Hour 1: The Maniacal Giggler (feat. Brian Stelter)

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This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Before we get to Brian Stelter to talk about Jimmy Kimmel, these are obviously really turbulent times all over America, and there is danger and chaos and violence everywhere.

Mike, what is the breaking news now on what's happening with ICE and the state militia that we are

weaponizing?

Well, details are still going in and we want to be responsible because I saw Christine Noam and J.D.

Vance also went to Twitter probably a little too soon to send out a certain message.

But

there was a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility.

Two detainees at this facility are dead.

One is injured.

The suspect is dead.

Still coming over the news cycle, but according to social media, these shots were fired from a nearby rooftop.

There are things being weaponized and political conversations immediately happening after violence and death because the content mill is something that is fed too quickly before we even have a chance to process.

Never mind getting to mourning.

But with Jeffrey Epstein and with Jimmy Kimmel, we have found at least two issues where it seems like most Americans are pretty close to United.

And in the case of Kimmel, this feels like a situation where public outcry made Disney do something that Disney didn't want to do.

So Brian Stelter is the former media correspondent for the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

He's got three best-selling books, Top of the Morning, Hoax, and Network of Lies.

And he's the current CNN media analyst.

Brian, in your reporting, what is it that has happened over the last four days?

Was it simply that everyone started canceling Hulu and Disney subscriptions?

It's more complicated, but I do believe people dropping those subscriptions did make a difference.

Let's start from the premise that Disney always wanted to bring Kimball back on the show.

It's not as if the executives who run Disney, like Bob Iger, the CEO and his deputy Daniel Walden, it's not like they're secret Trumpers who are big fans of MAGA media and want to turn ABC into Fox News.

That is far from the case.

All right, Bob Iger donates to Democrats.

He thought about running for president against Trump.

Dana Walden is known for being best buds with Kamala Harris.

These executives not only love Jimmy Kimmel personally, they are also politically in, I would say, some sort of sync with Jimmy Kimmel.

But they looked around, they react very quickly.

to pressure last week, and that's what they did, right?

They reacted by pulling the show and they wanted to find a path forward.

It took them a few days.

And I think the audience pressure, Dan, the consumer pressure, it did make a big difference.

But they always wanted to bring the show back anyway.

You're sure about that?

Because the original reporting I saw on that, it seemed like people were saying that Indefinite was likely to become he wasn't coming back.

You're sure about that?

Well, look, I was skeptical.

I thought it was unlikely his show was going to be back on broadcast TV because I was thinking to myself, these station owners were not gonna let it go back.

They were too fearful of the Trump administration.

They were too concerned about pressure from Trump and Brendan Carr.

I think it is important.

There was this groundswell of public

concern.

All these free speech groups, all these First Amendment experts, all of these random ordinary consumers, right?

All these protesters outside Disneyland.

It's never a good look for Disney when you have free speech protesters outside Disneyland.

So, yeah, I think this story was unique in some ways amid all the other Trump controversies because it did create so much outrage and backlash.

And yes, I do think that made a difference.

We don't know for sure, right, what Disney was thinking.

We don't know what the bottom line impact of the cancellations were.

But I think what we do know for sure is that these executives love Jimmy Kimmel.

They wanted the show to be back.

And they decided by Monday, the temperature had cooled down enough that they could do it.

They could bring him back.

And now, here's the thing, right?

Kimmel is more powerful than ever because he's been explicitly approved and backed up by ABC.

Nextstar Media and Sinclair, though, are still in a position as affiliate owners where Kimmel isn't airing everywhere.

Can you please tell me what the consequences and what the cost of that is and if that's going to change?

Normally we would say that Nextstar and Sinclair total, they represent about 20% of the markets across the U.S.

where Kimmel show airs.

So normally we would say, wow, 20% of the viewers can't watch Kimmel.

That's going to mean a ratings hit.

That's going to mean the ratings are going to drop.

That's going to be a big, big, bad problem for ABC.

But not in this case, right?

Because more than 20%

of an additional audience poured in last night.

I can say that without even seeing the ratings yet.

Clearly, there's so much interest in this story that Kimmel and ABC are benefiting from a surge of viewer interest.

So yes, in Seattle and Washington and in some smaller markets, people were not able to watch the show at 11:35.

But those viewers are just going to work a little harder.

They're going to go to YouTube or Hulu or Disney Plus.

They're going to watch the monologue this morning.

And you know, that monologue is getting millions of views per hour on YouTube right now.

It is already by 8 a.m.

Eastern, it was already Kimmel's most watched YouTube video of the year.

Not surprisingly, you know, everybody wanted to hear what he was going to say.

So, Nexstar and Sinclair, they don't hold a lot of cards right now.

They They can continue to protest Kimmel's show, but ABC has contracts with these companies, and they're going to probably start to enforce those contracts.

Here is some of what it is that Kimmel said last night.

He was emotional when talking during his monologue, an unusual monologue that was probably twice as long as it usually is.

Let's play some of that sound for Brian and get his reaction.

Yes, it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.

I don't think there's anything funny about it.

I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it.

I still do.

Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual.

That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both.

And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset.

If the situation was reversed, there's a good chance I'd have felt the same way.

I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don't agree on politics at all.

I don't think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone.

This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution.

and it isn't.

Ever.

Brian, what were your thoughts on his monologue last night?

Number one, he's trying to say, I am not.

He's trying to say, I, Jimmy Kimmel, am not anti-Republican.

I am not against you, conservative America.

He is clearly against President Trump, but he was almost trying to split off.

Trump and Trump's aberrant behavior from the rest of the party and the rest of the movement.

He was offering condolences to Erica Kirk.

He was complimenting and praising Erica Kirk's speech over the weekend, her tribute to her late husband.

He was trying to offer a little bit of a bridge or an on-ramp to conservatives while at the same time making clear he's going to continue to satirize Donald Trump.

He's going to continue to speak out against the administration.

So I think he said exactly what ABC wanted him to say.

You know,

ABC wanted him to acknowledge the controversy, wanted him to try to extend maybe an olive branch of some sort.

And Kimmel did just that.

And I think it was genuine.

It seemed genuine to me.

Oh, but when you say he said exactly what Disney wanted him to say, I disagree.

When he went into his pocket and said, I have only one condition on my return that Disney has forced on me, and he just said, here's how you stop canceling your Hulu subscription.

Yes, I don't, what do you think that, what do you think that Disney's relationship is with Jimmy today that it wasn't a week ago?

That's probably the most interesting question.

Well, number one, his contract is coming due in May.

So this may not be a long-term relationship.

I have no reason to believe ABC wants to drop the show in May.

I have have no reason to believe Kimmel wants to leave.

Yes, he's made noise about retiring, but lots of stars do that in advance of contract talks.

It is possible.

I think we could imagine a world where next spring, Kimmel's show moves off broadcast.

Maybe it's just going to go to streaming.

Maybe it's going to become a pure subscription play.

And maybe that's actually in the best interest of everybody involved.

If the government is going to continue to wield its power to punish private companies, ABC might decide it is better to put the show onto streaming.

But I think that was the decision they would make with Jimmy and not for Jimmy.

You know what I mean?

That would be a conversation.

And it's, you know, it's, that's a sad reflection of our times if companies are going to feel they have to take that kind of action because of the Trump administration.

Brian, through your reporting, what do you know about the dialogue from between Disney and Jimmy about exactly what he was going to say, what hard lines Jimmy had, what was the initial ask?

And I'm sure what we saw on television last night was basically both sides kind of giving in a little bit to what they believed.

Yeah, you know, nobody's really leaking, which is unusual in these situations.

Usually when there's a late night drama, we hear some pretty spicy information from sources.

In this case, I think everybody is trying to play it cool.

It was not in Kimmel's interest to go out there trying to burn ABC down, trying to leak against ABC.

His camp, so to speak, has not been out there trying to push certain narratives.

As far as I can tell, certainly my phone's not ringing.

Neither are other media reporters.

So it is telling that this has not exploded, you know, with background quotes and anonymous jabs back and forth.

It is interesting, though, that ABC's statement when they announced it was coming back, they referred to thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.

And I think that's a euphemism for some pretty strong language that was used back and forth, right?

Kimmel was clear on the air last night.

He did not agree with ABC's decision to suspend the show.

He did not want to be sidelined.

So I am back

at first.

I imagine this was pretty heated at first.

And then as the days went by, they were able to reach

a compromise and find common ground.

But look, that's notable, right?

Sometimes these late night stories, they erupt.

Think about Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno.

Sometimes this stuff does get aired in public, and this time it hasn't.

Maybe that's number one,

these two camps really do like each other.

But number two, Kimmel knows his power right now, doesn't he?

He has this free speech platform, and he's making it about so much more than himself.

He's telling his viewers, if they come for Jimmy Fallon next, you better speak out 10 times as loudly.

He's telling his viewers, Trump's trying to destroy American journalism.

He pointed to the Pentagon implementing new restrictions on journalists at the Pentagon.

He is using his platform to make this about so much more than one late-night show.

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Don Lebatard.

What is the worst part of the life?

Stugats.

The worst part of the life of what?

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stew Gats.

Do you have a lot of examples of anything that looks like Jimmy Kimmel's career from the man show to this, where he has turned the monologue, like he's consistently doing healthcare monologues, like he has become, he has done politics in a way that Fallon can't do politics?

I agree with you.

And I went looking through his YouTube views this morning, trying to get a sense of what viewers want, right?

At least online, on streaming, what do viewers want out of Kimmel?

And what I found was very clear.

The most popular clips, the most shared clips, they are not his celebrity interviews.

They are not his sketches.

They are not his absurd segments.

They are his anti-Trump commentaries.

They are his political monologues.

That is what people come to look for now from Jimmy Kimmel.

So when we hear conservatives bemoan Kimmel and say he's not funny and say he should be canceled and all that stuff that's out there that's all across Fox News, it's not true in terms of what the audience that Kimmel has wants.

Kimmel's audience wants him to take on Donald Trump.

Kimmel's audience wants him to point out the Trump administration's conduct, in some cases misconduct.

So

yeah, it is amazing to go from the man show to where Kimmel is now, but he seems perfectly positioned to do it, at least between now and May.

If you had to guess, would Jimmy Kimmel, instead of doing what he has done, which is be a polite and good Disney employee throughout, if not in protection of the paychecks for his staff, does Jimmy Kimmel quit, become a martyr, and just get on with his life?

Because it's better for Colbert right now at this point and for him to be on their own the way Conan O'Brien is instead of

working in the mainstream, threatened mainstream media.

I suppose there's a world where he does see benefits to being free from some parent company.

But working for Disney also conveys a lot of benefits,

including the fact that he was on almost 200 stations last night, even though a few dozen of them refused to air the show.

You know, working for Disney does bring him some even more high-profile visibility.

You know, there are some benefits to his platform, as well as certainly some drawbacks.

And I think now we're in this moment where, you know, Kimmel is a cause, right?

For better or worse, whatever you think of it, Kimmel is a cause.

What he went through and the public pressure from the administration is part of the cause.

If anything, this, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, Dan.

Maybe this weds him more to ABC and Disney in in the short term, at least.

Probably gets free theme park tickets.

Oh, yeah, he does.

Those are the best.

Have you done more reporting on Colbert and gotten to the bottom more of what it is that happened there?

Because

they avoided this by making it, quote-unquote, a strictly financial decision when I don't believe it was a strictly financial decision.

I don't think you do either.

The way I like to think about Colbert, the way I frame it is, if Kamala Harris were president, Colbert's show would still be on the air.

It wouldn't be facing this May cancellation.

That's the the way I think about it.

Yes, the financial story is real.

Yes, the show was losing money,

depending on how you do the math.

And there's lots of ways to do TV math.

But the bottom line is that in a Harris administration, this would not be happening.

That being said,

Colbert is no slouch, right?

Colbert is using every day he has left on CBS to speak out.

And at some point, CBS is going to have to put on a new show.

They're going to have to do something at 1135.

What are they going to do?

Here's what I keep thinking about this week.

The approval ratings for Trump are very clear.

Pretty much every poll has them around 40% approval.

This is a country where six in 10 Americans disapprove of the president.

They certainly don't want their own free speech rights impaired.

So if you are a major media company,

if you are thinking about consumer demand and consumer attention,

aren't you going to try to appeal to the six out of 10 just from a pure cynical, I'm not talking about newsrooms now, okay?

I'm not talking about journalists.

I'm talking about major media company CEOs, the ones who have been caving, the ones who have been bending the knee.

If they keep doing that, isn't that going to create even more market demand for alternatives?

Isn't that going to create even more opportunity for other companies to appeal to the 6 and 10?

Do you see what I'm saying here?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of this business stuff is interesting to me, and I just wonder if any of this is actually going to go away or if Trump and the FCC just learned, oh, next time, let's not make the threat and do it that way.

Let's not do it out in public so that the public, let's do it quieter, let's cloud it, let's confuse it, let's not do it brazenly and honestly drunk on arrogance.

That is exactly what my gut says.

I've been covering Brendan Carr all year.

I've been texting with him all year.

I've seen him write letter after letter, make statement after statement where he where he pressures these media companies in more thoughtful, nuanced, legalistic ways.

You know, it is clear that Carr hears Trump's threats.

He hears what Carr hears what the president wants from True Social and presumably from private conversations.

And then Carr tries to translate that in a legal regulatory way.

Last week, Carr went a big step further, right?

And as Ted Cruz said, Carr sounded more like a mob boss.

I don't know if Carr is going to make that mistake again.

I don't know if he thinks it was a mistake, but a lot of people think it was a mistake.

I don't know if Carr will go that way again.

It seems to me he'll be more careful next time.

He wasn't careful with you, right?

You're the one that he tweeted the office gif uh to celebrate that kimmel had been taken off of the air right yes he he sent me the uh the michael scott whatever this is called thing raise the roof raising the roof yeah the raising the roof yes he sent me that gif

he did that in the heat of the moment and then he didn't send any gifs again you know he hasn't sent me any memes in the week since I think there's probably a part of him because he's a savvy guy.

He knows how this world works.

He knows the limits of the FCC's power.

He knows that his bully pulpit is one of the most powerful tools he has.

I suspect that he is thinking about how to use his bully pulpit in ways that will not draw so much backlash next time.

But do you sense that he's chastened at all?

Because

this was a really public hit that he took.

I don't believe that most people before this knew who the FCC chairman was.

And it's his arrogance that we now know.

And

sending a reporter that shows a general tone deafness that you didn't think America was going to turn on you this way.

Because the public outcry on this one has been something to see the people move this way, move something as powerful as Disney and moved a weaponized federal institution has been something not only emboldening, inspiring, because I was worried that that's not the America we lived in anymore.

I've got to play devil's advocate with you, though, and point out that I think some MAGA media influencers loved seeing what Carr did last week.

I think some Trump voters loved seeing him use his power

in a clenched fist against those liberal elites in the media.

You know, for every reaction, there's a counterreaction.

So Carr's pressure caused this dramatic counterreaction, these Disney Plus cancellations, this free speech movement.

What I wonder now is, what do Trump loyalists do next?

Trump pressured ABC again overnight, threatened action against ABC, kind of hinted at a new lawsuit.

I doubt he'll file it, but maybe he will.

He sued the New York Times last week.

It got thrown out, but he might try again.

So, you know, Trump's going to continue to try this pressure campaign.

That's what Kimmel said last night.

He said, Trump's not stopping.

And many Trump voters still want to see this happen.

They want revenge.

They want retribution.

They want to punish their perceived enemies.

So I want to recognize for all that's happened in the past week, there's also this energy out there to try to stick it to Jimmy Kimmel, right?

To try to get him canceled.

And that's not going away either, right, Dan?

In other words, this is this tug of war is still very much, it's still ongoing.

Best guess on what's next beyond what you just said.

What do you think's going to happen next?

I think every time a major media company appears to be caving, a new sub stack is born.

A new podcast is born.

A new YouTube stream is born.

You know, right now, Kimmel's racking up millions of views for his ABC monologue.

But if this goes south, if Disney comes under more government pressure, if the DOJ starts blocking Disney's deals, if Kimmel's show ends next May, he'll probably be bigger than ever on podcasts.

Brian, is there any way that these media companies can fight fire with fire?

Can they countersue when they receive any frivolous lawsuits that Trump might file?

Yes, in some cases they can.

And some First Amendment scholars wish ABC had gone that route last week.

They wish ABC had gone to court.

I think the reason that didn't happen was because this happened so quickly.

Like literally from 1 p.m.

to 5 p.m.

Eastern Time on Wednesday afternoon, all of this went down, all of this erupted.

And ABC did what was maybe what they believed was smartest in the moment.

If this had happened

with a little bit more time, less time constraints, fewer time pressures, that legal route may have been the one.

And, you know, it's important to keep an eye on the courts here because the New York Times throwing out Trump's defamation suit last week.

Sorry, the New York, not New York.

A Florida judge throwing out Trump's suit against the New York Times last week is an example of how the courts are the ultimate backstop here.

You've covered the media for a long time.

Give me the closest thing you've seen to something that looks or feels like any of this.

Yeah, I don't want to sound hyperbolic because America is a whole hell of a lot bigger and stronger than an Eastern European landlocked country like Hungary.

We're very different than Hungary.

President Trump is different than Victor Orban in some ways.

But the parallels between the U.S.

and Hungary are really striking right now.

Orban's control of the media, his consolidation of power, his attempts to weaken public broadcasting and break the backs of independent media and privatize media companies with the control of the state.

All of that is very eerily similar to what Trump is attempting and to some of what's happened in the past nine months.

I've talked to former Hungarian members of parliament and other experts who have studied Hungary's democratic backsliding and more authoritarian moves.

They say that what they're seeing in the U.S.

is very similar.

So, you know, if you want to nerd out this weekend, go read about Hungary, read about about the model there, the autocratic carrots and sticks, because I think that's what we're seeing here in some ways.

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Don Lebatard.

In terms of heat fans, you're the most irrational of us right now.

What's the pivot?

Oh, irrational.

Stugats.

I don't hear your voice.

If I were making a cartoon thing that was meant to symbolize irrational, that's the voice I would give it.

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This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Put it on the poll, please, at Levittard Show.

Did you think that you were going to hear someone say on today's show, I've talked to members of Hungarian parliament?

What do you think was the most interesting thing from the last week?

Spicy.

Most interesting thing about the past week.

I think the most interesting thing about the past week is that,

what's the most, can you answer first?

I'm trying to, I'm going to try to stall the time.

No, the reason, okay, I'll allow you to filibuster, but uh, when you're talking about the I wasn't talking about, no, wait a minute.

I'm asking him about the Kimmel situation.

I'm not asking

seven in a row.

Right, Brian?

Those are Harlands.

I'm asking him as it relates to this situation because I believe in your media career, you will have never covered anything like this.

When you're mentioning Hungarian parliament,

you're talking about these things that are so macro, but a talk show host created a frenzy in this country.

Yeah, I think I know what it is.

I think I know what it is.

Every day there's a new scandal.

Every day there's a new Trump controversy.

Every day he's trying to use his power in ways that are unseen and unprecedented.

And different CNN beat reporters cover this in different ways every day.

You know, one day it's some obscure federal agency.

The next day it's Harvard.

You know, one day it's a Smithsonian.

The next day it's some private company you've never heard of.

Every day we're seeing this happen.

But the Kimmel story broke through unlike most of those controversies.

Like the Kimmel story has resonated.

I can feel it in the TV ratings.

I can feel it in the protests that we've covered in New York and LA.

We can feel it.

I think all of us.

That's why we're here talking about it right now.

I think the big surprise,

maybe it's not, shouldn't be surprising.

The big statement here is that There is an interest in the American public.

People are paying attention.

These stories can break through.

Maybe the point, Dan, is Americans are not numb to it all yet.

Thank you, Brian.

Excellent.

Appreciate the time.

Appreciate the work,

sir.

Thank you.

Thanks, y'all.

Scott.

Yes.

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If you had, you're sitting there kicking for the game, and the only thing that beats you is the unprecedented act of a 340-pound guy, not just blocking the kick, but having the athleticism to then grab the ball.

And instead of just taking a knee and ending the football game, doing the dangerous thing of running down the field with your money.

Well, I think, and when you see the guy who picks up the football, all right, it's a disaster right now, but okay, somebody's going to catch that guy.

He's really fat.

Nope.

You're missing.

19 miles an hour.

You're missing the S from the word word you tried to say.

He's really fat.

He's really fast, is what he was.

That was a bad beat, but I'm going to go back for a second, and it was the worst.

There, I don't think there was a worse one this weekend if you had the Rams plus three, Rams on the money line, Rams plus three and a half, because they were winning the whole game.

Auburn was bad.

Well, like, that's the one I want to get to.

So, listen to this.

So, I'm going to set it up for you if you were not watching the Auburn, Oklahoma game, okay?

Oklahoma is favored by six and a half.

They score a touchdown to go up five, go for the two-point conversion, and miss the two-point conversion on a wide-open pass because it appears their quarterback's hand was broken at some point during the game.

So he throws a bad pass at the end of the game.

It would have been an easy completion, wide open in the end zone.

You would have been up by seven instead of five.

You would have covered if you had Oklahoma.

But now you're down five and a half.

And it's not just that Auburn has the ball.

Auburn has the ball at the 30-yard line.

You're not thinking safety there.

Like you're thinking in any case, interception return for a touchdown, fumble return for a touchdown, but they start getting penalties and you're like, oh my God.

If you have Auburn plus six and a half with the ball and the game is five points, I know people don't like math here.

What you are not expecting is a safety when you're on the 30-yard line.

But in this game, you had to be expecting a safety because all Oklahoma was doing was getting more sacks than they had at any game Oklahoma's ever played.

Do you know how many football games Oklahoma has played?

Not just that, the benefit of the whistle.

Because the SEC has come out and said that a touchdown that they scored shouldn't have standard shouldn't have stood anyways because they tried some hijinks, some dark arts, fake a sub.

By the way, I was on Auburn and the Rams.

I know.

You mentioned earlier.

I was on Oklahoma minus six and a half.

You don't deserve to win that.

You shouldn't be breakdancing back there.

Mike had those in parlays as well that got crushed.

SGP with Kyron Williams, anytime touchdown, Nakua, Puka Nakua over six and a half catches.

And to close it, everything else was one was Rams plus three and a half.

So when Zaslow says it's kick a hole in your television time, just take me into your face, Mike, as it's not just that Auburn gets a safety there and it becomes a seven-point loss.

It's that whoever was rushing the quarterback there, he's a university,

he could have been at the University of Miami, but

he runs over the right tackle, just steamrolls the right tackle.

And the reason Auburn's quarterback was not expecting that is at least in part because there's a human being on the right tackle who's 300 pounds that he was not expecting to just get bowled over that way.

And then he's engulfed in the end zone and you lose your bet.

I laugh.

You know, there was a great Al Pacino that said in the iconic film, Two for the Money.

You never feel more alive than when they're pulling the chips away.

Yeah,

I love those things.

Great movie.

I'd rather.

There is

John Anthony.

There's a strange part of me.

That was good.

Would rather lose those bets than win them just because it's a great war story.

But everything kind of just pales in comparison.

Cameron Dicker missing the kick against Jacksonville.

Come to find out now he's just nailing big kick after big kick and is one of the most accurate kickers ever.

And it's just.

It's weird.

He's the most accurate kicker in history.

He's 94% for for his career i love how in two for the money mcconahe's process is just i'm gonna walk into my office and i'm gonna look at this sheet with the lines on it and i'm gonna circle one side

no what if uh that doesn't do it for him then he has to take off his shirt oil up and let some rain

that's when he's you know i'm in i'm in a room then he walks

and the whole room is just wants this paper because they're going to sell the shit out of this paper.

He promised Armand DeSante a 13-0 weekend.

You guys have heard me say over the years that I feel like quarterback measurements that we in the media are pretty bad at.

I feel like we're pretty bad at the kicker measurements too.

Do any of you or did any of you have any inkling that Youngwei Ku was going to lose his job?

this season?

Is that something that you guys knew was coming?

I thought of that guy as wildly, wildly consistent.

And also when he missed a kick earlier this season, I was surprised by it.

He missed a game-winning kick.

Do you guys, did you guys have an inkling that Young Way Ku was about to lose his job in Atlanta?

You would have thought that he would have had more of a runway to mess up, but they didn't.

They've missed a lot of kicks, Mike.

The last couple years, he's missed a lot of kicks.

And it's like, oh, yeah, he's good, but yeah, he shouldn't have missed that 42-yarder when the game is, you know, in hand.

It was weird.

And I felt like it was kind of coming.

Saszlo, did you have any opinions on Young Way Ku?

I didn't think that's a good idea.

That's strong.

I bet a very strong opinion.

I just didn't think that either.

Saslo, you're pretty dialed in.

I was dialed in on the Falcons, as you know.

I had to stand up.

Hungarian Parliament to Young Wei Ku.

I think that when you name part of the stadium Kuville, it's a little bit of a surprise that they cut the cord on him.

Not the coup I thought we'd be talking about off of that Kimmel story.

Let's talk useless sound here, shall we?

Let's do some useless sound montage here where we go throughout the sport and get two minutes, two-minute Mayfield of just useless sound.

Man, it's great to win in the National Football League.

Great to play at home in front of our fans.

They're just...

They're unique and we love them.

Good win to get,

in particular, when you haven't had one.

I'll always remember this win.

And we don't need to learn a football game.

You know that turnovers

are very hard to overcome.

It feels like we lost the game.

Matt threw it right to the guy, so it wasn't like he made a a good play.

I mean, good for him.

He caught it.

Like, awesome.

You can't let the Eagles beat us twice.

You know, we spend a lot of time on our ball search culture.

We had to have a drive there.

So,

guys, made some plays.

For our group, we talk about we don't care how we get on the field, we don't care the situation.

We got to find a way to get off the field.

They had a good plan today.

The grit, the mental toughness of our football team was on display.

You know, I'd rather be two and one than one and two.

The Bears are the Bears.

You know, we have played three out of 17.

But there's no flinch really out of that group.

Our guys didn't blink.

Again, saying it doesn't make it suck.

Frustration that turns to focus.

I would say that I'm very focused and motivated

to continue eliminating things that cost us games.

It was a screen that I hadn't really run before, and I was like, Christian, what is this again?

So you reminded me and he's like, oh, I was like, oh yeah, I got you.

So that was bad by me.

I got to know exactly what it is.

Offensively, he's got some good things going.

He's got Wilson there, which is a plus.

The flea flicker, we're right there.

You know, and it's like, you know, whatever.

It's a tough job to do when there's someone in your face.

We need,

everybody needs to do better.

This game is, the margin between winning and losing is so small.

If you don't take care of business, you don't play well, then you're not going to win.

Guys were connected against a high-strained team, which leads to some extra yardage.

Give Brian an opportunity, man.

He's got a great personality for this sport and

for you people here.

There's a lot of things that took part in that game.

We lost that game as a team.

We took the lead as a team.

And we're going to, you know, these are the chances to be able to lean in and see what you're really about.

Well, I like Michael and

enjoy his family.

Like I said, I've sat at ball games with them apart from the Cowboys.

So as a matter of fact, I watched the whole first half of our last preseason game with his mom.

And we sat there and watched the whole up in the suite together.

Listen, he's an emotional guy.

He's Irish.

Who was the maniacal giggler?

What was the one and only?

Keeping San Francisco afloat, Dano.

That's a ripped jersey.

That was Mac Jones.

That was 3-0.

That was 3-0 Mac Jones.

He also didn't know the play.

He had to ask Christian.

Roy, find for me isolated, please, what I believe believe if I played secret audio from somebody who had been administered into a facility where they had lost their sanity and what they would sound like if I just had secret audio of somebody who had officially lost their mind.

He's laughing at the joker.

He's laughing at the fact that he threw an interception to a defender who didn't have to do much of anything to intercept the ball.

You can't win with that.

That's fine.

Undefeated.

But big picture, you can't win with that.

What does the Bears are the Bears mean?

What does that mean?

I don't know what he means by that.

The Bears are the Bears.

Of course, the Bears are the Bears, but I know what it used to mean in the 80s.

I don't know what it means today.

Also,

Cam Hayward has learned from his coach, talking about getting off the field.

I'm trying to know what ball search culture is.

What is a high-strained team?

Yeah.

The Dolphins.

I like some of the terminology used throughout this sport.

I was listening to a game on satellite radio this weekend when I was just driving, and a running back broke out into the open field, and the announcer just yelled, he's a flight risk.

It's a good call.

It is.

It was a good call.

Who was on the call there, Dan?

Who was it?

I know.

I know.

I know.

We got to find that guy.

That guy knows what he's doing.

Why were you driving during football?

Farmer's Market, Dan?

Oh, you're married, dude.

You're so nice.

My favorite part of this show so far today was it just dawning on you that you're married.

Let's go to the pumpkin patch, Dan.

Oh, it's fall.

You guys don't drive during college football at any point on a Saturday?

You guys don't leave the television at any point on a Saturday?

I did.

If I do, I'm not happy.

We know Roy does.

Roy doesn't watch football.

I mean, no, I'm locked in on the game.

Unless I got a kids' party I got to go to or something.

That's what I had to get to.

This couch right here.

This is where I live all day uh please uh keep playing mac jones again this is him talking about throwing an interception where a defender didn't have to do anything because mac jones just realized that he threw the ball to a defender who didn't have to do anything to intercept it

um

that's me if the marlins make the playoffs hey everyone it's mike ryan One thing about me that everybody knows, I absolutely love Miller Light.

You know what else I love?

You.

That's right.

You.

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