Local Hour: Herald Emeritus

43m
"You can't tell me when I'm late on my own f****** opinion."

It's a Miami Football apocalypse, and there's no one we'd rather hear from than Greg Cote. Too bad he's late again.

Today's cast: Dan, Greg, Zaslow, Chris, Amin, Jeremy, and Mike.
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Transcript

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Chris, I need some leadership help here because I feel a bit afraid.

Okay, the local teams are falling apart.

I can do an hour on each local team.

And

you've got noise around the local teams that is unusual.

Zaz has bombed in with a travel story that I don't know that Mike Ryan

is embargoed.

Your father is late again.

Again, you just got here four minutes ago, so you're in no position to lead him and lecture him about late.

And we got big shoes to fill.

And Jeremy's eager to fill him, and we can't let him.

And I want to talk about what happened with the University of Miami, because I'm guessing a whole lot of people were laughing all weekend, but also the Dolphins.

Where would you start, Zaszlo?

Where does Zaszlo show 2.0 start today as you have just mutual apocalypeses for different reasons because of where the standards have fallen in this town in football?

Dolphins, because I think at any moment, Mike McDaniel is going to be fired today.

And so you want to talk about the Dolphins before that ends up coming across the news.

Okay, so you're saying that, but I don't like Friday to dictate where the standards are in this town because we've got one bad football team and we've got one that wants to win the championship.

And just because the other one played earlier, you're running away.

away from what you said last week when you said the standard is so high.

I said loud.

You said real loud the standard was so high on undefeated yep that should be the expectation and you won't even start your show there today because you want to you want to fire McDaniel You want to fire another one of these coaches.

We've had how many, man, we've had this problem down here since Wanstead Greer.

You cannot spend 20 years trying to figure out whether you have a good quarterback or not.

You can't spend 20 franchise years with Tannehill and this trying to figure out whether you have Jackson Dart or not.

Well, and now it's not just figuring out if you have a good quarterback or not.

it's figuring out how to manage having the worst contract in football.

I mean, anyone want to display that?

Well, Deshaun Watsons is the worst in football.

It's the worst ever.

But it's a bad contract, and Kim Bocamper is saying yesterday that that's the worst quarterback performance he's ever seen.

I heard that, too.

That's too much.

Scott Covington started a Monday night football game for the Rams like 20 years ago.

It was pretty bad.

Definitely too his worst game.

Bo Camper has been covering this market for 50 years.

You've got still those old voices, Jimmy Cephalo and Joe Rose protecting sort of the covenant, right?

Back when the Dolphins mattered in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

See, Zaszlo is doing something.

Zaszlo is going into the bin, old-time sports radio bin, saying, oh, you always start with the Dolphins.

You always start with the Dolphins.

And I am here to tell you that over the last 40 years, what has better represented excellence in this market is the University of Miami, such that the standard is when they lose as a two-touchdown favorite to Louisville.

And even though they show you, yeah, that's a good team.

Yeah, that's a good team.

That's a playoff-worthy team that lost at home when their quarterback throws four turnovers.

I think Miami's college team is vastly more interesting than its professional one.

We're just in rinse repeat on what this professional one does.

Like this, we blow out another management team.

Well, we're angrier right now with the Dolphins and the Hurricanes, even though one of them matters a lot more than the other.

It's Lowell.

You think that the starting point on today's show should be Miami?

Should be the University of Miami?

And Lowell.

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

Zaszlo is correct when he says Mike McDaniel might be fired during the show today because

the Browns are terrible and the games in that sport are close.

And you can't have Kim Bocamper outside the locker room saying that's the worst quarterback performance I've ever seen when Cleveland has scored 17 points in exactly 17 points or fewer, exactly 11 straight games.

And now they're a juggernaut with their third round quarterback rookie who doesn't even have to throw the ball correctly.

He can just hand it off because the Dolphins can't stop anybody.

You remember when Josh Freeman had that start for the Vikings on one out of football?

That's the worst quarterbacking performance I've ever seen.

Kim Bocamper has been protecting football in this market for 50 years.

As though, when he says emotionally, that's the worst quarterback performance I've ever seen.

You last week are saying two is now unlikable.

After Chris Cody fell in love with him, gazed into his eyes, and couldn't love more how the quarterback was talking.

He sounds so confident.

And now everything in leadership is broken.

Like it's you.

You cannot hang on to anything in leadership because the Flames have swallowed half a season in, they've swallowed everyone that everyone on this team was paid, banked on.

Tyree killed gone.

Waddles, obviously, not a number one.

Like,

they're going to ruin A-chan.

He's going to get hurt here because of how they're using him because all they throw is passes to A-chan because they've just shriveled up into something that's not even interesting anymore.

Dan, Tua got out in front of a crowd of paying customers and yelled, Show me the money after he signed a $200 million deal.

The team is like 10 and 14 since he did that.

Their offense sucks.

And

this week, Tua had an all-time loser week.

Yes.

From the end of last game with that postseason, post-game press conference where he talks about leadership needs to be better and pointing the fingers at other guys.

And then he comes out and has the game he had, fumbles, pick sixes, interceptions in the end zone, getting benched.

It was an all-time loser week.

So let's stay here with the Tua conversation because I think we now know Greer McDaniel, they're not going to be part of this franchise going forward.

So let's not have the redundant conversations we've had about them.

You're paying the quarterback a lot of money.

He has to figure in the plans somehow, some way, even if those plans are how do we get out from under this contract.

But now I think the sample is growing to a point where you realize the answer that we thought he would be, it's not the right answer.

Tua's not the guy.

And I would say that as bad as his week was under center, this guy over the last 10 days has had a disastrous week, a disastrous time behind the microphone.

I have never seen a quarterback throw himself under the bus the way that Tuatt did.

Not only in this clip is he going to highlight how bad his approach is to the game on the field, but he readily admits that he's not being a pro off the field.

Yeah, definitely not happy, not proud of where I'm at with my play, with how I've gone about things this year.

I know I got to be a lot better and I've been better for the Miami Dolphins years past, but this isn't years past, this is this year, right?

And

just trying to maneuver everything and

trying to

build a collection of guys to kind of bring along with me and I got to be able to

kind of be able to multitask if that makes sense be able to do that and while doing that kind of continue to

continue to get the whatever it was last year and the years prior for myself to to get going again and get in that flow thank you all right first of all what the hell is he saying more rambling stuff more rambling stuff

what do any of those words mean no i i know people automatically want to go to the concussion stuff like let's like i that's just like a troubling clip because it's rambling nonsense what he's talking about doesn't sound like

Okay, McDaniel and Tua, when they get out in front of cameras, and I would not blame them if the intoxicants of the last two seasons were the greatest at offense.

We've got it figured out.

Everybody's going to get money in Miami.

They're 9-2.

And at the middle of that story, is also the brain does keep getting hit and making us worry.

Should they give him that money for health reasons?

Never mind that there's still the argument.

Wait a minute.

Is he Brock Purdy?

Is he a product of system?

Or is he actually a good quarterback?

We've done the architecture of this team.

We know the bet that Greer made.

We all fell in love with it at that watch party when they were 9-2 and then lost to Vrabel in Tennessee because, oh, look out, Vrabel's got Drake May now.

They're going to be running the division for a while.

Like Drake May just had a better quarterback percentage than Brady ever had because they found a quarterback there and a good organization protects that quarterback.

Speaking of rambling,

the Dolphins have two ramblers in McDaniel and Tua, and they're in front of the microphones, and we want explanations for the losing, and they have to say something, and they're not good at say nothing.

Just get up there and just keep saying nothing again and again.

They say it inefficiently.

Their offense is efficient.

Their words are not.

So, I mean, I guess in a vacuum, you like the accountability from the position, right?

But you're also concerned to say, wait, they're paying you a lot of money.

What is it about your off-field prep that you don't like?

What is what you know that there are things that you should be doing to be better, but you're not doing it.

And he didn't realize it apparently last week, because last week it was everyone else's fault, not his.

It is a weird thing to bring up out the blue.

You could say, hey, we can be better, whatever, but to specifically call out his off-field prep in that way, in that manner,

that's the difference, Mike, between accountability and wait a second, what the hell's happening here, right?

That's the line.

Accountability is like, I need to be better.

What the hell's happening here is like, yeah, man, I don't know what I've been doing.

What have you been doing?

Now I need to know.

The thing that I thought was just happening there.

Hold on a second.

Okay.

All I thought was happening there is, oh, now he's going to crucify himself because he was bad leader last week.

Everyone turned on him last week.

McDaniel said out loud, this is a distraction.

This isn't leadership.

So now I'm going to go out there and I'm going to crucify myself after a bad game.

He's the first three-interception quarterback the Dolphins have had in consecutive games since Marino.

He's supposed to be maximum accurate.

He looked panicked yesterday.

Like that, and look, I'd be panicked too if Miles Garrett was chasing me and I didn't have an offensive line.

Like they can't run the ball.

They're terrible.

They can't stop the run.

Every running back in the league will run for 100 yards against them.

I like where you're going, that what we saw from Tua just then is an overcorrection.

from last week.

Wasn't that obvious?

I don't know.

I don't.

He confuses me every time he talks.

I don't, I don't, and it's been, this isn't a concussion thing.

I don't want to go there.

He's not a super captivating speaker.

Like, he doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

But everybody after a loss like that wants a Tim Tebow, no one's going to try harder than me speech.

And this is just more loser talk from a guy.

When he speaks, you're like, oh, you're never going to figure it out.

Yeah, I don't trust you to figure it out.

But, okay, and I get that, but you know why he's never going to figure it out?

Because they just lost 31 to 6 to the terrible Cleveland Browns.

Because he's not a good football player.

Okay, but nobody would be under these circumstances.

What are the circumstances?

He's got talent.

What do you mean?

Nobody would be.

I see plenty of quarterbacks play well.

Hold on.

I have a question.

You said he's not a good football player.

Then what was three years ago?

Oh, he's not that guy anymore.

He's not that guy.

He's not that guy anymore.

Three years ago, but three years, guys, three years ago, they were the number one offense and passing offense in the league.

It's not always concussions.

It's not.

Carson Wentz got some injuries, but he just like the league figured you out.

Like there's plenty of guys that that have that get to that second contract.

League figures you out.

Like I don't think that I've been a Tua guy since day one before this season.

Like the Indianapolis game that opened this year to me, I figured as the moment that I think all of us realize this is not the guy.

But nonetheless, I've been a Tua guy every

season going up to this year.

And I don't think that I was wrong about him in the past.

That guy was a good quarterback.

He's not the guy because for whatever reason, he's regressed.

This quarterback is

not your fault.

Dan, you love this.

He was right in the moment.

This is the Stephen A.

Smith.

What Zaz is doing right now is I was right.

I feel like twice.

I feel like I'm concussed by the last three years of our Tua coverage that includes Mike being able to diagnose the gradiation of degrees in the brain chemistry between why Wentz can do it and Tua can't.

Okay, I'm not scientist enough to know whether Tua is more injured than everyone else in the league.

The quarterback that presently plays for the Miami Dolphins resembles in no way the quarterback that was the number one passer in that sport three years ago.

It's unfair to just because I was able to come up with once his name, Kyler Murray looked a lot different.

his rookie season.

The league figures some guys out.

Hell, Daniel Jones has come out the other side.

He had to adjust to it.

In fact, Baker Mayfield, too.

The league is full of guys that at certain points were like, this guy's done as a starting quarterback he can probably pull himself out of it but there's a lot of guys that end up being blake borders that don't but doesn't that prove my point that it's like i don't know if we can say he's not a good football player he is a good football player rather the surrounding context of what he's playing under right is it him or is it mike mcdaniel who we haven't mentioned yet and his post-game presser because he sounds like he's had concussions

I want to apologize to Brian Flores.

Why?

I'm sorry.

Why?

You were right about Tua.

You see, you're doing what he said about Tua a couple years ago.

He was right.

No, I don't agree with that.

People want to take that track that Flores was right about Tua.

You're not right about Tua if the team invests a number five overall pick in the quarterback, whoever it is, and you don't even give him a chance.

That's where Flores was wrong.

You got to at least give him a chance.

So Flores was not right.

No, I don't agree with that.

Well, let's bring it back to Mike McDaniel because this is like the third straight week.

We're all sitting by our phones waiting for the Schefter notification that probably won't come.

It's It's not happening.

You think it'll be Shepherd?

Yeah.

It might be.

I don't.

Plus 500.

Why don't you let it play out, guys?

It's bad right now.

What do you want?

You want him to win three in a row?

No, at this point, let's lose.

No, you don't want any change.

No, like, that's it.

This season's done.

Let them stay.

Let's be as bad as we can be.

Chris, but here's the fear.

What if they win three in a row with him as coach?

He's gone regardless.

Does this sound like a guy?

Let's play the video.

Does this sound like a guy that is going to rattle off a win streak there's a lot of guys that will have an important work week um because uh we're not i mean if you uh are negatively affecting the football team uh routinely um i don't have a choice but to um you know assess a different player and um and i have to coach um

a lot better as well so we need uh we're going to find out um who and what we're made of that's him saying he's going to bench tua right uh That anyone's benchable.

I just, I did the optics of this from Mike McDaniel swaggering on the heat sideline in Miami vice fashion gear to yesterday looking like a wet rap rat, overwhelmed, like just optically overwhelmed, looking at a play sheet that had no answers.

Look at that face.

That had no, but you guys saw what I'm talking about, right?

The optic of he's the one coach in the league yesterday who is being beaten down by the weather and looks like he is, you know, a mop, a wet mop of defeat, looking at a soaked play card that has no answers because he's losing 31-6.

All the games in that league are close.

Did you see what the Broncos and Giants did?

Like all the games in that league are close.

Yesterday's 1 p.m.

games, they say going into the witching hour, and huh?

Only two score games here.

And everyone's surprised by it.

And then it becomes, oh, there are one score games here.

The Dolphins would have no answers.

Their coach is sopping wet on the sidelines.

Their quarterback has to come out afterward and just sort of say things because he's the leader so he doesn't make another fire worse than the last fire because neither one of these two guys figured out how to do a press conference that was just give them the cliches.

Just because when losing comes, you're not going to be able to lead because this will bury everyone.

Isn't it hilarious that we're basically asking for Dan Campbell?

Like that's all just say some clichés and act tough in this moment.

He was here.

We ran him out of town.

Because he was two cliches.

He won four games and he became an interim coach who could lead somebody.

And then that's what happened.

We mocked man Campbell.

We always get to be right on these.

Zaszlo's sitting here as if he's been right.

We've been arguing about the Tua assessment for three years the way that we argued about the Tannehill assessment for seven years.

No one's been right.

They haven't had a quarterback.

Like no one here in this town who has thought in the last 25 years that have had a quarterback, they've not had a quarterback.

Not Jay Cutler, not Cleo Lemon, not Jay Fiedler.

It's been 20 years of, no, they don't have the primetime guy.

That was Marino.

They don't get to have that anymore.

And then they don't win a playoff game for 25 years.

That one year of Pennington was good.

He was good.

Pennington was good.

He was top five MVP voting.

The best 25 years in the last 25 years after Mourino, the best quarterback this town has had as Chad Pennington.

And the one year two ahead.

The one year, that wasn't a mirage.

We'll always have that one year.

What was that?

Like, Mike's sitting here saying, oh, and the league caught up.

And I'm sitting here saying I'm I'm not

scientist enough to know whether his brain is the same as it was.

But the offense surely isn't.

They've gone from, they were the best in the league and could throw on anybody.

And now they get six points in Cleveland.

And it's a miracle last week that they scored 27 against the Chargers.

This is not abnormal.

If you give me 10 minutes to take pen to paper over the last 20 years and give you a quarterback that had a year.

And then most people decided that quarterback's not starting caliber in the NFL.

Throw out some names.

Like, let me put pen to paper.

Pen to paper.

It just happens all the time.

Daniel Jones had that, but now he's back again.

It happens all the time.

You are not a special little snowflake.

You're not unique.

You're running into the same problems that every franchise does when it tries to nail the franchise quarterback, but falls short.

As a Giants fan, I could say Daniel Jones was never as good as Tua was that one year.

He got paid.

He brought him to the playoffs?

No, he got paid.

Everyone was like, why are we paying this dude?

Everyone was like, he's an okay quarterback as a giant.

Like, what's happening this year, this is shocking to me.

But there was never a point where I felt about Daniel Jones the way I feel about Jackson Dart.

Jared Goff made it to a Super Bowl and was basically thrown into a deal to make salaries work.

And he was just going to hold it down.

And they even drafted potential replacements to push Jared Goff.

And then he figured it out.

He went to a Super Bowl, but no one really felt that confident about him going to the Super Bowl.

Like, they went to the Super Bowl because the team was great, because what's my man, the running back, was incredible.

Yeah, really.

But remember, the year before, he's out dueling Patrick Mahomes on Monday Night Football in the Catcher versus Mustard game.

Guys, there's so much that happened yesterday because if I said to you guys right now, hey, Stafford's my quarterback and I trade him back to the Lions, they're the league favorite, right?

If I trade Stafford back to the Lions, just like that, a player who left the Lions because the franchise made two of its previous best players quit, Calvin Johnson and Barry Sanders, Matthew Stafford goes elsewhere, becomes the quarterback.

Everyone now fears no one wants to play that team in the playoffs because they're so precise.

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Howdy, listeners.

It's Mike Ryan and Chris Cody.

Hey, everyone.

Hey, Chris.

We love hanging out so much.

You were at my birthday the other day.

You're old.

You know what I saw?

In your hand?

What?

A can of Miller light.

Oh, whether it's a can, whether it's a bottle, a draft, a pour of Miller light.

The draft board.

you see that beautiful iconic color.

Ah, the coldness.

Right away.

The ice coldness to it.

Oh, it's so good.

Yes, Chris, the ice coldness to it.

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Don Lebatard.

Billy, somebody has written in here,

I need way more.

I'm sorry.

I just said in his headset, haven't you been to all of them too?

It sounded like you were speaking aloud.

My bad.

Totally on me.

That's 100% on me.

All right.

Stugats.

But that goes without saying.

Right.

That it couldn't happen.

Well, now he said.

He didn't say it.

He said.

That was just in your head again.

Craig, my apologies.

Craig.

Yeah.

Greg.

He apologized

sincerely.

This is the Don Lebatar show with these two guys.

This is an interesting conversation.

I'm going to be curious if you guys want to have it because

McDaniel and two are going to get swallowed on.

They're going to get swallowed by.

Oh, this is what leadership requires, right?

When you're one and five,

if you're.

if you're leading

Greg, you do you know a lot of other programs in America?

Like first take, have you ever seen someone walk in 25 minutes late to first take?

Like just any other any other daily program that people watch?

I don't monitor them.

Sorry.

He was being quiet.

I was.

Thank you.

I thought I was.

Daz, do you have any thoughts here on just coding?

You know my thoughts.

What was preventing you from leaving 20 minutes?

You know, let's start here, actually.

Because I scolded you about this a couple weeks ago.

Have you adjusted your morning schedule at all since my, you know, suggestion to leave a little bit earlier?

I leave plenty early enough.

No, no, that was my question.

I would say plenty.

Have you adjusted your schedule at all?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you think you're that important, though?

Like the local hour, a lot of people are listening.

Like, we're a big podcast in Miami.

I heard that.

And a lot of people want your thoughts on as the dolphin columnist who is a month late to this particular fire, by the way, because now Greg Cody, now Greg Cody, a month late is writing in his column from today's Miami Herald.

I would not be surprised if the Miami Dolphins fired head coach Mike McTanion very soon, and I would not argue that it was too soon.

Right.

At one point, right.

At one point,

late in the game, CBS announced this is a bad look for the Miami Dolphins.

You think this was an avalanche of ineptitude failure of the worst kind?

Something needs to change.

It might be the head coach.

Lukewarm, a month late.

It might be

coach.

First of all, I wasn't a month late based on my own opinion.

I'm allowed to have my opinion when I have it.

Okay.

I don't knee-jerk like other people do when I think that I have finally seen a game that may have tipped the scales.

And if I'm Stephen Ross right now, for the first time all season, I'm thinking to myself, and he may be, be, I need to make a coaching change.

Okay, I didn't feel like that a month ago.

And so I said it, I wrote it when I thought it was

late like you were today.

Dan, you were.

I was late today.

I was not late on my opinion.

You can't tell me when I'm late on my effing opinion.

Got him.

I can tell you.

I can tell you that.

No, you can't, because it's my opinion.

I own it.

Shows aren't scheduled on opinions.

Was that your computer?

That was Greg's computer.

I'm coming in ill-prepared.

Look, Dan.

Don't get, don't, you're pushing it right now.

Oh, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan.

Dan, in Greg's defense.

Go on.

No one would notice he wasn't here if you made a big deal about it.

Right?

You could have just done the show, and then we could have just assumed that Greg was silent this whole time, and now he's chiming in 19 minutes in.

But you decided to make that a central theme to this show.

Shame on you, Dan Lebatar.

Yes.

And shame on Zaszlo.

Shame on you.

The Iago parrot on your show list.

Shame on you.

The pair.

Thank you, Billy, by the way.

Listen, you're both, I have a right to my opinion when I have it, okay?

All right?

You guys are not a columnist for the Miami Herald, okay?

Your opinions are spewed into microphones.

Dan could still be, right, if he wants.

I'm still a Miami Herald columnist.

Are you?

I mean, he's been late to work for the last 10 years.

What year was your last column?

I'm going to say three, four years ago.

I think it was longer than that.

Yeah, you're a Miami Herald columnist like Luther Luther Evans and Edwin Pope.

I mean, R.I.P.

They've been dead for many years.

I know they have.

So he's a columnist like dead people?

Yes, because he doesn't write.

You're not a columnist.

So your opinion matters more than our opinion because you're still a columnist, even though your opinion is

a month late.

No, it isn't.

Has been wrong for a month?

No, it hasn't.

You've been as wrong as anyone could possibly be about this Dolphins football team and its leadership.

You couldn't be more wrong.

An opinion can be late.

Like if you're saying, if you showed up today and you said the Dolphins are a bad football team and you're saying that for the first time this season, that opinion's really late.

Okay, I'm not saying that.

They've been bad for a long time.

Okay, they keep reaching new lows.

It was a new low the way they opened the season at Indy.

It was a new low when they blew a 17-point lead

to Carolina.

It was a new low when they managed to lose to the Chargers by not protecting a lead with 46 seconds left.

It was a new low again yesterday.

The lows add up, and they make me, a reasonable columnist, say now is the time.

If you want to make a coaching change, you make it now.

Okay?

You can disagree with that, but it's my opinion.

My last column was in October of 2022 about to uh am I still a Miami Herald columnist?

Oh, we got a judge here and a journalist.

Please, yeah, that's a good question.

Three years is a long time, Dan.

Yes, am I still a Miami Herald columnist?

I need a little bit of evidence, and the evidence that I would like to have before me is if you put in the search bar at theherald.com the name Dan Lebatard, does his name come up?

As a Miami Herald columnist?

I need some evidence.

Clickbait.

Yes, it does.

Okay.

So forgive me for this.

I don't know when the expiration date.

I have not officially retired from the Miami Herald.

So while I have not written information.

Are you columnist emeritus?

I don't, I don't, I don't think.

You're paid by the column, right?

Like if you say, I want to write a column on such and such, they'll say, all right, I'll give you 200 bucks.

Go ahead.

I would say the Miami Herald probably hasn't paid me.

So this is bad evidence on my part.

I'm incriminating myself.

I'm like Tuan McDaniel talking too much.

The Miami Herald probably hasn't paid me in 10 years.

Okay, welcome to the club.

I've never heard anyone be dismissed.

Put it in the Suez.

Best dismissal.

The laugh that Greg Cody did.

He just, haha, he it was such a get that.

To be Harold Emeritus, do you have to be dead?

No.

I would think I am Miami Herald Emeritus.

Would I not?

I have not earned that?

Yeah, Emeritus is alive.

You're always the guy, even though you're not active.

That's Emeritus.

Right.

So you don't think I could write right now for the Miami Herald if I wanted to?

Yes, but you quit writing.

When you write once every five years,

you're not a writer.

Have you quit writing?

I have not.

There it is.

Okay.

All right, so let's, well, he's the judge and the journalist and the lawyer.

I'm about to make my ruling.

I've heard enough.

Do you have imaging?

Do you have imaging?

Yes.

All rise.

The Honorable Jonathan Zaslow, now presiding with Prejudice.

The case before me, whether or not Dan Lebetard

is still a columnist for the Miami Herald.

My ruling.

Yes, he is.

With prejudice, Craig Cody.

Yes, with prejudice indeed.

Thank you.

Emeritus.

Very prejudice.

With prejudice has never been more aptly put.

I don't think I've ever fired a coach in this market.

I think there was just one time that I said Don Truler should be replaced.

He never forgave me, and it was because Jimmy Johnson was available.

My opinion on this as Miami Herald columnist Emeritus, as ruled by Jonathan Zadzlow, is that you just suffer it out with these guys

with the knowledge that you are going to make a leadership change no matter what happens the rest of the season.

Well, but how much does it play a factor that you want to show the fan base that you're willing to make big changes?

Okay, so those are optics, and you could, whatever, whatever the best management move is to, hey, yeah, we're going to fire them, but they're going to stick around for a couple of weeks because it can't get any worse than that.

We need them to lead this show

the rest of the way here, but we're going to, we're going to bring in a leadership change shortly.

Like, whatever, it doesn't matter whether you fire them today or four weeks from now, they failed.

Like, it's an abject, embarrassing failure.

The wheels have fallen off, and what will get swallowed is their architecture, their money, and their quarterback, and it's all gone.

Like, Bradley Chubb, they were all in, man.

They were all in piece by piece on, we're going to get a pass rusher and Bradley Chubb.

And now you see what the Patriots are, what the bills are.

Everyone here must go.

It's been obvious since before the season when they went into the season with no corners.

You were late to that opinion.

Okay, when you say everybody must go, Bradley Chubb's had a good season.

Jordan Brooks leads the NFL in tackles.

Devon Achan is a very good running back for the future.

He's played very well.

If they don't kill him.

I haven't given up on Jalen Waddell.

One catches.

They have pieces.

Yeah, and they threw to him like twice.

I mean, look, that's not a number one receiver, okay?

It can be said.

I agree.

Oh, but I mean,

he was drafted.

He's playing like number two.

He was drafted to be a star.

Like A.J.

Brown.

I appreciated that.

A.J.

Brown.

A poop drip.

A poop drill.

I got it.

That's right.

A.J.

Brown won yesterday's Eagles game because Brian Flores now gets to be right.

The Eagles, that game's decided because a very good red zone team, six times the Vikings go into the red zone, five times they kick field goals.

Brian Flores found a way to stop the tush push.

You saw what he did?

He invented something.

This is what we wanted.

Advance the game.

Don't just outlaw something because it's hard to defend.

Invent something.

I think the next move is you stack them on top of each other.

That's a great idea.

On top of each other.

Hold on, hold on.

We will get to the because there was some fun stuff yesterday.

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Don Lebatard.

All right, we got to go back out there.

That was big.

Wake him up.

Uh-oh.

He doesn't want to be bothered anymore.

Now it's getting tense because he didn't need that as a result.

He needs something that happens.

You can see him motherfucking.

He says, Can we bother?

Are we bothering you right now?

Turn on your microphone, girl.

My microphone's on.

Stugats.

Paint the scene.

The Paint the scene is I gotta go to work.

Good night.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

We're not even halfway through the football season.

Wait, we're still throwing dirt on the Dolphins, though.

I took 10 minutes to put pen to paper.

All right.

To show you that you are not a special, unique snowflake, that this this happens.

Dan mentioned they went all in.

Plenty of teams go all in.

There's a problem with going all in.

You can lose the hand and lose everything.

Yeah.

And on your way out, you can say goodbye to Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, and Baker Mayfield.

Because plenty of teams go all in and fail.

But in the last 27 years, I established a criteria.

You either had to make a Pro Bowl,

get to your second contract under the new rookie wage scale, be among the league leaders in passing, or take your team to a Super Bowl.

Here is a list of quarterbacks that had their fan bases swearing that they found the answer at the position.

I'm going to, your criteria changes greatly what we were talking about.

We were talking about...

What, he was among the league leaders?

He made it to the playoffs.

He made it to a second contract.

Outside of making it to a Super Bowl, he fits like damn near every one of those criteria.

It's not about him fitting those criteria.

It's about what we're talking about, Tua, is this idea that this is the guy.

And some of those criteria that you named, like for instance, getting you a second contract.

It's not that this is the guy.

It's just like, this is the guy for right now.

Well, that wasn't the feeling when I tour that this is the guy.

The Raiders thought they had the guy in Derek Carr.

Okay.

They thought they had the guy.

Okay.

And after a year after, giving him a huge contract extension because they found the guy on the rookie wage scale contract.

And this is what you do.

We had value at the position.

We got to move on.

Derek Carr gets benched the following year after signing a big-time contract.

Not the guy.

Derek Anderson for Cleveland.

No.

We've been searching for a quarterback.

The guy makes a Pro Bowl, and this was before Tyler Huntley could make it to the Pro Bowl.

No, not the guy.

Josh Freeman, rookie.

We nailed it.

Among the league leaders in passing, we nailed that position.

We nailed that pick.

Nope, you didn't.

Colin Kaepernick took his team to a Super Bowl.

Okay, that's a different story there.

He wasn't that good.

Whoa.

Blake Bortles.

Mitch Trubisky made it to a Pro Bowl.

No.

Yes, he did.

Carson Wentz was an MVP leading candidate.

Mac Jones took his team to the playoffs.

His rookie season for New England.

No drop off here.

Bill Belichick keeps everything moving.

Vince Young, Jameis Winston, you are not special.

Tua is just the latest in a long line.

Let the record show he took marketer paper, not pen.

There, there you go.

Mac Jones doing pretty well for San Fran, by the way.

All right, let's, let's, we haven't even gotten to the University of Miami yet,

but I,

halfway through a season I really did think was done a month ago.

I've also done this to the Carolina Panthers in their 4-3, and and their season is still done.

You're very premature, by the way, writing teams off.

That's like your thing.

You want to be first in line, so you sometimes make a ridiculous

way.

The Chiefs are doing pretty well right now.

Yeah, well, that one.

Yeah, well, so I'm going to have to eat that one.

I should go ahead and consider.

I could go ahead and bend the knee now.

Eat that shit.

Did Greg run out of breath on a six-word sentence?

Pretty wild.

Did I?

Yeah, well, he's coming.

Mac Jones, he's coming hot because of traffic.

He's late.

He thinks he's so good at the game that he can just show up and be fiddling with his equipment while also giving an opinion on him.

He said, putting words in Greg's mouth, as usual, I didn't say that I was so good that I can afford to show up late.

Traffic said that.

Why don't you call the mayor of Miami and ask him why he has the worst traffic in America?

Why, when school is out and traffic should be light, it took me more than two hours to get to work today.

Call the mayor right now.

He's the one who's got to explain, not me.

If you think I'm going to start leaving my house at 6:15 in the morning to get here at 9, ha ha, it ain't going to happen.

Period paradigm.

This is an unfair shot of an empty roadway right outside our studio.

Well, it does fall under Miami's jurisdiction, whereas much of the traffic that Greg encountered, I think, was outside of county lines.

Yin-yang.

So you're excuse.

I just want to be clear.

I wonder how many other employees in Miami are getting to work late, and then their reaction is: leap off, call the mayor.

I'm blaming the mayor.

I just like how if you're

scolding Dan, that if you believe I'm going to leave at a time to get to work on time, you're nuts.

That was the crux of your arguments.

So you don't have to draw a line then.

Okay, in other words, if necessary, you would leave your house at 5 a.m.

to get here at 3.

If that means that I have to get to work on time, I have to do it.

Yes.

No, you don't.

You draw the line.

No, you literally do.

You take a stand.

I take a stand.

And by the way, who appointed you judge and jury?

Yeah.

How did that bit happen?

This isn't about me.

No, no, no.

No, let me know.

How did you become the judge?

Because everybody knows.

I'm good at judging things.

Is that right?

Yeah, that is right.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah, we know this.

Everyone knows this.

And he's a journalist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who appointed that?

I got a degree from the University of Florida.

That's who appointed it.

Yeah, you did.

Journalist.

What's that Panthers shirt?

Florida Panthers, my squad, reigning champs.

I love them.

0 for 7 on the power play.

Impartial journalist.

Anyway, where were we?

We've got to get to the University of Miami because we've been derailed in just dolphin talk.

But I do believe that the things going on in Miami that we

do believe that we have a number of things in Miami going on that rival some of the other things going on.

Maybe not that Denver Giants game because that was bad crazy.

Damn.

The end of your NFL Sunday was an insanity against all odds.

I ask you, please, somebody look this up for me.

What the hell would be the betting odds on

team gets held scoreless for three quarters because the Giants do something very correctly and then scores 33 points in the fourth quarter.

What are the odds against whatever the hell happened at the end of that game?

Yeah,

bad teams find a way to lose.

We've seen that in Miami.

We saw it with the Giants.

It just happens.

I can't remember the last time a team, any team, scored 33 points in a quarter.

I will try my best to quantify this.

NFL teams had won 1,602 consecutive games when leading by 18-plus points with six minutes or less to play in the fourth quarter.

At one point in that game, the Broncos were 60 to 1 to win.

Money line.

You could have got them at plus 6,000.

If you led in the last six minutes by 18 plus plus points, NFL teams had won 1,602 straight games.

Courtesy of Steve Martin, that Stats Bureau that he runs is incredible.

The Giants led 26-8 with six minutes left.

I mean,

I mean, granted, they did miss an extra point.

It should have been OK, whatever.

Yeah.

So it was tough luck.

But still, when Brian Dayball gets fired, and it's a win, not an if, he will look back on a game like this as like, wow, here, give me that nail.

Give me a hammer.

Where's my coffin?

But all the games are close.

All the other teams are interesting.

The Dolphins are only interesting because everyone in the league is looking at them and the Jets and saying, that's how it all falls apart.

That Garrett Wilson goes out, and that's how bad organizations fall apart after the Patriots dynasties have been running this division for 20 years before Josh Allen took it.

Right, like my father asked, my father came over to watch the game with me.

He was like, you know,

what's the next move for this team?

What's the outlook?

I was like, there's no outlook right now.

Like, there's no light at the end of the tunnel right now.

And that's why, like, Brian Dayball, I don't think he's going to get fired because Jackson Dart improving throughout the season is by far more important than them winning games.

And Jackson Dart looks kind of good.

Like, I don't think that's the light at the end of that tunnel.

But Jackson Dart now infuses hope and value at quarterback and personality.

And that's how the Giants swing a losing season into an interesting season.

As the Broncos are two field goals from being unbeaten, and we know the Colts are good.

Like the Colts have now announced themselves as no, this can be trusted.

We are good.

We are a precise thing led by a quarterback who's going to play precisely.

But as we all know, Jackson Dart playing two or three good games in a row does not mean he's going to be a really good quarterback.

That's

hope.

That's sort of the point Mike was making.

We're not avoiding the Kanes conversation.

We're going to have the Keynes conversation.

I don't want to have the Keynes conversation whatsoever.

We are not doing that.

We are not doing that.

No.

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