Local Hour: Shaq Was An Underachiever

All right, kicking things off with Smirnoff, the official vodka sponsor of the NFL and the number one vodka in the world. Chris Cody, you're here.
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Sweepstake starts 1215, 2025 at 12 a.m. Eastern and ends 123, 2026 at 1159, 59 p.m.
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And it's February 15th, 2026 at 1159 p.m. Eastern.
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I can tell from looking at Greg Cody, who is a bit post-coital, that he has just done some singing and soon there will be a no open, a new open that will have his song in it.

Nopen.

You can tell from looking at him, you can tell that he feels like he has accomplished something. He was just telling me yesterday that He Haw 3 needs to perform in Las Vegas and do a documentary.

He wants a documentary. He wants Metal Arc to make a documentary on Hee Haw 3.
Yeah, it's time.

I mean, we've been a band for 50, 60 years, and at least I have been part of the band for that long, and it needs a documentary.

But that's the first time I've ever been described as looking like I'm post-coital. So thank you for that.
Radiant. Do Zaz, do you not see the happiness on him? Yeah, he's got a smile.

You know, it's like an artist who is ready to, you know, show their art to the world. That's exactly what it's like.

He is, but he's pleased with whatever work it is that he's done, or it could just be that everything centers around him and that gives him equal pleasure. Is it like a debut for you too?

Have you seen Final Cut? I have not. Oh, so you'll be watching it for the first time with us.
Okay, I wonder what it'll be about.

Mike Ryan was also muttering under his breath while you were performing the new open, just grumbling about Notre Dame fans being funny, and I don't think he actually finds them funny. No, they're not.

They're mad that someone else would consider hiring their coach. It's a strange thing.

Well, he wouldn't go. I'm not okay.

That's his decision. But how dare you say some other school may want to hire him? I don't, What are we doing? Isn't that a good thing? I don't know.
It's like a compliment to you.

He would never leave. I don't know.
I kind of saw your coach leave for an SEC school a couple years ago, and I happen to know that he's

talked to other people.

You happen to know? I happen to know that Marcus Freeman and his agents have done some. He happens to know? Great Scott, he happens to know.
He happens to know.

Gather, everyone. Get the children.
He happens to know.

So wise.

People get really offended when

the perception is even hinted at that their place is a stepping stone. This happened with Oregon and Mario Cristobal.
That's why they hate Mario Crystal.

This place considers itself less of a stepping stone than any place in college football.

Although they have $15 million to pay coaches, they typically don't do that.

Ohio should be everyone's dream job. Ohio State would like Oregon.
Nope, I'm telling you that

I understand what you're saying. There's greatness in plenty of places.
Holier than now, only one.

Do you think when they need money, do they call the Pope and say, hey, man, like Marcus Freeman's about to leave?

We need like another strong 15 million open up the coffers here in the Vatican. They got quite the endowment.
What do they got in there, by the way? What's going on down there?

Something upon in the coffers? In the coffers of the Vatican, Dan, you know what's going on there? Vampires. I don't want to talk about what's going on.
What's going on down there?

We need to have that conversation. Not yet, but soon.

for our favorite winter sport.

The summertime is over, so let's head down to the court. Not for the chairball.

Give me fast breaks on the attack.

Will you shoot a three or take it to the wreck?

Basketball is back, Jack.

It's a dream shake down in the post

or a killer cross you love the most

When the offense tries to run and gun

Is it man-to-man or bots and one

It's big plays and talking smack That's how you know that basketball is back

Jack

Let me hear you say basketball

Basketball is back Jack 360 dunks and peck and rose.

And we're gonna watch it every day till they raise the Larry O Harp files and hook shots.

A dagger three and hacker shacks.

If you say this game's the best, I'll say it's a gag.

Basketball is backjacks.

Basketball is backjacks.

Basketball is back.

basketball is back.

We got to get that guy to stop breaking bottles over people's heads in the office. That seems like it seems really unsafe.

I don't think when the offense is on the run, one of the options is boxing one.

Yeah, I don't think that's what's happening. When's the last time you boxing one was played? You think?

Wow,

I'll have to admonish my lyricists over that one.

On a day when basketball reopens and Amin is in town flying in with urgency because basketball has reopened, we opened with a hockey story. And

hit the other open.

The rarest, the rarest of things that you get in sports is we talk about drama and soap opera and beef and everyone hating each other. Just a super sweet moment.

Just a super sweet moment that broke one of the tough, dirty irritants that that sport has ever seen with one of the greatest stories.

And everyone in Florida and Boston could appreciate, oh, they still love him and he still loves them. And Marchand is trying to keep it together.

And he's got no shot at keeping it together as he's watching the video montage. And he gets the career eulogy of his life flashing before his eyes when they've got those banners and it says 2011.

You see the one next to him, 1972. Like there's no back-to-back there that Marchand is going back to.

I was moved by it. I really was.
And for me, it's always F Boston. I hate everything about that city when it comes to sports.
I hate that team right there. I hate that crowd.

They did a tremendous job for him. He is an ugly crier, and I felt it for him, though.
I felt good for him. And I thought it was a tremendous moment.
I loved it. I really did.
I loved it.

Would you think it was a tremendous moment if Marshand played for like the Stars or some other team? No, I wouldn't give a shit. Well, I mean, for me, you know, I'm a Panther fan, right?

They nailed the tribute. I was unaware he played in Boston, and so they really did a good job encapsulating and catching me up on that.

I did think it was really cool that the more emotional he got, the louder the crowd got. And it was just waterworks after that, especially if you had no idea he was a Boston Bruin.

He also made it clear because they had talked to him throughout the day. He made it clear that he wouldn't change anything.

He's really happy with the way everything works. He said one thing that surprised me.
He said that he had no intention whatsoever of re-signing with the Panthers

until he did. And he knew he was a rented mercenary and got caught up with the God, this feels good.
Like, this is one of the reasons,

I mean, that it's still confusing for me to see Kevin Durant in Houston because I'm like, man, winning seems like it would be super fun. Why wouldn't you just stay with the winners?

It seems like you could be swayed by that. Winning seems like a good way to spend your basketball life.

I think, well, for Kevin Durant, I think, you know, when you're that level of talented, and I'm no hockey expert, so I don't think Marshand is like, was that kind of talent?

He's more of an emotional leader guy than like Skinny.

He was a tremendous hockey player. I know we all live in a swamp and we just started following hockey a couple of years ago.
He's not Kevin Durant.

He's not the most gifted player we've ever seen with a basketball player. No, but no, but he was one of the top players.
He's close. He's close to Durant, in my opinion.

No, no, he's not close to Durant. In my opinion, he is.

He has a city that loves him more than any city loves Kevin Durant. Definitely not late to that.
In terms of unprecedented player,

Marchand is not that, but he's got a story that's super

interesting, super sweet at the end, and absolutely made the most of his talent. A lot of people would argue that Kevin Durant hasn't, even though it'd be hard to argue that.

because he's one of the 10 best basketball players ever and maybe the purest scorer we've ever seen of any kind. Yeah, I don't know anyone who would argue he didn't make the most of his talent.

Maybe his personality, maybe his choice. I'm saying, in terms of the winning that he ended up doing.
Yeah, sure.

Marshand, two Stanley Cups is probably way above the over-under for what we would have thought for. Like, Marshand's an over-achiever for sure.
Is Kevin Durant an over-runs-achiever?

I mean, he's an achiever. He's properly achieved.
He's properly achieved. He's properly achieved.

Could have won more. Probably.
Decided to not. But Dan, to my point, is that when you are a talent like Durant,

there is an allure also to the chase to how this happens. It's not just about the accumulation.

I tell the story a lot when Andrew Bynum, remember him, he was the center for the Lakers when they won with Kobe and Powell and all those guys.

But when he was first coming up, there was a game when Mike Brown was actually the coach. He gets the ball at the top of the key, shoots a three with like 15 on the clock.

Mike Brown goes crazy, pulls him out the game. After the game, All the reporters rush to Kobe's locker because they think, oh, Kobe's going to rip this kid a new one.

Like, how dare he take that shot or whatever. And so, Kobe, what do you think of that shot by Andrew Bynum in the third quarter?

And Kobe sat back and said, sometimes when you're great, you need to test the limits of your greatness. Like, he wasn't mad at all because he understood.
He's like, oh, this is the only way I know.

Wait, what can I actually do? I've told this story as well. When I worked for the Suns, Steve Nash...

In a playoff game, threw a behind-the-back left-handed pass between someone's legs against the Spurs. And I was like, why would he do that? And like, sometimes you just want to know, can I do this?

Can I do this with the stakes this high? And so for Kevin Durant, and I have to do this disclaimer because otherwise I'll get a DM from him. I haven't spoken to Kevin Durant.

I don't know anything about it. But it would seem to me when you're that talented,

winning it just because, hey, we're on the best team is not enough of an intellectual pursuit. I have to find out what are the limits of my greatness.

And I think that's what he's done in this journey since he's left Golden State.

Does this tie into your Aaron Rodgers theory of everything needs to be harder because I'm so good that I can't do it with guys that are just great.

I have to do it with guys that are garbage to make sure that everybody knows it's me. It is the bizarro evil version of the Aaron Rodgers theory.

Aaron Rodgers theory is, I need enough reasons to explain my failure that won't be me. It wasn't my fault.
Y'all gave me this and that at all. Like, hey, man, if I had.

So that's the Aaron Rodgers thing. Whereas Kevin Durant is like, I wonder if I could.
There are three guys I think of where they're all-time immortals, and one of them is not Mark Andrews.

All-time immortals

that somehow achieved things that are damn near close to unprecedented, but still will get slathered with underachieved. It's Durant, it's Aaron Rodgers, and it's Shaq.

It's even Shaq because you're like, couldn't he have won more? Couldn't he have won more? He's a four-pediatric given how dominant he was. I'm not.
I agree. I agree.

What? No. And I love Shaq.
What? I don't even mean it as an indictment of him.

Not before LeBron. Sorry.

Dan is speaking nothing but straight facts. He did a three-peed.

And people.

don't want him even more damaged. People still say Shaq should want more dominance than that.
You got to think about this. Shaq versus LeBron.

Shaq versus LeBron. Here's the deal.
LeBron spends seven figures on his body every year, and his diet is this, and he's got these trainers.

One more. No, he's maximizing everything he can do.
Whereas Shaq, everyone's like, the guy eats donuts and says I got injured on company times. He was lazy.

Yeah, like, well, I'm not going to say that right now.

He won a three-peat the way you're describing. Yeah, like,

that means

that. That's how amazing he is.

No, but, Chris, when he came into the league, okay, first games in Orlando, when he was dribbling up and down the court with the ball, all of us looked and said, That's the most dominant thing we've ever seen.

Should have won 10 championships or what it should have won a championship at least before he started winning MVPs in his early 30s. Guys, I love the enthusiasm in the room.
Everyone's engaged.

Everyone's in.

Basketball is back. But if we're going to do 90s nostalgia, how are we not talking?

They brought it back and guess what? There it is. Hit that music.
You know what they did, Dan?

They hit the Buffalo. No, play the music.
I need the bed.

Oh, it's flags. Never mind.
All right, we got flags. Seven seconds or less.
Never mind. Oh, I love that book.
So Dan, they pushed the button, and you know what happened?

It was the Buffalo Wild Winds button. It said, hey.

This game is great. We need to go a little bit longer.
For a couple of reasons. One, we want this to continue, but also, there's another game with Steph Curry in it, and people can't watch it.

You know what they'll have to do in order to watch it? They're going to have to download Peacock and subscribe to that. And all of it came together.
NBC could not have had a better night.

And you know what the highlight was? The pinnacle. The Zenith.

That was it. But the second highest pinnacle in Zenith, Insights into Excellence.
No, that's not right.

That's not correct. You didn't like it, Dad? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
We'll get into Insights into Excellence. I saw what Amin did there.

The ball went over to him and he's like, you're not going to turn this into a puck. I'm going to keep it a ball.
And the story from last night, and

that was a fun game between Houston and OKC. Also a fun game.
The late game was also fun. But the game of the night was the game played around the emotion of Marchant

in Boston

at the top of hockey. Seeing a player break like that because of his link to a community, it's almost, Mike just said it, man.
Kevin Durant got booed when he returned back to OKC.

Durant will never get that moment. Kevant was booing the OKC ring ceremony, which was great heel work out of him.
And then Stephen Adams booed Durant on the intros. That was awesome.
I like that work.

I also love the dichotomy of at center from Pittsburgh, Stephen Adams, and the crowd went nuts. Yeah, they should.
At forward from Texas, Kevin Durant, and boo.

It was the exact opposite of cheers and booze. But Dan, you say about the emotion of a guy and a link to a community and Brad Marchand.

How about the emotion and the link to a legend of Amin Al Hassan? I sat there, I had tears in my eyes watching Michael Jordan tell me that he felt mortal for a second.

Then he remembered who the hell he was. You're damn right, I cleaned that free throw.

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Why don't you sit back and toast a few Miller Lights?

Make your holiday time. tis Miller time.

And with the 50th anniversary of Miller Light, you get to remember and reflect on all the good times that you had with your trusty trusty buddy by your side, Miller Light.

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Don Lebatard. Chris Cody does an impression.
Just be careful. Dangerous game, dude.
This is a dangerous game. I don't want to play this game.
He was saying, man, I could do such a great connection.

Oh, I don't want to play this game. He's like, man, I can't do that.

This is who we're going to trust. I mean, you do it.
Let's Amin do it, I think. Still gots.
I think you could do it, Chris, because you did a great Charles Barkley. You're one for one there.

Did no one just hear the segment we just did with the mean? We cannot be taking

counsel from the local drunk on whether or not you should do the impersonation of a black man stumbling over his words. Like, you don't see the bad judgment in that.
There it was. Moses, Moody.

Moody, Moses. Moses and Moody.

It sounds worse.

Be careful, man. We gotta, like, we cannot do this.
It's too close to the line. This is where the line is.

Something legitimately funny can't be funny because we're scared our ginger is going to do something racist by accident. Carry the hell on, Dan.

Rachel. Dan, the line is where we feel alive, though.

This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stukats.

I think we've got all show to celebrate Peak October. Let's just put a bow on this Brad Marchand thing because the emotion at the start of that game was one thing.

The game absolutely delivered, and it's one of the nuttier finishes you'll ever watch in sports. It's hard to make a regular season game echo, to have a regular season game be memorable.

You need to have like what the Senators and Panthers had. And it was ESPN.
A couple seasons. This was a national game.
I don't know how that puck went in. You had the framing of Brad March.

I don't know how Ber Hage gets credit for it.

You have the framing of Brad Marchand's return to it. The Panthers go up 2-0.

They concede. It's even.
They get a late goal to go up 3-2. The Bruins pull their goalie, get a late equalizer.

You're shitting bricks if you're a Panthers fan because you're about to go 0-5 on the road. Your season feels like it's in jeopardy already because you're blowing this lead to Boston.

And then something that I don't think I've ever really seen before. Cordiver Hagee, swaggy cold game, hits a post.

The puck bounces about five feet in front of the net off a Bruins player back into the net, and the clock freezes at 3.05. That's what I'm talking about.

But there was like 26 seconds left. So inexplicably.
Stop at 3.05. 3.05.
Back to 3.05, and then it disappeared. That's what I'm talking about.
And we finished the game with zero clock.

And the source was the officials on the ice. Just trust us.

I had to just wonder how much time was left while I'm watching the Panthers try and drain the clock. I have no idea what time was left.
It was such a great goal that it made time stand still.

But as great as that game was, and it was like it almost had a playoff feel, as great as that game was and as great as the

final goal was, it was the emotion at the beginning.

I was brought to tears, which I rarely am by sports, because that moment was bigger than sports, right? It was a beloved player being hugged by the entire city of Boston.

And that's so heartwarming to see. I hate it nowadays.
You see a lot of fake ceremonies when a player who played there two or three years comes back and they give him the touching video.

Everyone's got to get the thank you.

And they don't deserve it, most of them. Penn State fired James Franklin, then tweeted out thank you.
I mean, Brad Marchand,

I don't think Bruins fans have had a more popular player since Bobby Orr. I really don't know.
Patrice Bergeron, but yeah, like not

for my money. You mean Borges? So I'm talking, I need to clarify one thing really quick.
Sorry. Yeah, my bad.
Echoes throughout eternity.

Borges.

Ron Borges is a writer there. That's right.
Thank you. Thank you for the help there.
That's good help from you. Ron Borges is a writer in Boston.

I just started following the sports three years ago. No, but Ray Bork, if I put on the poll at Labatard Show, greater Boston legend, Brad Marchant or Ron Borges?

Brad Marchant or Ray Bork? Oh, I would pick Marchant. Probably Marchant.
Bork didn't win, so probably Marshant.

No, but the last time I remember Boston having a hockey moment like this is when Ray Bork won in Colorado, Colorado and

they brought the parade back to Boston because Ray Bork won in Colorado.

This town obviously develops its allegiances very strongly and emotionally to players. But this guy

getting the sweet one when he is nationally hated and six months ago was hated by Mike Ryan. Like to find to find a sweet spot with two cities because your grit beats the respect out of people.

And you're just, you're an annoying player. You're somebody other players do not like.

You're not, I would say that you're not a lie, hell, not a likable player given that Paul Maurice said himself, I had a certain idea about what this guy was before I spent time with him.

It's sort of like seeing Ty Dome get this. Like, it's not, this kind of player doesn't usually get this.
What? It's not Ty Dome.

I understand it's not Ty Dome, but I'm just saying it's a player who's viewed as annoying to other fan bases and other teams in a way that not a lot of other players are.

Well, and to that extent, I don't think anyone, and it was a national audience last night, I don't think anyone appreciated that moment last night outside of Boston fans and Panther fans.

Like, that is not a likable player out there. I thought what struck me is that it wasn't just Boston loving Marchand.
It was obvious that it was reciprocal and is deep coming from Marchand to Boston.

He's a brewing for life, if there was any doubt. He could win two, three more Stanley Cups in Sunrise.
He's a brewing for life. I feel like that's a beautiful thing to see.

I feel like that went on like 30 seconds extra, basically as like a statement to the organization of like, we don't agree. We didn't want him to be gone.

I feel like that there was a little extra there of like, yes, he was an emotional player for them. Yes, they're going to miss him.

But it's also they're mad at their organization because they never wanted him to get let go last year they wanted him to find a deal for him i just want to be clear about one thing greg you were driven to tears watching that yes and not emotional and not listening to michael jordan and mike tarico talk about

we will get to that i mean i promise we will get to that i would you want to clarify because maybe greg was crying multiple times well greg has already told us

that is mike to rico fake laughing at my

fake laugh hitting a free throw

not a fake laugh it's really funny greg cody uh as you've gotten gotten later in life, you've been more likely to cry, right?

Sporting events might not make you do it, but you are now more of a crier than you used to be, correct? Yeah, I would say in the case.

You started crying on your podcast last week because I told you I drafted my daughter's soccer team. That's true.

I did talk about what a great father I think Christopher has turned out to be. Boy, how'd you get so soft? And it made me tear up.
I'm sorry. Not sorry.
When did this start happening to you?

What would be the last sporting event that you found yourself crying because it it really was a rare thing to see when the emotion jumps out of your television set in South Florida on hockey and this player.

Like, it's really disorienting to have the emotion sneak up on you. Oh, he's not going to hold it together.
Oh, he really loves this fan base. Oh, this fan base really loves him.
Oh, I love sports.

This is why I love sports. Shaq is more disappointing than Connor McDaniel.
It's a wild take.

He won three championships in a row. That's hard.
Underachieved. You guys are just showing your age right now because you don't.
Dan is, you guys want to make fun of Dan. Dan is spot on.

We're not saying

that I get what you're doing. We're not saying that Shaq doesn't belong in this conversation, but to say that there's no player that underachieved.
That's what. Like, he may be in a conversation.

It's a compliment. LeBron's won four.

Chris, his entire 30-year career, it seems.

I'm telling you right now, when Shaq, even at the height of Shaq winning, remember the, I got hurt on company time, I'm going to rehab on company time. That happened, I think.

Number two, title number two.

The expectations was this dude was going to be Bill Russell. Eight straight, 10 out of 12.
And the moment he didn't, he only had one MVP. People say, oh, that's all you got one.

That's not his fault, though.

That's not his fault.

What other one should he have won? Nash.

How dare you?

How dare you? I know you were the one. Hold on.
How dare you? I dare.

You dare not, sir. I'll be your ally in a lot of things, Brett Cody.
This is not one of them. Okay, all right.
I'm not alone. That kind of thing? Nash.
A lot of haters.

Didn't Nash get like two in a row? Yeah, he did. Nash.
He's great. Nice player.
Nash was great.

If you don't believe that Shaq underachieved, I feel like you don't remember how incredible he was.

I'm open to that conversation to put him on at the bronze medal stand of all-time underachievers when he did a three-year-old. Is Patrick Mahomes an underachiever? He could have win three in a row.

I don't really need to say much more than Shaq won one MVP, Steve Nash won two. Who do you think's the underachiever there? Like Steve Nash won two MVPs.
Shaq won one. In what world? In what world?

In this world, sir, because

you understand what I'm saying.

I'm your ally on this one. Like, like, people, now it's going to sound ridiculous.
I'm telling you. Even Shaq, Shaq talks about, like, I have zero margin for error.

Anything I do is not good enough because the expectations are a guy that big, that skilled, that athletic, right? That kind of footwork, which a lot of people did not at the time, I think, appreciate.

He wasn't just big. He had crazy footwork and he was smart as crap around the around the, I don't know why I edited this.
Crap is not smart. Crap is not smart.
Like I said,

smart as smart.

Smart as crap. I've never heard that phrase.
Right.

And again, the explosion. So most of the time you think of big guys that size,

they don't have that kind of vertical. They don't have that kind of first step.
So all of these things were combined that, oh, this guy's going to be

ringing up the rings over and over again. And it started with that first finals loss.
It's not that they lost. It's that they got swept by a sixth seed.

And that's when it started with this guy's an undertaker.

Well, no, Amin can also tell you that what also started is next year, oh, all of a sudden he's got post moves that he didn't have the following year because he went how many years without doing much of anything in the post other than dunking.

Like he wasn't doing, he wasn't learning, he was getting smoked by Hakeem Elijah's skill set. And he didn't try defensively.
Like he wasn't close.

The defensive player he became under Phil Jackson, he was not remotely close to that before.

I mean, his early years when he was young and dumb and didn't know any better, he was pretty good defensively. And then as he starts to realize,

I have

he got really scared over that.

I thought I was going to play. I thought we were going to go.
Yeah, I know. Young and dumb and defensive player.
That's usually how it goes.

We talked about this the other day, Mike, right? Like, it's like, it only takes one, right? That's the saying. Although the extended saying is a little different.

Same thing with young and dumb, is extended saying that we don't say on air.

We just leave it to young and dumb. But he was decent defensively.
Clearly, when he got with Phil Jackson, he bought into being a better defender. It's not, I think it was, again, choice.

A lot of what, what the stuff that Dan is talking about is is that there's an appearance of choice with chai he chose to be in shape he chose to uh to become a better defender he chose to take the first couple months of the season off to rehab a toy injury that he could have rehabbed during the offseason these are all shaq choices whereas a lot of these other guys are like oh you weren't good enough you choked it we didn't talk about that with shaq we just talk about man you could have been so much better yep Critics are calling Marty Supreme a full throttle masterpiece and the best movie of the year.

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Don Lebatard.

And then that's Stafford through him 25 and 2. Oh, there's a brand new kid in town out of B-Y-U.
Stugats. They call him Buka.

His quarterback is not named Tua.

Yeah, he is Puka.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stu Gats.

Before we get to

some things about the coverage last night and the NBA returning, I did want to read to you guys a couple of quotes and just have a larger conversation as it relates to Tua

and

respect and what it feels like to be in a room

with lost respect, okay? When you're Tua specifically, I want to tie this to something that I heard Dave Dombrowski say the other day about Bryce Harper, okay?

And, you know, people are going to say that Bryce Harper is going to get hurt by this.

Dombrowski, the general manager, Hall of Fame general manager of the Phillies, says of Bryce Harper, he's still a quality player. He's still an all-star caliber player.

He didn't have an elite season like he's had in the past. I guess we only find out if

he becomes elite or continues to be good. Can he rise to the next level again? I don't really know the answer.
He's the one that will dictate that more than anything else.

I don't think he's content with the year that he had.

Again, it wasn't a bad year, but when I think of Bryce Harper, you think elite, you think one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don't think it fits into that category. End quote.

Bryce Harper's got six years remaining on a 13-year, $330 $330 million contract. Bryce Harper probably wouldn't disagree with that in private.

Bryce Harper probably wouldn't have much of an issue with it if Dave Dombrowski said it to his face.

I'm guessing Bryce Harper feels disrespected that Dave Dombrowski said that honest truth out loud, that then lies the blame for, hey, you can't be better than the Dodgers.

We need Bryce Harper to be better than the Dodgers' three best players, or with Schwarber and Trey Turner, we're going to keep losing to the Dodgers' three best players.

So the disrespect, my point is, can be ever so slight, ever so slight, and wound you no matter how much money you make.

If Tua lost the respect of the room, given that the games are all close in that league, given how bad the Cleveland Browns are, what would players quitting around him look like?

Would it look like Sunday? Players quitting around him because they no longer respect what they're playing for. The season's already lost.
They all know they're one in five.

They know they're playing a bad team. They know they stink.
And their quarterback just told everybody, I'm the reason that we could have won against the Chargers. Everyone else in leadership is wrong.

My question to all of you would be, are you willing to make the leap to Tua's under it at least in part, hurts the most because he's lost the entire respect of the room that he's in?

And if they didn't quit on Sunday, quitting would have looked a lot like that. You wouldn't have been able to tell much of the difference.

Well, quitting would have looked like the quarterback throwing three interceptions.

Tua is the only one who I thought looked like he might have quit, which is preposterous because he's the one with the most approved. The defense had a good game, okay? Make no mistake about that.

That's a bad offense. It's a really bad.
It's 17 points or fewer in 11 straight games. I understand.
You allowed 31. No, no, that's not true.

He had a pick six, and he had another pick that was on the five-yard line. I think Greg's kind of right about that.
If you think the defense was responsible for 31 points, you didn't watch that game.

The defense played very well. They barely gave up.
I know very well. It was a bad offense.

They gave up barely 200 yards in total offense. The defense did not cost them that game.
The offense was awful. And Tua was awful.
I didn't see anybody quitting. Maybe you did.

Greg, the defense didn't have to do anything. They had the ball inside the Dolphins' territory like 19 times in the game.
Judkins was running Wildcat quarterback, right?

I'm not saying, I'm not actually saying they quit.

I'm asking you guys what it would look like if a room lost respect for its leader, what that would feel like to the person who's trying to have the press conference after the game game in which he played so poorly.

Would it wreck your confidence if you were surrounded by a bunch of people who were mad at you? I'm asking, in a very human way,

would it wreck your confidence if you were trying to do anything with a room full of people who you have a relationship with who are now mad at you because you've publicly blamed them in a way that gets the coach to reprimand you the next day because of how out of character and how unprofessional that is for a quarterback to do.

I I think the place you would see it first would be on the offensive and defensive lines.

And the reason that I say that is because that's probably the area of the field where you have to exert the most effort, the most energy.

And if you have a player who you are mad at, this case, it's the leader of the team, you get down, whatever it is, 17.6, you feel like you're not going to win, you stop giving that max effort.

I would say like when you're getting gashed for 150 rushing yards a game or you're not blocking very well on the offensive line, I feel like that's the first place that you would see a lack of.

I'm not saying they quit. I'm saying how much worse than 31-6 to the Browns who don't score against them would it have been if they had? No, that's rock bottom.

Like, it doesn't get worse than that that we saw last weekend. I know.
The problem is the Dolphins keep hitting new rock bottoms. I thought the opener at Indy was rock bottom.

No, but the Browns are the Browns. Like, the Colts are not the Browns.
The Browns are a joke this season. Yeah, they're terrible.

Their games other than the Colts have been close. The Dolphin games are close.
The Colts game wasn't. We now know the Colts to be good.
The Browns are not good. The Browns are as bad as the Dolphins.

And I'm legit. The game wasn't close.
A bad football team. One that Dolphins fans entered the season thinking they were surely better than the best.
This was the easy part of the schedule.

Yeah, this was the get-right part.

All right, we dropped one in Indianapolis. Thank God we got Cleveland there.
And Cleveland was looking at you too saying, fool, you're worse than us.

We were looking at the Cleveland-Atlanta back-to-back at the start of the season. Carolina, too.
Yeah, and now Atlanta's got D. John Robinson against the worst run defense in the league.

I think the problem with Dolphin fans nationally nationally is like you guys were thinking that of the other teams, and the other teams' fan bases knew you were the joke.

Stephen Ross, it's being reported, the owner of the Dolphins, has been offered, Barry Jackson reported this, has been offered $10 billion for the Dolphins

and turned it down. Turned it down because he wants his daughter to keep it.

If you do not know the history of Dolphins' ownership, Joe Robbie built a stadium with his own money, got very little credit for it, and ended up bankrupting bankrupting his family.

They had to sell the team in order to take, you know, they couldn't take on the debt of that stadium. Hizenga planned on building Disney World down here, wanted to buy all the teams.

Where's my water park?

Wanted to put a water park around the stadium. Where's my water park? That's the same thing about Metro Zoo, too.
They were supposed to have a water park there. What happened there?

Brought like his, he tried to get around the rules of buying multiple teams by having his brother. in-law Wit Watson try and buy the heat, pretending hiding in the shadows.

He just wanted to put it all together. Stephen Ross's team is not worth $10 billion.

The land and the stadium that he has that allow him, that is built upon what Robbie and Huizenga did, make it so that the Broncos represent with Walmart the highest price that has gone for a, is that still the right one?

The number commanders go for seven? So the

stadium deal. I thought it was Denver that was the most.
It may be Washington that was the most after that.

Regardless, this would be three or four billion dollars more than that because of the stadium. As a Miami Herald reporter, I'm only Herald Emeritus.

Your thoughts are what on the Barry Jackson report that apparently Zaslow does not believe? Well, everybody knows the Miami Dolphins franchise alone is not worth

$10 billion or close to it. But when you factor in the stadium, when you factor in the racetrack,

you're also buying for that money

an F1 race. Imagine if it's at a water park.

You're buying not only an F1 race, you're buying a major tennis tournament. So you're buying all of these things.

And I've said for years, Stephen Ross has been a bad owner of the Miami Dolphins, but he's been great at developing that whole thing.

I mean, that's a masterclass in how to increase the value of what you own on the same business. But what's the job? What is the job? Because this part's always confusing to me, right?

Roger Goodell has done a good job as commissioner of the league. Why? Everything goes up.
Jerry Jones has done a good job as the owner of the Cowboys. Why? Because it's the most valuable franchise.

It's worth more than the $10 billion that we're talking about here.

Stephen Ross has done a good job because he's a good businessman. Like, he's a bad owner.

I separate the two things.

One of them make you a good businessman. That doesn't make you a good owner.
He's been a terrible owner. That stadium was trash before Stephen Ross.
Again, I don't get my major upgrade.

Again, yes, that's nice. My game day experience is so much better.
Thank you, Stephen Ross. Yeah,

it plays a major role. I think it did there.
And they have international soccer there. I mean, it's a multi-use stadium.

Nobody thinks Stephen Ross has been a good NFL owner, but it doesn't mean he hasn't been great at capital improvement.

And the fact that the Dolphins think that they haven't won a playoff game in more than 20 years decreases the value of that franchise hardly anything. Decreases the value by $6.

It doesn't matter whether you're buying a winning franchise or not. You're buying an NFL franchise, the most valuable thing in sports.
Just looked it up on Forbes. Yes, it is reduced by exactly $6.

It's amazing you got that exactly right, Matt. That's crazy.
He's done his research. Also, Dan, to clarify something, the most expensive NFL team sale was the Commanders for $6.05 billion.

The Broncos went for $4.65 billion three years earlier. What's those points? Like, none of those teams were winning franchises.
So the Broncos were. The Broncos.
The Broncos want to sue it.

But the Commanders, like, you want to talk about an ownership group. They were terrible.
An ownership group that was hated by its fan base.

And all the things that you could say about Stephen Ross, multiply that by 10 when it came to Daniel Snyder. And look,

way more than a joke. I think a lot of the things the stadium is still trash.
They didn't have a stadium agreement in there and they found a way to get the money that they did.

To answer your question, Dan, what is it? What makes a good owner, right?

I think a big part of it is investment into the infrastructure and the fan experience. Which is done in a big way.
Because at the end of the day,

the thing that you can't really control, and I know people don't want to hear this, you can't control the results on the field.

And from everything we know about Stephen Ross, it hasn't been for a lack of trying. This isn't him being petty.
This isn't him being Jim Dolan petty. This isn't him being Robert Sarver cheap.

This is just, hey, man, it's tough to win in this sport without like having certain things, namely a great franchise quarterback. Oh, but I don't believe that I could throw to the audience here,

if I say to the audience, any sport, hey, don't do faces, don't do uniforms. Haven't won a playoff game in 20 years, same owner the entire time.

Is that a good owner? Is that a good owner? Like, there's no amount of concessions you're going to convince any fan that that bottom line. Like, the bottom line isn't money, man.

The bottom line is, do you do any winning at all? Any winning at all? Like, yeah, you can be worse.

You can be Woody Johnson giving the press conference that he gave yesterday, which sounds, you know, you don't want him in front of microphones ever.

Like, you'll notice that Stephen Ross is not in front of microphones. You do not want to throw lighter fluid on this burning building.
So I'll give you an example.

Not with us anymore, but Larry Miller was the owner of the Utah Jazz, right?

They were instrumental for the Jazz being in Utah, right? That team won a lot of games, never won a championship.

I don't think you find anyone in Utah who would say a bad word about Larry Miller as the owner for the Jazz. That's not the same thing.
That team was always good. Winning.

The Barometer's not winning a Super Bowl. It's doing any kind of winning.
There is literally no example that I can give the audience right now where I would say, hey, 25 years, no winning, no winning.

Same owner the entire time. Is that a good owner that anyone's given me a name? Hey, he built a racetrack.

You're ignoring the fact that you can be both. You can be a bad sports owner for the Miami Dolphins and great at building perhaps the greatest sports mecca facility-wise in the entire country.

And one of the reasons they have the World Cup next year, a shout out to the late Joe Robbie.

It was Joe Robbie who was foresightful enough to build that stadium and that field with international soccer in mind before anybody cared about international soccer in this country.

Fans can't disassociate on-field success with how they think of the owner.

But if you look at a town like Buffalo, the Pagulas have kept the Sabres, have kept the Bills there, have built a new stadium that'll be unveiled next year. That's a small market.

They have done things for that community that are greatly appreciated, and yet they don't win a championship. So if you pull the fan base over there, it's a divided opinion.

Dan, are you, when you talk about the ownership and winning playoff games or whatever, like Jerry Jones is kind kind of that answer, right?

Like, have they won three or four playoff games in a matter of 25 years, but yet the valuation of the Cowboys still goes up? Oh, but they're still.

I'm just surprised at the measurement you guys are doing for Goodell, for Jerry Jones, for Steven Ross, that you guys are all counting in dollars. You're not using the standing.

Dan,

I'm not just going dollars because, again, Jerry Jones is an excellent example. Cowboys fans, number one, they have one of the best stadiums in the world.

Their game day experience is elite, right? There's a pride that they have there. And for all of the failure that Jerry Jones has done, they all believe we got a chance.

This guy gives us a chance because he'll spend, because he'll do what it takes. And sometimes that's all you can really ask for.

He's also won three Super Bowls.

That's a million years ago, man.

You got a Tamorian outside?

Come on. Still have a hot tub.

It is interesting to me every time that we talk about Steven Ross here, even at present, when they've got like an international embarrassment on their hands, and we still talk about him as if he's maybe not the worst owner in the history of South Florida.

And now Jerry Jones is the example when he doesn't even know the names of his players. Michael Parson.