL games.

The quarterback interviewed right before the game.

Is that something you've seen before?

Has Amazon been doing that for a while?

Because it's the first time I've seen it.

I guess I haven't noticed that.

I don't know.

To answer your question,

I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but I do think Amazon does a tremendous job with their football coverage.

So if it wasn't for what he said about Donovan McNabb, Rush Limbaugh would have basically been Dennis Miller.

I actually think that this was thought of before even Rush Limbaugh was then later someone who went on ESPN.

They were considering him earlier than that because they were trying to make television around sports.

And none of those people have ended up working because the thing is such a cathedral that you can't be not serious in the football booth.

That's not allowed anywhere.

Like that,

who are the funny broadcasters in the United States?

UFC, Joe Rogan.

Football games.

Well, you said not allowed anywhere.

No, I mean Joe Rogan kind of broke the model.

Billy Gill, F-I-U.

That's true.

The Duke.

I meant football specifically.

The Duke.

Football and baseball.

Multi-sport broadcast.

Jason Minetti.

Pause up.

Shootable.

He's doing it.

Check it out.

Like, he's literally doing what you're talking about.

He wants another answer.

He just always wants to be right.

This guy.

It's the NFL I'm talking about.

Well, just give him time.

Yeah, geez.

Like, he's starting like all the greats do.

I got free time now.

You got a chance to be Dennis Miller, Billy.

It's right there for you.

I mean, if I don't get that, I'm a failure.

It's just a bit ambitious.

I would say Ion Eagle brings a lot of humor.

I know he's the play-by-play guy,

but I'm telling you, like, he makes a lot of jokes.

No, agree.

Agree, he does.

I don't like that.

I would say of all the play-by-play guys, he's the one that will, like,

if there's a funny fan, he makes a joke about it.

Or Kevin Harlan for me, pal.

Yeah.

Kevin Harlan.

Ian Eagle's funny.

Ian Eagle is funny.

Don't get me wrong, but I mean, he is, you know, he is a prototype of a play-by-play man.

man.

Bromo's funny, hmm.

Not on purpose, but he's funny.

Yeah, I don't know, Jim.

You guys better

get me Konine.