SI Media With Jimmy TrainaEpisode 466 of "SI Media with Jimmy Traina" features two interviews.
First up is Robert Griffin III, who is a college football color commentator for ESPN, one of the analysts of ESPN's "Monday Night Countdown" and the host of a new podcast, "RG3 and The Ones."
Griffin discusses his various roles in broadcasting, how and why he decided to get into sports media after having no interest in it during his playing days and what the ultimate goal is for his media career.
He also talks about navigating social media and handling all his own social media, finding himself in the middle of a controversy, what NFL players are saying about the league's officiating problem, a surreal Halloween moment and much more.
Following RGIII, Peter Schrager from "Good Morning Football" and Fox joins the podcast to talk about his recent appearance on "Celebrity Jeopardy!." Was he nervous? Did he practice? How did he stick to his NDA? Was the experience everything he hoped it would be? He also discusses how Jeopardy! led to a connection with Debbie Gibson.
Following Schrager, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins Jimmy for their weekly "Traina Thoughts" segment. This week, Jimmy and Sal discuss Jimmy's day at Sal's house for an NFL Sunday that was filled with Sunday Ticket glitches on YouTube, the terrible World Series ratings and the sad passing of Matthew Perry
Subscribe to RG3 and the Ones https://www.youtube.com/@rg3andtheones
Welcome everyone to SI Media with Jimmy Traina. Thank you so much for listening. We have a huge, huge show this week. We have Robert Griffin the Third. Arg three does College Football Free ESPN, NFL Monday Night Countdown for ESPN, has a new podcast that are called Archie three and the Ones. So great conversation with Argi three about getting into sports media, dipping his toes into various areas, get into some NFL topics, the problems with the refereeing, Davante Adams, being stuck with the Raiders, Michigan sign stealing scandal, a bunch of topics with Argi three. Following Robert Griffin third, my buddy Peter Schrager from Good Morning Football and Fox joins the show to talk about his appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy. It's a great, great interview with Schreeger. We get into a bunch of other stuff as well, NFL topics and talk about what's going on this season in the league. But there's a lot of talk about his appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy. You guys definitely want to hear that. And then of course Salacata joins me for train of thoughts I spend Sunday at Sal's house watching the NFL, and of course Sunday Ticket had its first glitches on YouTube. So we get into that with Sal and a bunch of other things. So it's RG three followed by Peter Schreger followed by Train of Thoughts before we get to it. POD's been having some excellent guests in recent weeks. If you've missed any episodes of SI Media with Jimmy Trader, need you to check him out, and need you to subscribe. Subscribing very important to try to subscribe to the pod. Last week, Radio legend Dan Patrick was on the show, two weeks ago, Bill Simmons, three weeks ago, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. So if you missed any of those interviews, check him out, subscribe to the pod, and leave a review on Apple. All right, let's get to this week's monster show, RG three followed by Peter Schreger followed by Train of Thoughts. All right here, right now on SI Media with Jimmy Tranner. All right, joining me now, first time ever on the SI Media podcast. Looking forward to having a conversation with him from ESPN and from his own podcast. He is Robert Griffin, the third r G three. How's it going going good? How you doing, Jimmy, I'm good? What's what should I be calling you? Robert r G three RG? Like what I don't even I gotta know what to call you here?
Yeah, you know, it's it's not like my nickname is like this just far out thing right, It's just my initials. So people call me RG three. Doesn't bother me. I don't request that anyone calls me RG three. So you can call me Rob, you can call me Griff or uh. You know, this past week I was Robert griffindor, So that was that was pretty fun. So now people people have called me many different things over the years. Let's put it out.
I didn't want to come in hot with the RG three since we don't know each other yet. By the end of the podcast, yes, but you know, so, like I mentioned, you have a new podcast called RG three and the Ones, and you're doing college football for esp you do the studio for NFL Monday Night Countdown. So let me just start with this. Do you have a favorite role? Is it game analysts, is it studio, is it doing the podcast? What's what would be your favorite role as RG three in sports media right now.
I was gonna say, you had to specify sports media because my favorite role being myself is being a you know, a father and a husband for girls, you know, a girl dad through and through. But as far as like broadcast TV, like I always tell people, don't ever limit yourself, so I don't say, hey, this is my favorite, that is my favorite. I enjoy it all. ESPN has been really great to me. Only been doing this two and a half years, and to already be on such a prestigious show like Monday Night Countdown was phenomenal, even though that wasn't the original plan. It was just to call games and kind of get the swing of things. But ESPN saw something in me, and I'm happy and thankful, you know, for Seth Markman, Jimmy Patara and all the guys up top for really giving me an opportunity to go do that. But it it's interesting because college is different than the NFL. You know, you're covering two teams. You're having to get a whole new outlook on one hundred and seventy players or more every single week and be able to tell those guys stories the right way. And I really do take that story telling seriously, and it kind of helps me in my NFL coverage because you know, this NFL coverage has grown inherently negative, and I think that's part of the reason I've been able to break through because I don't go about it that same way. I like to have fun. I like to tell these guys' stories, and they're the best in the world, so we might as well celebrate them.
What do you mean by it's grown inherently negative? Just curious what you.
No like listen like For me, Jimmy, getting into the media wasn't anything I ever thought I would do. My broadcast agent bothered me for three years while I was playing in Baltimore, telling me, man, I think you can do this, and I'm like, I just don't want to do it. Like I was in the locker room. I know how guys view guys in the media. So when I say it's like it's grown inherently negative, think back. I'm thirty three, so think back to when I'm like six years old in nineteen ninety six and Michael Jordan's killing it with the bulls. You go to ESPN, you go to Sports Center, and it's a celebration of the sport. Well, since the ontake of Debate TV and things like that, it's become more of who can say the most outlandish negative thing to get people to listen to what they're saying, whether it's true or not, and that hurts the players. So when I got into this, I was like, there's one thing I'm gonna do and that so I'm going to make sure I tell these guys stories the right way. And if there's anybody in my ear talking to me about what this guy did over there, what this guy did over there, and it doesn't add to my football or basketball or track analysis, I'm just not going to share that. There's no need for me to do that. And I understand it. I understand the media monster, I understand the machine. I just decided that I'm going to find my own way and my own path through it, and I think I've successfully done that without having to go out there in character assassinate guys every single time I'm on TV.
All right, there was a lot there that went in, but I want to start with this. I'm fascinated by what you said there at the beginning. So when you were with the Ravens, you had a broadcast agent.
Yeah, so long story short, Akbar Bia Baja Milla. You know people call him the former Packer, the American Ninja warrior guy, right, yeah, really good friend. His agent was mark Lepzelter at the time, and he introduced us, and I'm like, I'll take the meeting and I'll take the introduction out of respect for Ackbar, but I have no intention of doing doing media. And mark Lepzelter was great about it. He saw something in me from the very beginning. And I hadn't done TV, I hadn't done really anything like that, but he believed that I could be the next great You know, he's got Nate Burlison on his on his roster, Michael Strahan is a guy that a lot of us look up to, and he really believed I could get it done. So I'm there and I'm backing up Lamar and I'm like, let's my focus is to help Lamar Jackson be the best player he can be, Baltimore Ravens be the best team we can be. And he just kept telling me, yeah, you should do this, you should do that, you should do that, And I didn't do anything. And I told him, Hey, if I do decide to get into TV. When it's all said and done, you'll be my agent because you were there telling me these things from the very beginning. So I took an audition with Fox in twenty twenty one in the summertime, like off season, and they raved about it, and then ESPN found out about it. They wanted me to come in and do an audition, and then the rest is history. So really thankful to him for you know, believing in me and getting me into the industry and kind of letting me know that you don't have to do it a certain way. You can do it your way, and that's what I'm trying to do.
So you've said a couple of times you had no interest in going into media. You didn't want to do media. So what changed for you?
Ooh, okay, So as a player, you know, I went through everything I was, you know, at the top. The only thing I didn't experience in the NFL was winning a Super Bowl and being able to be at the top echelon of the sport in that regard. But I had an opportunity to be Rookie of the Year, a Pro Bowl quarterback, you know, one of the faces of the NFL my first year in the NFL, but then I also went through the ebbs and flows of out of the league. In twenty seventeen, I was a backup, you know, for the last part of my career there with the Baltimore Ravens. So everything I went through and sports kind of set me up to be in the media in a way where I could tell the story from multiple perspectives. I don't just have this elite mindset of I'm calling a game and I could have made that throw. It's like, I kind of know how hard it is to make that throw. I kind of understand what the guys are going through, and I present it in that way. So the change for me happened because of how I was treated by the media high school, college leading up into the NFL my rookie year. You know, the majority of my second year in the NFL, my story was being told the right way, and after that it wasn't. In the snap of a finger, it completely shifted. And as I saw that and I grew and I'm matured in my own mindset, I realized there's a unique opportunity here for me to join the media and actually try to change the way that it's being done because it can hurt guys if you do it the wrong way. And I'm not here to hurt guys. I'm here to have fun. I'm here to tell the story and have a blast doing TV. But I'm not here to hurt guys just for the sake of getting another check. I won't do that. I don't do that, And I think that's what made me lean towards you know, maybe I can do this and try to be try to be what I think it should be, get it back to where it was at one point. And it's a hard thing to do, and I've learned that over the course of the last two and a half years. But you can still do it on your own and go to sleep at night and feel good about what you're doing.
So, what's your mindset or philosophy if a player isn't playing well? Yep, you know, I don't think it's unfair to point that out. Is it the way to point that out?
That?
What's your flashman? How you handle that? If you know the players not playing well, not performing, what's your mindset and how you do the analysis of that?
Yeah, Jimmy, don't get me wrong, Like it's not, Oh, don't, don't criticize the players. No, you're playing a professional sport. You're of the what zero point two percent of the guys that make it from high school to the NFL to be in that position. So if you're not playing well, your job as an analyst, your job in the media is to talk about why that's happening. So for me, it starts with constructive criticism. Hey, such and such just through really three really bad interceptions. Now let me tell you why he threw those interceptions, and let me tell you what he can do to get better so he doesn't continue to make those same mistakes. To me, as an analyst, I owe that to the fan, and I owe that to the player. I don't owe it to the player to just go out there and say this guy sucks, this guy can't get it done, this guy this this guy that I'm going to tell you what he's doing, why he's doing it, and how he can get better at it. Come here, kiddo, and and for me like this is my nine month old daughter, right o, Gia say, and I look at the players when I do my analysis, and I know that some of them have kids at home. I know some of them have parents at home, and if I'm on TV talking about this guy just can't get it done, well, how did he get to the NFL in the first place. He got to the NFL in the first place because he was a great player, because he can do it. How can I teach the fan at home what this guy can do better while also being constructively critical and not just throwing haymakers at him for no reason.
Yeah, I mean, I think I get what you're saying there. You never want to make it a personal thing. You never want to beat someone into the ground. But it is sports, like you have a winner, you have a loser, you have players well, players don't break well.
So it's and I don't want you to feel I don't want you to feel like I'm saying like we in the media can't criticize. We can't. It's like there's a delicate balance between being constructively critical and like you say, I'm making it personal. I'm not out there trying to make it personal and I'm not also criticizing how others approach it. What I'm saying is the reason that I think I've been able to break through at least the feedback that I've gotten from the fans and from the executives where I work. Is I break through because I do it in that different way. I'm not afraid to be critical. If you've ever heard me do any coverage, I have been critical, but I always keep it in the lane of how can I teach? How can I help the fan understand what's going on, and not just pile on to a subject that everyone's talking about.
Got it?
What?
So, like I said, you're doing games in college football. You've got NFL Monday Night Countdown right with Scott Van Pelt and Ryan Clark and a couple of other spears yep, Marcus Spears yep. So I go, and you got the podcast. And like you said, you're very young thirty three to be doing all this is wild? Is there though, something in your mind that's like the ultimate goal is the ultimate goal to be elite NFL analyst? Is it to keep your hands in everything?
Like?
Is there an ultimate goal in you know, ten years or something like that for you with all these jobs you have now?
Yeah, I mean I would say the ultimate goal is to be the best ever.
You know.
I use my NFL career to my advantage. I had six different offenses in eight years. There's not an offense in the NFL that I did not run. I know how they operate, I know how the coaches think. A lot of the coaches that I had the experience of being with are now head coaches in the NFL, so I have those relationships. But the bottom line is this, for me with TV, it's not a ten year plan.
It's a right now plan.
I believe, you know, if you're not swinging for the fences, then you shouldn't be swinging at all. So when I have been blessed to have my hands in a lot of different areas, it's just to show that versatility and to have fun doing it. And then at some point maybe it continues to be that way, or maybe there's something that just all right, this is what it is. And I'm gonna do this for the next twenty to thirty years of my broadcast career. But I'm not gonna limit that at this point. I'm gonna continue to keep trying out and go and having fun. And I like the way that I'm diversified right now. But that kid I just showed you, the nine month old. I also want to be a dad and I'm never gonna let chasing or trying to be the best at something and be a Hall of fame broadcaster because I wasn't able to achieve that as a player get in the way of me being a father and a husband. So at some point I'm gonna be going to those you know, soccer matches and taekwondo practices and the recitals, and I want to be able to be present and active for that. I'm working now, at thirty three young in this business two and a half years, so that at some point I can settle things out and I can I can have a well rounded life with my family as well. That's important to me.
Yeah, that's a solid plan. Tell me we know listen, you do games for college football. We know what that is. You do the studio for Monday Night Countdown, we know what that is. Tell me what the podcast is. RG three in the Ones. Give my listeners who may not be familiar with it a little rundown of what they can expect if they tune into RG three in the Ones. Yeah.
Yeah, So first I would tell your listeners to like and subscribe to the YouTube page and follow us on social media at RG three and the ones, and the reason.
I'm still trying to get them to subscribe to my I mean, people should subscribe, as a bitch. It's not easy.
It is not it's not easy.
But here's the thing.
I don't know what the vision for your U your YouTube channel is, but I know what it is for mine. And the vision is to allow the viewer to become a one of one person in their own life. That is the mission I'm gonna I've had opportunities to talk to Josh Harris, Adririan Peterson, just talk to Jordan Poyer. I mean, we're talking to some of the best that have ever done it. Rob Gronkowski was on one of the early episodes and he's the greatest tight end of all time until Travis Kelcey takes it over, of course, But right now, that's who it is, and the mission is. This is not Gotcha takes, it's not hot takes. It's life conversations, it's football conversations, and we're really trying to get to the bottom of what makes these people who they are. So that's why I want the fan to subscribe and like the page so they can take that own information from these guys that have done it at the highest level in some of the sports and entertainment industries that we love so much, and apply it to your own life, because I tell you right now, it don't matter how many balls I go catch, I'm never going to be Rob Gronkowski. It's just not possible for me at this point in my life at thirty three. But there could be a parent out there who's coach a kid or has a kid that is trying to lead them in the direction of being one of the greats. And there's more than one way to be that one of one individual in your own life. And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish.
If you could have anybody on from the entertainment field, who would you want to have on?
Anyone on from the entertainment field, I would say the Wow, the Big Three would have to be Kevin Hart, Oprah, and some combination of Dwayne the Rock Johnson and Taylor Swift. And the reason I say that is not just because those people have a large following, It's because they've had extended success. Dwayne the Rock Johnson has been successful in WWE and also as an actor. Oprah has done it in a million different categories. Taylor Swift. Of course what's going on with Travis is interesting, but like her life and how she lives that life and has continued to grow her fan base and continue to grow her reach. And of course Kevin Hart won because he's hilarious. But two, he's one of the first comedians that has ever had this long lasting longevity where he's in that number one spot. Right, We've seen it from Kat Williams Uh, phenomenally funny guy. And then like Something Happens, Dave Chappelle, Love Dave Chappelle. Chappelle shows one on my favorite shows ever, Something Happens, But for Kevin it hasn't and he's still there. I watch movies and I'm like, yo, Kevin Hart's in another movie, Like it's the craziest thing in the world. But there's something that people can learn from those types of people that isn't just jokes and funny and weightlifting and whatever. And I think that would be really cool to dive into with them.
As someone who's done this for a long time, you'll get Kevin Hart. The other three are going to be a problem. The other I don't And here's the thing.
I don't think that it will be a problem. I think you you go about it, you grow, you continue to work hard, and then they come to you at some point. It's not that you're trying to seek them out, but you do have to put it out there into the universe. Yeah, if we've learned anything from Travis Kelce, it's that you got to put it out there and then maybe it'll come to you. He made a bracelet and try to shoot a shot at Taylor Swift and now look at him right.
I say the other three would be difficult from this standpoint. My listen, My listeners are probably chuckling right now because they know that my number one dream guest is the Rock. So you and I'll have a booking we'll have a booking war over there. But I've always said he's never coming on. So like to me, it's like a by Taylor Swift. You'd imagine she'd probably do Travis's podcast before yours.
So you gonna have one thousand. I mean it's her boyfriend, right, Like, yeah, it is, So maybe Oprah is the way to go. No, I don't, like I said, I'm a I'm a very positive guy, so I'm not going to put limitations on what guests I could get or couldn't get ever. Know, you just got to go out there and just live your life and and and put it out there into the universe. Reach out to him. You know, I don't know how many times you've reached out to the Rock, but reach out to him. See I he says, he'll come on.
It's a whole story. He follows me on Twitter. I've DMed him, but it's yeah, it's I don't even want to get into it.
Maybe maybe you should just go out there and send him a tweet, send him a tweet every day. I've seen do that, Okay, so that to try to get people on the show, and it works.
So the funny story is I did go on Twitter once and I said, I'm going to tweet the Rock every single day until he comes up my podcast. And he responded like, you know, don't do that or something like that. So but but but no, it's all good with the Rock. You said you're a very positive person, right, but you are very active on social media, which is not a very positive place, and two point one million followers on Twitter, which is impressive. Let me ask you this first, because I've gone through your stuff and like I said, you're very active. Do you do it all yourself or do you have like I know a lot of athletes, form athletes, they get they work with companies that do that, which is very smart in this day and age. It is so so you got some help with that. No, No, it's all you.
I do.
It's all you.
I do all of my social media myself. And like you just said, it is smart to have somebody do that for you. But I just feel like it's very hard for your voice to shine through. And if you if you look at my feed on Twitter or any of my other social media's, I'm a human being, right There's I wake up every day and I put out a positive message and you're saying, hey, how can you be positive in a negative space? Well, you know, you just got to be yourself. So even if I post something positive and there's like five people in the comments that don't like what I said or they have a nasty response, you just move on with your life and you ignore that and you pay attention to the positive. Now if I do something negative, like, yeah, you know it is what it is. Just because you're a positive person doesn't mean that you're not a human being. And have ebbs and flows. But I handle all my social media because I think it helps my voice shine through and I don't want to give that to somebody else. And I feel like, you tell me if I'm wrong. More people that don't handle their own social media, they're not as active because it's very hard for someone to be active on your social media if it's not you posting it. Now you're say, oh, this intern posted that and it was a problem, and you know what I'm saying, Like, I've been through that and I I didn't like that. So I take my own and I've been more active now because I'm not a player and it's easier to do it.
Yeah, I think there's different ways that these companies do it. So I think there's probably I think I've heard where you know, there's a company where it's all your stuff, but you send it off to them and they post it where you know, the like Derek Jeter is not actually like on Twitter on his phone posting, you know, I think, you know, I see a guy like jj Watt and he'll post something and within literally three seconds and the fact that I know this shows what it lose, rightan, But like it's on his Twitter, Instagram, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, like it's on everything at once, so he's got people like firing that. So yes, I'm just curious. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, you got no, no, no, you're right there.
There are ways that guys that are active can do that and post it everywhere. I decide to do it a little bit more old school. I posted on Twitter, and then it might not pop up on my Instagram for another fifteen to twenty minutes.
Because you're even on TikTok doing those videos where we got your head over talking on like I couldn't even beget, Like my niece has got to help me show me how to do that stuff.
Yeah, And like I said, it's tough to do that way, but it's a more organic way. And I always want the people who are following me, the fans, the haters, because you have haters following you too. I just pay more attention to the fans. I want them to feel like they're talking to me, they're not talking to some automated system that pumps out the same thing to every single social media page. Now, some things that you say you feel, and there's certain platforms that you can say it the same exact way or present it the same exact way. But it's not like what you post on Twitter is not always what you're gonna say or post on Instagram.
Right, So I've always said, yeah, Instagram is so much nicer than Twitter. That's my experience. I don't know what yours is, but that's how I feel.
No, I understand like there's a time where Instagram can be can be very nasty, but Twitter is certainly the place when you call it like the cesspool, but I enjoy swimming in Twitter because it's such a fun experience. As long as you pay attention to the right things, what you give your energy to is what you're going to continually see. So my Twitter is a much more positive place. I crrack jokes, I have fun, I present what I need to as an analyst, and I also show my family life. And I think that if that has been accepted more. Whereas the people who are going to be negative about what you do, they're going to be negative no matter where you post it, So you might as well post what you feel good about and what you know and you'll be fine. That'll be my advice, not just to so celebrities, but to just everyday people post what you want to post, not what you think somebody wants you to post.
Well, I think it's impressive that you do it all yourself, especially if you have two point one on Twitter, because that can be overwhelming. You know, I don't know what you know if you check your mentions all the time, but that that could be a lot. That could be a lot.
Yeah, it can be a lot, And I would say it's more a lot just because of all the different pages that we have nowadays. You're talking Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn threads. I'm sure there's some other ones out there, right, but because it's all of those, that's what can be a little bit overwhelming. Yeah, I and I try to make it like sure I have like a good family life balance, and I don't ever want to feel like I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses Jimmy. So if I go seven hours without tweeting, it is not the end of the world. If I don't live tweet the game that I'm watching, it's not the end of the world. And it's gave me peace to just feel good about what I post because I don't feel like I'm trying to please anybody. I'm just having a good time.
You've had I feel like you've had a couple of like those moments where like the Twitter, the Twitter crowd is like did RG three say that? Or what?
You know?
There was something recently where they thought you said the F word and you said fudging.
Sid fudge yeah, fudging Yeah.
When when you when when something like that's happening, Like do you feel like like you're in the middle of a storm, like like what is going on here? Like how intense does it get?
Yeah? I would say that it's not that intense. And like for me, if you've watched what I do and how I present things on TV, I've been doing it my way from the beginning. So there's not like this urge to try to go viral. There's not this urge to try to say something that's going to get the people stirred up. It's just how I break and break down things and how I analyze it. I don't want to say the F word on TV, so I say fudge. I don't want to say the word, so I say what the French toast like what was that? And some of that vernacular can catch people off guard and that's okay, but don't lie misappropriate what I said. And for me, it's not the storm that I feel like I'm going through. I just don't want the network that I'm working for, the people that I'm working with, to feel like they're a part of that storm. So I try to make sure I handle it the right way. Some media storms are just people being people and social media being social media, and you can't control that. When you really make a mistake, you apologize for it and you move on. I've done that in my short career in TV. When I said something that I wasn't supposed to say or didn't understand what I said, you just apologize because it's okay to be wrong. You just can't be wrong and continue to be wrong. So I don't ever feel like I'm in the storm. I have fun with it. I see people on social media having fun with it, and I can understand, like where everybody's coming from.
We're always looking for a good f bomb on life. That's really what it is. But it's funny because you know, as someone who covers this, like when something like that happens, I inevitably get people like something to me, and I'm like to me, like I always think that's like the last resort is that someone would slip up and say that. But yeah, yeah, guys on Life TV, especially on ESPN, like they're not looking to see that. And when someone does say the F word, you know, they say it because of their reaction. Like when you said fudging, like you kept going like somebody's talking the f bund doesn't keep going. They're going, oh my god, my goodness, I can't believe I just said that. Who did it last week? It was oh, it was great. It was it was Luka Doncic after the after the MAVs game, he said the F word and like his reaction was hysterical, but like people think you're gonna be on line, Like my first thought is like, okay, let me watch this to see how he didn't say it and see how people are misinterpreting this. But I would definitely stick with what the French toast over what the fudging. His fudging does sound a little bit.
It can be very like I listened to it the first time, I'm like, okay, I can understand why some people thought that I said the F word, but it was also like the reaction on my on my co stars there on the set like they they didn't have a reaction of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe he said it was more like this and just said fudging. You know, some people were telling me like, hey man, if you just said the f wor it would have been better. And I'm like, better for you, not better for me. So I'm with you. I'll continue to use fudge and I'll continue to switch it up with French toast. And I think people know now, so it is what it is.
You can see the F word here if you want to let one out. Let me ask you a couple of NFL things here while I got you, we'll actually started to college and a couple of well, let me go, I'll go NFL first, because we're taping this day after the Raiders fired Josh McDaniels. And what I found fascinating about that whole thing is the whole thing surrounding Davante Adams. So Davante Adams leaves the Packers to go play for the Raiders, and he stated because he wanted to play with Derek Carr, which, okay, Aaron Rodgers is a billion times better than Derek Carr. But Okay, then Derek Carr gets blown out of there. After a year, DeVante Adams is left there and now the coach has gone like I would imagine, like this is just a disaster for DeVante Adams. I mean, what do you think his mindset is right now?
I think Davante did not get traded at the deadline, so he is quote unquote stuck there in Las Vegas. His mindset right now has to be I have to maximize this opportunity, be a great leader in the locker room so that I don't lose a year in my career. Right. I hate to say it this way, but it shifts for DeVante Adams to become more personal, like what do I want to do moving forward? Do I want to still be here after this year? But I also have to put my best foot forward so that teams will want to go get me this offseason because he is making a lot of money. So how does he put his best foot forward? Well, he has to get the guys around him to raise their level, because if Davante goes out there and catches ten balls for one hundred yards for the rest of the year, the only reason that'll happen is because the offensive line is blocking better, because Josh Jacobs is running better, because the quarterback is playing better. He's in a position at wide receiver that is so dependent on other positions. He just can't go out there and say I'm catching ten for one hundred and fifty to day. So for him, his mindset has to be more focused on the team and getting those guys to buy into what they're doing now under Antonio Pierce. But I agree with you, people don't look at this from the standpoint of the psychological very often because they're like, this guy's getting paid a lot of money, who cares what he's going through emotionally. He goes to play for the team that was his childhood team, to play with his best friend and a guy that he was college teammates with. They ship that guy out, now, they fire the coach. They're not winning football games. You can only imagine what he's going through. And that tirade he threw on the sideline on Monday night, the reason that was so important, Jimmy, is because DeVante Adams is a pros pro. He has never done something like that. So for him to get to the point where he's throwing his helmet on the ground and cussing on live TV. If you can read lips that he.
Wasn't saying fudge. Yeah, yeah, he was not saying that.
Lets you know how bad the situation is. But because he's a pros pro, he'll handle it the way that I just told you that he will because he knows that's the best way for DeVante Adams not to waste the rest of his career technically rotting away on a team that's not going anywhere.
All right, next topic, I'm sure you talk to a lot of current players on a regular basis. Are they saying anything to you off the record, on the record whatever. I'm not asking your name names. I'm just scurus what you're hearing from players if they're frustrated with how bad the officiating is, because it's becoming a thing, it's becoming a narrative. We saw it ESPN. They had to put on the referee the other night to defend a call and all that that stuff. I know that everyone knows the standard line is well, they get most of the calls right, and it is a problem whether the NFL wants to admit it. And I'm curious what players are saying this year.
Yeah, players are. They're not just upset with the officiating, they're also upset with like the way that rules are being applied to the game. And by that I mean not just like pass interference and roughing the passer, but them getting fined on defense for hits that ten years ago they would be applauded for, or them getting fined for hits on defense where they actually are following the rules, but something happens because it's football, and ah, my goodness, his helmet accidentally touched this guy while he was falling, and now they're getting money taken out of their pockets. So, like you said, I won't mention any names, but players are certainly talking about it. They're upset about it because at the end of the day, like I do my job, and I pride myself on being bipartisan, I don't have a favorite, I don't root for a team, just covered the game and tell the story the way it's supposed to be told. I've called multiple Baylor games in college football, and the main takeaway from the fans has been, Wow, he wasn't biased at all. As a Baylor Bear. I anticipated that he was going to call this game like a Baylor Bear, and you have to ask yourself, like, is that really what's going on with the refs? Is that really what these guys are from places, They have favorite teams, and we're all human at the end of the day. Even though I put all that behind me and I call the game that I wanted the way I wanted to go, you and I both know that if Baylor wins, I'm happy for them. That's the school that I went to. So how do you assess that with a referee who has a flag in his pocket and can make calls that it can change the outcome of the game based off of where he's from or what his favorite team was, or who he rooted for when he was a kid. Because I don't know very many referees that just get in the refereeing because they want a referee, like they they might get in the referee because they followed the game as a child. And that's the conversation that players are having more so, especially in the locker room, like this guy's from you know, Green Bay and he threw that flag, or he's from Green Bay and he didn't throw that flag because he didn't want to seem like he was guilty of doing something. So the conversations go much deeper into the weeds than people actually think. But players are really really upset that now not only are the calls like all over the place, but they're getting money taken out of their pocket for things that they don't really believe they should, Like, I really don't know how defenders play defense anymore. Can't hit the quarterback, H. I can't hit him low, can't hit guys across the middle.
Hi.
If you hit him low, you're a dirty player? Like what are they supposed to do? And I really feel bad for him?
So are you hearing it more from players this year than ever before? Or I would say that, yeah, go ahead, now you go.
I was gonna say as a player in the locker room. I heard it from my entire eight year career. Now in the media because it's players don't mind I say this. Players don't mind the bad calls because it's always chucked up to Like you said, they made most of them the majority of the game. They missed this one holding that I had that they didn't call. But once you start taking money out of their pocket, it's a problem. You know. Now, Now the rules and the referees are hurting them in a certain aspect, and that's always going to be an issue. You mess with a players' money, they're not gonna deal with you.
So you brought up about players thinking that certain referees may have certain biases. Has that always been the case or is that something that you think is new.
I don't think it's new. I think I never thought about that when I was a college football player, But as I got into the NFL, those conversations in the locker room started to teeter in that in that direction. Listen, we had we had guys or in our in our own meetings where we're like diagramming where certain guys are from, and like, who's going to go talk to that guy because he's from Dallas, Texas. Or this guy over here he's from New Hampshire. Hey, such and such, you're from New Hampshire. Go talk to that rep before the game so that we can get everything, you know, on the good with him to make sure he's given us the calls that we want to give him. Now, did that work? Probably not, Like it probably didn't work at all. But there's a lot of thought that goes into who the refs are where they're from. How can we do everything in our power legally just having conversation to get this guy to give us a few calls.
That's interesting. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to discuss with you is a college thing, and that is this whole Michigan cheating scandal alleged. I guess right now, you know I look at sports's entertainment, so I actually find this completely hilarious. When it came out yesterday with a guy was on the Central Michigan sideline, the only thing in my head was like, just get me the thirty thirty as soon as possible, because this is going to be tremendous. It's you know, and I and and like Michigan needs like the big ten outside of Ohio States thinks, and Michigan needs to cheat to beat Northwestern. Like the whole thing is comical to me having said that, that's me saying that, not RG three. What do you how do you know you're covering college football?
Now?
How do you think this is all going to play out? I mean, is this Do you think this will affect Michigan this season? Do you think they can do something where there's penalties soon? Or they got to do a full investigation. VALI wont happened for a while, And is there any chance Jim Harbor didn't know about this? That's my other question.
Yeah, I mean, you're asking all the right questions. I'm just not the right guy to answer them. I mean, if you look at the n C douaa's history, they tend to take a very very long time to investigate anything that's happening. So as people are following this story and it looks to be to be getting more and more damning with every day that goes by, I think from my perspective as an analyst, my job is to analyze what's happening on the field, and I can't I can't speculate about what's happening off the field right now until I actually have a clear picture of what's going on. Case in point, Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson's situation took place over the course of many years. I did not comment on Deshaun Watson until after I believe it was judged. Was it Sue L. Robinson that came down with her determination for what happened in his situation? I didn't comment on it until then because then I had clarity, there was a finality to the situation, and you can make a proper assessment of what's going on. My first assessment when I heard about this Michigan thing was, what are you guys talking about? Everybody does that. Everybody's sending scouts out to go do this and do that, and try to steal signals and do that. And I haven't commented on it since because I still don't have any clarity about what actually happened didn't happen. So for the NCAA, they most likely will do an investigation and it will most likely take years, and I don't know if that's going to impact what's happening on the field this year unless they just come to some concrete judgment of this is what happened. We know we have all of the evidence and they're going to do a punishment towards Michigan in that regard. But until they have that, I think we're going to be playing football and Michigan is going to be one of the top teams in the country.
I think the problem that the NCAA and Michigan may have is that if they don't get this investigation going and do something soon, I think there's more stuff's gonna come out because this guy was sloppy. This guy was not you know, if you're cheating and you're doing some shady stuff, you usually try to be a little stealth about it. This guy throws on glasses in the hat and he's like, oh, here I am on the Central Michigan. I mean, could they better be careful because I have a funny feeling we're gonna hear more crazy stuff about this whole thing. Yeah.
Man, I'm more than more than certain we're going to hear crazy stuff about it, and any anything crazier than we've already heard just just adds to the allure. I'm with you. That's just a thirty thirty. It's a walking thirty thirty. And I also can't wait for it.
To come out. Yeah. Absolutely, Before we wrap up, I've got to I was going to ask you this at the top because I thought it was unbelievable, but then I forgot too because I'm a bad host. So let's wrap it up with this. We were taping this the day after Halloween. Yeah, and you tweeted that when you went trick or treating, Oh my goodness, you went to a house where the people were actual the person was actually not giving out the candy to the kids but selling it. Yep, what the fudge?
Oh you know, break it.
I want to give me like thet I want it from like start to finish, like you guys go into the house. What happened, what he was selling, how much? Which was it for? I want every detail of this, so.
You know, and I wanted to be able to use this for for RG three and the ones, you know, my own podcast. But I actually shot it before going trick or treating. So we go trick or treating where, you know, we're in a neighborhood, you know, go with some some friends. Uh you know my wife, you.
Know where are you what what state city?
We're in Texas. We're in Texas in Houston. So going into the community, going around with the kids. My wife is dressed up as Wednesday. I'm Uncle Fester, you know, I got the big bodysuit on the bald cap. Our daughters are Ladybug and a vampire. So we're walking around having a good time, getting candy, encouraging our kids, like our four year old. I don't want to go up to the you know, the house without your dad, Dad, can you come with me, go get some candy, do all that trick or treating. So we're probably at near the end of the trick or treating. We've been doing it for about hour and a half walking around, which honestly shout out to the kiddos because the fact that they walked around for hour and a half in the cold, I mean, you're talking forty degrees outside here in Houston was amazing. So we're getting towards the we're getting towards the end, and they go up to a house. The parents are now kind of talking just you know, ohoh, this has been a.
Long hour and a half.
Let's get home, you know, can't film my fingers anymore. And the kids come back and our six year old says, Daddy, they're not giving out candy over there. They said we had to pay four dollars for the candy, And I'm like, huh, our six year old has no reason to lie. Her friend comes back a couple seconds later from the same house and says the same exact thing. So instead of like approaching this house and being like, yo, what the fudge, we just decided to keep moving. And the remainder of the time walking back to the house, our house. I'm sitting there writing up this tweet, and I'm like, I'm not gonna say the house number. I'm not gonna say who it was or whatever it was, because I'm not trying to do that and have people like go TP either house or something. But I in all my years, I've never seen anything quite like that. Selling candy to trick or treating kids is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life.
I'm kind of blown away. You didn't go up to the just to scout out and see what they like. I would have to know exactly what I would ask them, like, well, what's going on here? Why why are you selling the candy? Like what, it's Halloween, He's supposed to give the candy.
You're supposed to give the candy to the kids, Like there's a reason, like these kids are going out there and doing this. And then obviously after I posted it on Twitter, there are some hilarious responses. Yeah at ecatomy, Uh, you know, you gotta make a gotta make a buck wherever you can. They're hustling you guys out there, and I'm like, well, first of all, I never said we bought the candy right, definitely didn't buy any of that, But it wasn't gonna turn something that was supposed to be kid friendly into a confrontation.
Yeah the kids, true, you.
Got the kids. You're not trying to turn it into the comfortation. And I was Uncle Fessor, you know what I'm saying, Like, I'm sure I'm already a big black man. I don't want to approach a house looking like Uncle Fester trying to create some issues. There's a way to handle that, And in this situation, it was kind of just telling the story on social media without really harming anybody.
So I so, okay, so you actually were I was gonna say maybe they knew that. Gona say maybe they knew is RG three and the light this guy played in the NFL. He's got millions. We're going to try to sell the you know, anything's possible these days.
And it would be different if they came to like our house and they were selling Girl Scout cookies or something that's different. That's not selling candy to trick or treaty kids. But if they're coming to your house and there was a bowl of chocolates and reeses and Snickers and Butterfingers, starbursts, and you're like, oh, not so fast. You got to pay four dollars for these, Like, come on, man, that we should it have been.
I want to know if he was selling the regular sized bars. I mean, if he's selling four dollars for the minis the fun side, and then you're being jail these people. It's ridiculous to kids.
Unbelievable. Don't ever do that to kids. Anyone out there thinking about selling candy, bracelets, whatever it may be, don't do that. Let the kids have the candy.
That's horrible.
All right.
I appreciate you coming on and I enjoy this and everyone could see RG three Saturdays. He does college football for ESPN Mondays, he's on Monday night a Monday countdown, and uh, he's got the podcast RG three in the ones. What day does your pod come out?
So podcast drops every single Thursday. So, like we said, don't just like and subscribe to RG three and the ones, make sure you also like and subscribe to Jimmy's YouTube channel. We're in this together, Okay, we.
Both come out on Thursdays. So there you go. We got competent, But I feel like most pods come out on Wednesdays. Thursdays is a good day.
Thursday is a great day, So they drop on Thursdays fall as on social media, RG three in the ones because we post those daily clips and like I said, it's not gotcha moments, We're just having good life and football conversations.
Come join yep, and and it's at RG three on Twitter and uh yeah, I I in doing the research. I see everything's RG three, So I figured that that's the way that goes.
It is.
You know, let me just say, I just thought of this real quick. No one's going to know the same. Do you are you friends with?
Like?
How well do you know Chris Chaves from the Running World?
Uh? I know you're talking about Uh what's the name of their odious maidious? Yeah? Yeah, I know him very very well.
He's my guy. He's my guy, Chris.
He's amazing. I love what he's doing in the track and field world. I do n CUAA Championships. I've done it for the past two years, plan on continuing to do that.
Uh.
And Chris does a lot of stuff on the on the pro circuit. Uh and he covers the college circuit as well. But He's like, you're.
Still big into the whole track and field thing you're doing.
Yeah, yeah, you want to talk about goals. The goal is to call the Olympics and the and the goal is to to do that and have a guy like Chris. They're also doing it with you because we're part of that new wave of analysts and track and field that understand how to promote the sport, understand what the sport needs. So shout out to Citius Mag. They're doing an amazing job covering the sport and I'm happy to have been able to do things with them and looking forward to doing more in the future.
Yeah, if you're into track and field, if you're into running, Citius Mag is a must.
Yeah.
Me.
Chris and I worked together for a few years, became good friends. I'm much much older than him, so he would call me Dad. So we're tight. So and I remember him saying he was excited when he was doing stuff a f you years ago with Sidious, So I just remember that. All right. Appreciate it RG three RG three and the ones on Thursdays. Thanks man, appreciate it.
Appreciate your brother God bless all right.
Thanks all right, joying me now. Normally I would introduce him as host of Good Morning Football, reporter information Man Fox pregame show. Today I introduced him as celebrity Jeopardy contestant. Mm hmm. He's also SI Media podcast regular Peter Schrager shregs, we got to talk Jeopardy.
How's it going, Jimmy, I'm doing great. I want to compliment you on your last few podcasts. As you know, I'm an avid listener Dan Patrick great, Bill Simmons great, A couple of ones before that great. Uh really enjoy I will say this. As great as those interviews are, Salacatta's quest for a home in New Jersey is actually more captivating than all of it. I'm like unbaited breath each week. Did Sal get the house? How is traffic on the way to get the house? He missed the Falcons game?
Good?
Good shit all around. Dude.
That's funny because I get tweets from people like why don't you talk about Sal's house searches? And I forget that, Like I speak to him off the air and no things, and then I don't bring it up, but people want it.
I think we're all in the same boat. And right now with mortgage rates what they are, and with housing prices as high as they are, it's a very relatable topic. And the fact that you're giving up your weekend with a kid to schlep out to Jersey to not find one and deal with the slime of the earth the people trying to tell you them. It's a very relatable topic. And I like how nonchalant you guys are about it.
Yeah, we're just you know, having a conversation, which is what we're going to do, so before we get to jeopardy, because I have a lot of questions. When I had Dan Patrick on the podcast last week, at one point I had said to him that someone in the industry had texted me asking about how my Bill Simmons interview from the week before was, and I said, I wasn't crazy about my performance, but I thought Bill was great. And that person wrote back and said, I can't believe you judge yourself that way. And I told Dan, I'm not going to say it is because it was a text that I'm not going to go blab about without you know, getting permission from the person. And the person was you, and you were you said you would be happy to discuss that Yeah.
First of all, you were great with Bill Simmons. It sounded as natural as I've heard him. And I feel like I go on his podcast every week and I'm not as comfortable with him as you were. So I thought you were fantastic. Your questions were real, he talked about his ESPN stuff. You were great. And then you go into this like thing with Dan Patrick, like you're like, you know this big journalist, like you're Edward R. Murrow and you're like the person who texted me, and I was shocked because he's actually on TV. And he was like, I don't grade myself that way, but damn, don't you grade yourself that way? And Dan Patrick's like, of course I grade myself the way. You're missing my point, Jimmy. My point was this that was so hard on yourself. You were great, had a great interview, and and here's the bottom line. It's never your fault as the interviewer. It's always the guest's fault, if they at all guests fault, Yes, it is. You know you can interview.
No, No, there's absolutely there's absolutely times where the guests are not good. But Bill was great, and I felt like I could have been better. But so let me ask you. So, when you're done doing a podcast or even Good Morning Football, the minute it's over, you don't go into your brain and say, how was that? Should I have done this differently? That was? I mean, I will say this like when I I will say ninety percent of the time, I probably say to myself, that wasn't good. The one time I was done with a podcast and was like, I don't think I could have done better was Barkley, and then the response was pretty good. The response with to Bill was tremendous too. I just felt like I should have gone with the flow a little more.
But you don't.
When it show's over, you don't immediately replay it in your head.
Of course I do. You put the work in, you prepare, you do the best you can, and you live to fight another day. If you start grading yourself, look, there's no one in our industry that is as hard as themselves and the people themselves doing it. So like I, of course I feel it if I didn't have a great day or if I forgot something I wanted to say. But ninety nine percent of the time, Jimmy, you do this for a living, You're really good at what you do. You put the work in, you were yourself, you were authentic, you weren't cheesy. I know my shortcomings as an interviewer. Sometimes I interrupt, Sometimes I ask long questions that go on me. Sometimes I'm breathing deeply into the microphone. But by and large, you come in prepared, you come and buttoned up, and you come in ready to improv. You're gonna be great. So I would just say, don't be.
So hard on yourself, all right. Someone else told me that this week in the business, So I appreciate that. And I definitely interrupt too much, and people always give me shit for it. I don't ask long the longest. The person I asked the most long winded question is Diutsch Deutschall asked like a five minute question.
He asked the questions long. Or you ask him long questions.
No, he asks the longest, most longest winded questions by far. Yeah. I don't know. I just I don't know. I just felt like, sometimes you've got to change, Like you know what I thought, I this is what I was gonna say, because I had it in my head while you were speaking you mentioned about being prepared. I thought I was over prepared. So when I do these pods, ninety nine no point nine percent of the time I have one page like this of just notes for Simmons, I had three, and I think I was trying to just get to because it was just my first time ever interviewing them. Like when you and Kyle.
Come on usual, that's honestly it when.
You and Kyle come on like sometimes I don't even take notes. Yeah, but I had three pages of notes for Bill, and I think I was in my head like, oh God, Like I didn't ask him about Prince Harry and then he said to me, oh, you didn't ask me about Mike and the Mad Dog. I got a little flustered. So I think I was maybe over prepared instead of just going with the flow and having a conversation. That's you know, it is what it is here.
Here's the thing. I talk to a lot of the NFL head coaches, and a lot of them asked me how did I do in that press conversa. Just be yourself, be authentic. That's all we can ask for. And if you get that out of a guest, then the host looks good. So we have a lot of terrible guests on good Morning Football. We'll literally take anybody who wants to be on Good Morning Football to three hour show we're under in the off season. So like, if a current player has aspirations to eventually get into our line of business, trust me, not only will we give you a segment, we'll probably give you an hour to flex your muscles and see how it goes. And a lot of the current players are either nervous or they don't get it, or they're not So it's my I try like hell to get the best out of them, and I think you do the same thing with these media guys who a lot of times do listen to the podcasts or are familiar with you, but sometimes are booked by their PR people, so they're not sure the feel of the interview and what it's gonna be. So I think you do a great job, and you know you're a friend.
Right Stop kissing, let me stop kissing my here's.
Kissing your ass? Tell you that much?
Let me ask you this, Just wait till you get my thoughts.
On your interview today which hasn't recorded yet. But hearing you, who are you interviewing before me?
R G three?
Okay, so he could do no wrong. For the next six months. Put that in the Jimmy train of book.
Yeah, you come on the podcast since I have to book it, and especially when you come to me. Absolutely, but let me ask you this, so I'm not gonna aswer I would never ask you to say the person. But if I said to you off the air when we're you know, just chatting having glaun shit Clarks, and I said give me your all time worst Good Morning Football guests, would you be able to answer that within two seconds.
I can give you. I can give you a phone book length.
It would be a time, but I mean I want one, Like if I said the worst, well, everyone's had bad days.
Like I've interviewed uh, Jamar Chase in a one on one setting and he was awesome. But we had Jamar Chase on this year and he was promoting a mattress company, I think, and he did it with with like a white T shirt on from his apartment or his house, and the camera angle was wrong and the zoom angle was wrong, and we hyped it for three days that we're having Jamar Chase on and he's, you know, a third year guy. It was one word answers and the zoom camera wasn't set up right. Yeah, and there's been a lot of bad interviews we've done and it's not the best show.
Well, the zooming. You can't help the zoom, you know. I remember when you guys had seth rollins on recently and the zoom crapped out in the beginning.
It happens, and we're like.
It happens.
There's a lot of shit. A lot of these guys aren't great. A lot of the coaches and gms want to come on Good Morning Football. Then they get on and they clam up and they you know, they're reading message points.
It's terrible TV. You know that. Well, it's good they want to come on. That's a good sign. Shows you the power of the show. Sure, now, you said a lot of coaches will text you asking how they did in a press conference. Have you gotten any texts recently from Josh McDaniels.
We text, you know, he he got fired last night and I haven't heard from him today, but we texted.
Well, let me were you were you shocked they fired him?
I was surprised. I thought that, uh, you know, he would at least have the end of the year and a chance to have another offseason. If I'm being honest, I don't know Mark Davis. Well, we're always, you know, at the owner's meetings and things like all exchange like hellos and stuff, and you know, I don't know that relationship. I don't have that relationship with him. I do have it with other owners. But with McDaniels, I've known him since his New England days and then through the indie stuff. And I thought once they didn't make a move at the trade deadline, that all right, they were kind of set and they were just going to ride it out. When I always thought Davante Adams or Josh Jacobs or one of these guys, that they were going to make a drastic move, whether it be cut or trade or something and make a statement that like here to What ends up being the case is that the owner had been talking to players and got a feel for the locker room as a whole, and he bailed on Josh, and not only Josh, but the GM, the offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi, got rid of all these guys who all had those Patriots ties, a lot of them, and one fell swoop. But what's crazy it is it happened last night at one am and if I can just go into you know, everyone always asks me, like, what's the craziest stuff that happens in your job as a reporter for the NFL. Well go tricker. I dressed as Al Davis on the show yesterday.
That's what I was going to bring that up. Yeah, I guess so.
Ninety nine percent of the tweets I got, where can you can you get Al Davis to come back from the dead and fire Josh McDaniels. I'm my gosh, everyone's so morbid. They're like, can Al Davis be alive so you can fire Josh. This was after the some Monday night football. It all was like a perfect storm. I planned the costume months in advance, then sure enough, I wear it after a Monday night loss that everyone wants to fire Josh mc daniel's. They do, fire Josh mctannels. Then my phone starts. Now I went, I went to the show, came back. I've got a seven year old son. We go trick or treating. We're up and down Brooklyn Heights. I'm exhausted. It's it's, you know, nine o'clock. I fall asleep with my shoes on. I'm so tired. And then at one am, my phone starts buzzing and buzzing and it's someone inside the Raiders organization. They're like major, major news. Josh was just told, you know, he's let go, and so is Zigler and it's one of those deals. It's one am, and I'm like, what the And it's like a fever dream, and I'm like, I gotta be up in four hours for Good Morning Football or three hours. I'm like all right, So like I start checking my phone and then I saw the Raiders put out an official statement and I quietly put the phone away and then went back to bed. I'm like, all right, he used to be broken.
Here's what I need to know about this. So when you go to sleep, what is the situation with your phone? Do you leave the ringer on? Do you put on silent? Do you put on vibrate? Do you not vibrate? But it's on vibrate vibrate. And my wife and right next to you, right next to you, and we've.
Had a lot of a lot of lot of lot of conversations about the mental health aspect of this. Just put it, put it in the bathroom, put it in the living room, Do not bring it to the bit you just put shut the ringer off, or shut the ringer off, or shut the vibrant off.
Did did you see your story? Did you see the story that came out about how it's not an NFL but how Wog beat Schams Charnia on the James Harden trade.
Oh, I didn't see it. Now. I know that's a rivalry as old as time.
But what happened? Yeah, so I guess Woj was in the I shouldn't relay the story because I might get details wrong and I hate doing that, but anybody could look it up. But Woj was at the Newark Airport ready to get on a flight, all right, to go to LA because that's where they do the NBA Countdown show and he's supposed to be on it this week. So he just happened if someone texted him a cold him and said you might not want to get on that flight. And he was at the Newark Airport, I think from ten thirty at night to like three thirty in the morning, waiting to break the trade. And then I don't know exactly what happened, but I know he broke it. And then Chams gave out his tweet like forty minutes later and got all this shit for it, but which is really win?
No, So I okay, it's a win, but like I don't think.
You shouldn't the other guy for not getting the guy.
Has seemingly waged war and Woja is the old guard and he's saying, okay, this is me pal in line.
So would you stay at the Newark Airport from ten thirty at night to three thirty in the morning to break a story or would it depends on this story?
No?
Not me.
No, And it's not really if I'm rappaport or if I'm schefter. My role is I'm a little bit of a morphing between you know, host slash report or thing. But maybe I had something like that with the Hard and Trade where we spent all off season and someone gave me a tip. I would probably call my bosses and be like, I gotta change my travel. I think so. Actually, the Lamar Jackson contract stuff, I had just had a baby girl and we had our daughter, and it was like whether it was hours after or something, and the more stuff was going down, and I was working hard from the hospital, like you know, pumping in different tweets and stuff so yeah, it's it's it's been, there's been stories.
This was the Wojes So this is on AAFLE announcing. This is what Wojes said in his podcast Offle Announcing transcribed it. He said he sat Newark Airport, watched the place close down and then almost start to reopen again. So from like five pm. They threw me out of the United Airlines lounge at around ten thirty pm when it closed, and then I just went and sat downstairs until I left it three point thirty in the morning. So he was there from five pm to ten to three thirty in the morning.
Come on, that's great work.
To break a trade about a player who's nothing but a complete disgrace and shouldn't even on this. All right, Well, one last thing before we talk about Jeopardy. Yeah, have you heard anything at all since you're so plugged in about the league being concerned at all about their officiating problem and before you answer that there is an officiating problem no matter what anyone says, and the fact that they would take the Head of Officials or whatever his stupid title is and put them on Monday Night Football to say that John Powry was wrong tells you the league is concerned, so I know that concern. I'm just wondering what you've heard about it.
I wouldn't say they're concerned that they're going to shut down the league or rewrite the rules, but obviously they're aware of the criticism. And now that the criticism is so vapidant, and the coaches are complaining and a lot of stuff is happening behind closed doors, I think there's a defense mechanism that goes in and says, let's support our guys. Let's put them out there like a bird on a wire. That said. This offseason is going to be really interesting with the Competition committee because you've got the the tush push, which is going to be hotly debated, and then you've got a lot of questions about the quality of the officiating and what they can do. I've had multiple people a different team say to me and say, some of these rules are so convoluted at this point and they're so up in the like, we why not just rewrite the whole thing and do a fresh start and do it based on common sense and the camera angles and the review cycles that we have now as opposed to these amendments. So I think it's it's it's really in the weeds. It's really off season stuff. Nothing's gonna happen overnight. But I'd be curious to see how the competition committee in the league do this and that's under you know, certain different there's different verticals in this and stuff, and Troy Vincent more or less oversees a lot of the officiating stuff, and I think it'll be interesting to see what kind of internal conversations are had to tighten that up and for the fans to let them know that, hey, we're doing everything we can to give you the best quality officiating possible.
Do you think they'd ever consider making everything under two minutes reviewable?
I thought that comment from Jim Mercy was really telling, and the fact that he was.
I wrote that the day before Ersay said that just for the record, so I think he read it in my column and copied me.
That's what I'm It was proposed I think at the Competition Committee maybe in twenty twenty one, and it was voted down. So it's been proposed. Now here's as a sports media guy, and I ask you this. You watch some of these when there's reviews, and it takes six minutes for a review, and you're like, you even heard Collinsworth get a little fidgety during the Giants Bills games, and Okay, we got it, let's go. You also watch college football, where these games take seven hours, and you also watch the NBA, where I know Bill Simmons, your former guest, is a very big proponent of let's get on with it. Let's not review every single play in the final two minutes. Do you have a problem if games the four o'clock win or the one o'clock window stretches on till five point fifteen and you miss the first half of the four o'clock window because there's a couple games that are just going review after review after review.
I don't think that would happen if you just have it where you review plays under two minutes. And my issue is this, every single person in their job, no matter what it is, is going to make mistakes. You're never going to eliminate that. That's fine. The refs are not going to be perfect, got it. My issue is when the games are decided by the refs, nobody can tell me. I don't care what happened in the last fifty eight minutes. Nobody can matamore. Nobody can tell me Brown's colts was not determined by the refs. It one hundred percent was. So I think that's why if the if you know, the game stretches out a little longer, I'm okay with it. You cannot have them deciding the outcomes of games. Now, listen, if a game and you have to use this is this is the problem. There's no common sense use. Like roughing the passer. There's no common sense use. It's what the letter of the law is. If a game is thirty four to ten, you don't need to review the roughing the passer with fifty eight seconds left. But if the game is seventeen seventeen and there's a and there's a pass interference, yes you have to review it. Sorry, under two minutes only that that would be you got to use it. If the game's in within a ten point what maybe you may me make a fourteen whatever, then the reviews got to you gotta add some common sense into this.
This will sound like I'm in the bag for McVeigh or it came from McVeigh. I tell you. Usually I will be very honest and say Sean told me this, But this did not come from him. This is me and the analysis. It's going to sound like a complaint. They lost that game to the Steelers, and there was the bad spotting of the.
Ball, right, Oh yeah, that was the one I put in my car. That again again one hundred affecting. I'm not saying the Steelers wouldn't have won, but first off, that had.
There was two minutes and twelve seconds left. So at that point you're like, well, this technically, if we did change the rule, it still wouldn't have been fixable. Then what is the line of demarcation?
Okay, the playoff are fourth down there, so you got to get it right. Yeah.
The play before that was what was even more horrendous. It was a pass interference call and a Kello weatherspoon on Deontay Johnson that would have made it and would have made it first down and entered the game anyway. Johnson then does you know, some sort of silence something like that, and he gets a flag for the taunting and that gives him another shot. I say all this, say this mcvah had no more time outs left, and I heard a lot of people after I commented this on Good Morning Football say this thing it's his fault. He used all his timeouts, it didn't have any left, to which I say, shame on you. The officiating shouldn't be so bad that we expect a coach to save at least one time out so that if they officiating got some horrendous call, then he could throw a review like it's backwards, it's chicken it like. He shouldn't have to save timeouts in game planning. And by the way, his final timeout was on a third down call that he didn't like to play call call timeout came out of the timeout and they scored a touchdown, So I don't think they regret that either. But that's where you get into the nitty gritty where it's.
Like I don't yeah, I don't know if I agree. I mean, I think because of the way the rules set up, the coaches have to be mindful of the timeouts and the challenges because of the way to now. Also in the scenario, I propose that play was with two thirteen left, so they it wouldn't have been reviewable anyway. If I say so, you get screwedy the way, I guess, I don't know. It's tough tough there.
There's like a revolutionary way to look at this and say, let's start from scratch and say, if we wanted to rewrite the rules the NFL playbook, what are the ten rules that are effect right. Well, that's like now we're talking like that. You know, the guys who are like Hunt never punted, you know, like it sounds revolutionary and football won't be real, like little stuff like that where you start getting into the nitty gritty and not even you know, the guys in the booth who are the ref who call the game, like and they're not even sure about one hundred percent the rules. Like, then we're getting into you know, wild side and.
This is gonna sound mean, but at this point I don't care. It also might be nice if you had some refs under the age of ninety six, just saying, oh, I think.
There is I think there's several young refs now, I think they actually have had their youth movement, and I think that might be some of the stuff that we're not as familiar with these faces or it's like you don't see sterotory, you don't see the older hockey league, and you don't see.
It's not just the rest. So you'll see a line judge, and it looks like, you know, and.
You see Zach Taylor losing his mind on the line judge or Arthur Smith like going berserk, and you're like, I probably trust the coach in this situation.
They seems so upset.
Rogers made the interesting point on McAfee that the best refs Sterotur and mcaulay and these guys that the players, right, they get paid more to be in TV now, right, So it's like there's a whole other issue about wages, and you know what, if we really want the best of the best, what can we do to retain that talent? They're not full time.
There's a lot of suf Yeah, yeah, that's a lot there. All right, let's talk about celebrity Jeopardy. Schrager was on a few weeks ago with Mirrors Orvino and Adam Rodriguez, who, I will be honest, I had no idea who he was. I felt very out of the loop and out of touch. Watched the show with my niece, who was very impressed because I said, my friends on. So that was good, and we watched the shows and I have several questions, amazing, where do you scale of one to ten. Tell me how nervous you were when the game started.
Uh, okay, honestly, yeah, vibe. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be flying into Los Angeles to beyond Jeopardy and the fear of embarrassing my good name, embarrassing my colleagues at Good Morning Football, embarrassing the producers who booked me. That was the fear. But once I got there, I was kind of comfortable because I knew I've watched Jeopardy a million times from my living room and I'm pretty good at it.
Now, how did you stick to the NDA? I would never be able to stick to NDA's. I would be blabbing to everybody.
They basically said, don't don't A, don't tell anyone you were on it, and B don't mention who you were against or how it turned out. It gives away the suspense to it. And then about two weeks beforehand, there was a promo and my face was on it, and I got about a million a million texts from people being like, I'm watching the Florida State duke game on ABC and your mugg showed up, So I'm like, it's the cat out of the bag. And then there was kind of convoluted and they were like, you could promote that you're on it, but don't say how it went and don't mention any of the questions. So I just thought the best case, I'm not messing this opportunity up. I'm not going to say a word to anyone until after it airs.
Did you know Katie Nolan was on it? Like a couple of weeks before.
I had no idea.
I was going to say with the NDAs you guys would have no idea because you could have compared notes.
I had no idea that Katie Nolan was on it. And technically it wasn't We didn't sign like legal papers. It was just it was told to us, do not mention this, and I wasn't spoiling anything.
So tell me how it came about that you were on.
Okay, So I am a Jeopardy obsessive. It's part of my life. It's every day as a kid growing up. I've said this story before, but I even said it on the air. When you grew up in Freehold, New Jersey in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, we had a little kitchen where we had the kitchen TV, like the small you know, Tashiba TV. And we don't talk about feelings at dinner like we do now in my family, where it's like how is your day? What do you want to express? Hello, Sonny, Like how can I help you get through life? It was more my dad would come home from a long day of work. There would be meatloaf on the table. We would have grapefruit or candalope to start, and then we wouldn't say a word to each other and we would just turn on Jeopardy and everyone just shut up and just watch Jeopardy. So it was part of my life, and then as I got older, it was part of like just everything I've let that be known to everyone in anyone in my life. So when Rogers was pushing so hard for like the Jeopardy host thing, I'm like, I get it, Like I get it. If you're a Jeopardy person, you love Jeopardy. So sure enough, the way things work, Mike Richards, their old showrunner, gets canceled. He's gone, and then Michael Davies takes over show running duties. Now Jeopardy. Michael Davies, who you know from Men and Blazers. He's the ball British Owen. He's some Andy Cohen watch What's Happening Live. He also is the executive producer of Good Morning Football Is So I didn't pitch myself, but he knew my Jeopardy love. He knows it. So when celebrity Jeopardy comes out, look, I think in recent years you had like Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallen. Well, there's an actors strike going on, there's a writer's strike going on. There's not a lot of folks just strolling right onto that Sony set. Hello, here I am, who wants me? They I got the call and I think it was it was maybe the coolest like offer I'd ever got in my life. And I was like, I'm in tell me when and where? And they were like it's in eight days. So there wasn't much fun. So you didn't have a lot of turner on time. And I think at the more if I had more time, Jimmy, I probably would have made myself more nervous. Right, let me ask you, if you were told you're going on Jeopardy, would you like study? Like what would you do?
I don't think I would study. I mean maybe i'd look at a list of like presidents and capitals or something like that. But I don't think you can really study.
You're so funny. So for eight days, I'm like, all right, tomorrow's the day. I break open the encyclopedia and I start looking at presidents, and I look at state capitals, and I look at you know, things like Napoleon or Greek gods. I'm like, today's the day. Seven days go by, I don't do a thing, just like my entire academic life. I get on the flight, I log onto the Wi Fi and I'm like, all right, I got six hours to la. I am going to use these six hours to just freshen up on state capitals and presidents and you know, the legislative branch. So I log into Wikipedia. I start looking at at state capitals and I catch myself dozing off around. I'm like Delaware, you know. And I'm like, all right, and how often am I alone without two kids? And I can get a little nappy And then I'm like, wait, Ray Romano has a new has a new movie that I didn't know about. It's on the Jet Blue flight and I'm like, I don't know this movie. It looks great. Ray Romano and LORI metcavi Itt and Indie film. I started a little bit.
I didn't study anything. You can't well, the other thing is and this is great because you can now tell me this from your experience. I also think studying is for that show would be kind of useless because I would think that is a show that once you get there and you're standing on that whatever platform across from the board and across from Ken Jennings, and you got your competitors next to you, and the lights go on, it really doesn't matter if you study like you've got to be in the topics and the top you got.
The topics are like, you know, one of the topics was fungus, there was different types of fun. Guy, you're not studying that. One of the topics was Nobel Prize winners. I would have never thought to do that. So at the end of the day, like rhyming words and words that have the letters M and T in them are like what categories are. So you could do yourself a great disservice overthinking and overstudying. And to my great fortune, I didn't have the attention and my add kicked in where I couldn't even sit down and study if I had to.
Was the experience everything you had hoped and more.
Jimmy, it was the coolest thing I've ever done, and they treat it with the respect the show deserves. You get there and you feel like you're on Jeopardy. They make you feel like a million bucks. There's a trailer which I've never been in a trailer before, with your name on it like a star. You cake, the little golf cartogramd the sony lot like in the movies, or like you're an entourage and there floor.
Dressing room, a trailer.
Trailer, so you have like and they had a nice little like meat and cheese spread, like I felt like a star out there, get dressed. You go out there and it is the Jeopardy studio and it's all the mystique you can imagine. And in the backstage there's all this trebec memory of like you feel like you're at Jeopardy. The producers have been there their entire lives, or they've at least been there for twenty thirty years a lot of them, and it is their life. They live and breathe it, and it's not a huge production crew. I'd say Good Morning Football has even more producers than Jeopardy had. Oh wow, they just live and breathed this thing. And you know, they sit us down and they start telling us about the buzzer and I'm like, okay, yeah, you buzz in and they explain that, you know, the buzzers don't work until after the clue is provided. So let me give you example. If I was just say, you know, this area of New York is where Broadway shows are performed big what is times square? But you wouldn't be able to even beep in until the word performed was completed. So when you're at home and you're screaming the answer right away, it doesn't matter. Now if you buds before that final syllable is revealed, they lock you out for like three seconds.
Oh okay, so that.
When you see people just put bang where that is because they're trying to get in. So I didn't have the buzzer down for at least the second category, and that screwed me in a lot of ways because to tell you how I did, I got nineteen questions right, I got three questions wrong, two of them being daily doubles, which hurt me. But my competitor, the one who won in the final moments, which was a very dramatic episode. Mira Sorvino. She got like twenty eight questions right, so she got the buzzer down. I probably knew a lot of the questions she got, but I didn't even get a chance to answer them because I was did.
You did you find yourself buzzing in before the question ended? Yes, and then they lined you out for three seconds.
Yeah, And you're like, if you nail that buzzer And in hindsight, I spoke to someone who's a Jeopardy champion. You know, this whole like Jeopardy subculture exists and people reach out to you. It's like you're part of some other like secret society or of picturing Steve Gutenberg and the Simpsons, there's a reference. This is a this. They're like, what, I what you're supposed to do to prepare it. You're supposed to watch a bunch of episodes, record Ken Jennings's voice and get the cadence of his questions right so that you can time crazy. I'm like, you would never even think to do that, And like, and I didn't know I had Ken Jennings because there's two hosts. You might get my ambiolic when you're there, Blossom might be the host. So yeah, it was it an amazing Jimmy the Great. I've won Sports Emmys, I've interviewed Brady on the field. This is one hundred percent the coolest experience of my life.
I'm glad that. Yeah, I mean that.
Is how'd you think I played?
Did? I?
Do you proud you did?
I thought you I really thought you were gonna win it one. I was like, really, I was offsighted. But you know, I feel like, and I'm not downplaying it, but I feel like on Celebrity Jeopardy, like you want to win, but it's not like a terrible thing if you don't win, like totally bro.
I mean also, if I had one, I would have had to have come back again, and then I'm playing someone else, and like it's a whole other different experience. It's a second experience. And I'm not trying to sound like a loser mentality here, but like I come in second and play respect. And I tell this story on Good Morning Football, and I'll tell it to you for the listeners who don't happen to watch our three hour show every morning during the NFL.
Season sounds like someone's hit the part of the season where they're struggling a little bit.
Oh, I'm good, bro, I'm reignited. I feel great right now. Jeopardy did a lot for me. The Final Jeopardy. Okay, so I'm down like two hundred bucks to Mira Sorvino going into Final Jeopardy, and I really screwed myself. I took a guess at the end of the third round of Jeopardy and it set me back fifteen hundred bucks. And I'm still kicking myself. But we go to Final Jeopardy and it could be any category, and I'm feeling myself. I was red hot, like doing really well. And the final category is tween lit, not teen lit. Tween lit. And then what you see on TV is exactly what happens in real life. They take it to commercial and you have time to put in a wager the entire commercial break. How much you wan want to wait? Now, I don't know if I'm breaking the fourth wallf I'm never gonna be invited back for revealing this. Sorvino talks about her family early on in the show that she's got teenage daughters. Meanwhile, those two daughters are in the audience, and she looks over to them, and I've got to look at Mira Servino looking over to her two teenage daughters or her tweenage teenage son, and and I'm psyched out because I'm like, tween lit. I don't care if she's got a son or a daughter. If you are in that world, you know, tween lit, it's just part of your life. I don't have any teenage kids. So I start going through this like crazy, like meltdown of oh my god, she definitely knows it. I need to wager this much.
But also, who wrote who wrote Twilight?
I don't fucking know who wrote Hunger Games? Collins. I'm like, please ask me who wrote Hunger Games. I'm like, what was what was Robert Pattinson's character name in Twilight? Was it like Richard or William or Jacob or Brian. I'm like, and then the question, and then I have to put my thing in. I put in seventy two hundred. I had like eleven thousand, and I'm like, all right, seventy two hundred. She's got me a two hundred thing, Like, I don't know if we're playing Prisoner's dilemma of mind games. How she's gonna wager, but in case I get it wrong, it gives me a little cushion here in case she gets it wrong, I just took a wild guest seventy two hundred out of eleven thousand.
Fine.
The question comes up, and the final clue is this author later would express regret for just not titling her best selling novel, Margaret, and I remembered that, of course I read the book, but also there was a movie this summer of are you there, God, it's me Margaret. That's Judy Bloom. Baby, I know Judy Bloom. That's that is super fuge. That tells me fourth grade nothing. I know Judy Bloom. That goes back to the seventies. So I'm like, who is Judy Bloom? And I'm like, I got this. And I don't care if Servino knows who wrote who wrote Twilight? And I don't care if she's caught up with the Diary of a whimpy kid. I know this. I put it in and I look over and she's got this little grin on her face. I'm like, as shit, she knows it too. It just so happens. I bet my thing. I got it right. I got to shout out my met, my son and daughter. In the final answer, I was really happy. Servino comes in, she gets it right. Baited breath. How much did you wager? Turns out she wagered every last penny also, so no matter what happened, she was winning regardless. So I can go home with that no one. I gave it my best effort and she won fair and square.
I would have had no clue of the answer to that question. Now, the category where I did dominate and you did sort of as well, was the one with the what was the kind of pop music?
Was called E I E I O, and it was the clue was always leading to an answer that had those letters in it.
A couple of things. One, I was getting pissed off at Mirror Cerveno for making fun of you for knowing some of the answers. I didn't appreciate that. Of course, he knows the Backstreet Boys and Sync. That's it.
I one direction Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera and Debbie Gibbson.
You should have seen me screaming at the TV Immaculate Collection. Immaculate Collection. I was screaming it for you. And he didn't get it, only like, you know, the biggest pop female singer of all time.
Sorry, maybe the greatest selling great is hit album, which of course no shame I owned, of course, so I one of the clues was this pop star you know, had electric youth and came out of the blue or something like that.
Let's get to this.
That's so I am buzz. Let's get to this buzz in Merrick, New York Zone. Debbie Gibson, I'm like, who is Debbie Gibson and Sorvino? Let's out of gas? Like what like? Oh? Sorry? You know, while Mira was filming Oscar winning films, I was in you know, my my, my computer room, that's what we used to call it, computer room watching, listening to cassette tapes of Debbie Gibson with you know whatever.
Well, when you were a kid, did you listen to the radio in New York music like, because I was a kid, I was a pel So it was pel j Z one hundred and if you wanted to get a little crazy, one of k.
T U at a Lake success. No not, maybe that was too much for me.
That was but the two the two stations that everyone listened to who our age in the morning was Z one hundred and p l J, and Debbie Gibson was a mainstay on those channels.
Absolutely and at local. She was from America and I'm from Jersey, so there was like this part of like, all right, so the craziest thing happened. Did you see the tweets, Jimmy?
Did I see the tweet? Of course I saw the tweet.
Bro, I'm still kind of like, wow.
So here the acknowledgment from Deborah.
Gibbs acknowledgement, there was a little more than acknowledgement.
Was there a follow? Was there a follow so form?
So I haven't I'll be honest. A couple summers ago, I was listening to serious satellite, like the nineties or the pop station, and Debbie Gibson was like the DJ was like Debbie, and I'm like, oh, Debbie Gibson, all right, great? I know she changed her name to Deborah at one point, like I haven't kept up with whatever. Fine I heard her voice. I'm ever thinking like that's cool. Al right, so she's doing this now, she's like the Casey Kase and ma Ryan Seacrest.
Cool.
I answer this thing. The amount of people the next day that were like, I love that you got Debbie Gibson right. I'm like, of course I get this tweet. Dear celebrity Jeopardy and Ken Jennings. I am so honored that p Shregs got my question right. Love the show and what a life moment that I was an answer on Jeopardy. Great. Then there's a video. In the video is Debbie Gibson singing like, hey, Peter just want like the thirteen year old me, Jimmy is freaking the fuck. This is Debbie Gibson singing my name. My brother had a Debbie Gibson poster in his bedroom. Debbie Gibson cassettes lined our you know, our den where we would sit around and play G I Joe and stratomatic baseball like this. This was insane. And then she followed me on Twitter.
Here you go why.
I'm a married man. I don't know where this goes. I looked her up. I'm like, shit, I don't know what her deal is. I don't know it's nothing about that. I just don't want to overstep my bound so publicly. I tweet to her, I say, anytime you want to come on Good Morning Football and I have no power.
To do this.
The producers would probably hate me for even trying to book guests, but I have no power at that. I'm like, anytime you want to come on Good Morning Football, Debbie Gibson, you have a seat at the table and you can do performance, we can interview, you can talk about you. She responds, She's like, I'm in New York in November. I would love to come on. So now the question is it's November, Jimmy. I'm asking you as a friend. I'm a married man, very happily married. Debbie Gibson is a lifelong icon, my teen crush. All this stuff. Do I direct message Debbie Gibson and say, like, hey, just following up on our correspondence on Twitter dot com? Or do I just pass this along to someone else and say, please, someone else see if she wants or I just let it go and say you can.
I don't know. You can DM her and say so I'm a bad host. They just called right into the mic. But I'm dying. You can DM her and say hey, fun stuff with the Jeopardy thing. Just want to make sure you still want to be on the show, because I'll pass along your info to our producers would love to have you. That's it.
There's nothing pfessional, nothing unprofessional, right right, exactly professional. And I don't geek out and send the photo.
I give her credit, Like if I give her credit, because if you're Debbie Gibson, it should be cool to like see you as a clue on Jeopardy, Like that's a cool moment for her. You know, I've always said this.
She sounded amazing and she looked amazing.
I've always said this was a big thing with my old buddy Andy Gray, who used to work at SI with me yea Me and Andy always used to say because he used to run the SI Vault account on Twitter, which was a big deal. And we always used to say, and this is no disrespect to Debbie Gibson, like nothing but love and respect eighties icon. But we always said we got a bigger kick out of getting a response or whatever on interaction on Twitter from the b cless celebrity than the A list Like listen, you're in this business. You have all A listeners following you and football players and whatever. I mean a big stink because the rock fill but like iron Zering followed Andy Gray on Twitter. I was so jealous, like yeah, like that, like that's for us, we got so I get this whole Debbie Gibson, bro, you get it.
Like one of my favorite moments was when Richard Christy from The Howard Stern Show followed me on Twitter. Yes, and I was already following him and I direct message him and they wrote back and he's like, we're huge chiefs fans of my house. So I got into Good Morning Football and I'm like, that's the level of celebrity that I love. Someone that you actually listen to and you have a connection with more than just this person's favorite, Like I think Kevin Hart might follow me, Like I don't have a connection to Kevin Heart, and I don't think he's actually reading his own Twitter, so I'm not like, but.
Debbie Gibbs, like we're all followed. The funny thing is we're all followed by Lady Gaga, like she's followed.
Like he Digs follows all of us.
But like I remember when I got a follow from like Johnny Bananaz that's actually him, And I'm like, Okay, forget the challenge because now he's like a known for the challenge. I watched him on the real world Miami. Like that was like, you know, so I get I get it. I get it.
With the one more thing on Jeopardy. Now the after effect of it is it airs, it's great and now it's a week removed. And like I was on a really you know, my ego was out of control. You couldn't fit me in the room. But I always have to find the negative, right, Like that's it's just how we live, like we're cynical people.
Let me hear it.
The people who didn't reach out to me, uh, friends of mine who didn't text, the people in sports media.
I love you, but that's a little much.
The people at NFL network that I know saw on my Twitter feed that I was on JEBB and didn't feel the need to just say hey, good luck or something. Oh I took note, there's a list.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I always think I'm gonna hear from some people too, and like you know, there's a good pod, and then I don't hear from them. It hurts.
It's very easy just to reach out folks. If you're friends with someone, you say, hey, that's pretty cool supporting you here. I think I like to do it as all that it's possible, Jimmy.
Yeah, I don't think we want to go here, but yeah, it's listen. You listen. You keep track of everything, and you know you don't forget. You don't forget. I I was, I was, how sick of I? Well, you're listen. There's a lot of you know, we all we all have crazy things like that. You know, like, I get it, I listen, I do. You can't expect every single person you know to reach out, but certain people are supposed to reach out on something like that. I will say that.
I'm just certain people. I'm half kidding.
But you know, it's also great publicity for the show, for like Good Morning Football, Like.
Oh, it was amazing publicity for this show. And I will give credit to my folks at Fox. They have no reason to run anything. They didn't tell me they were running anything. We started the Fox NFL kickoff show on Sunday and there was a montage of me just banging out questions and like.
Chris, that's how it should be done.
Yeah, CHRISA and Edelman and Vic and the whole gang and what's in Uh, they were great about it and it was hilarious and uh, that's that's I mean, that's how it should be.
Since you mentioned Edelman, let's end it on this. When I had him on the podcast right before the season started and it came up that you and I were friends, and he said to me, what do you call him? What am I supposed to call him? And I said, I think everyone just calls him shrikes. So what is Edelman calling you? Yeah, calls me shrikes. All right?
Good, by the way, And it's no secret. I'm like, if you work with me, I love you. You know that he's great, He's cool. Yeah, yeah, he is who he is who I thought he would be. But also like does the work comes in and he knows his stuff, and I've really enjoyed working with him. I enjoy everyone I work with. I gotta tell you. Jamie Ardell had this announcement on Tuesday's Halloween show that she was pregnant, and she did it by wearing a Rihanna costume and explaining like, I don't know, and I was like, I got emotional out there, like I knew she was pregnant, she told us off camera, but like for her to share that publicly, and he just realized, You're like, I really like you, and I like to like the show, so it's uh, it's nice to work with people you actually you know who you feel that kind of connection with where when they announce they're pregnant, you get emotional. I was like tearing up on set and like, as Al Davis.
You like everyone you work with, except for the people they didn't reach out about Jeopardy.
Well, I mean, if you're tweeting all day and you've got tweet thoughts on literally everything, you need to wait on everything, and you know your friend is.
On got an opinion on how to fix the Palestine situation, but they can't. They can't chime in on you on Jeopardy.
They've got thoughts on the Michigan cheating skin, thoughts on World Series ratings, They've got thoughts on what o zempic on a zempic, what Robert Griffin wore on his head, They've got everyone's.
Everyone's an expert on everything. It's crazy, except when your.
Friend is on Jeopardy. You can't end a note and just say, hey, that was pretty cool. I don't know that seems that's just me.
Yeah, no, I get it. I will get past that, move on and finish out the NFL season. Strong, and I feel like.
I'm doing great. Like usually, I told you I hit a wall, I haven't hit it yet. And if you watch Good Morning Football or Fox NFL Kickoff, hopefully you see my enthusiasm. I love what I do and it's been good.
All right. Well, I appreciate you coming on congratulations on Jeopardy. I'm glad it was everything you wanted it to be. It would have been a bummer if it wasn't, so that makes me happy, all right. And in chats, just like.
The case with me and with McAfee, and with Bill Simmons and with Charles Barkley, I look forward to six months of positive tweeting about Robert Griffin from Jimmy chyno over.
You will get it. He does great on college football. Love him in the booth, all right, shrikes, take it easy. Who's buddy? All right? All right? Joining me now as he does every week from w FAN Radio in New York, sn Y TV in New York, My buddy Salakata. Soal, how's it going today?
Pretty good? Pretty good? The weeks are just flying by, but pretty good.
On this Wednesday, Sally and I spend Sunday together, and I'll get into that in a second. But I just had Peter Schrager on and he was like, I need to know what's going on with Sal's house hunting. And then one week we didn't mention it, like someone tweeted me like, I need to know what's going out with Sal's house. So Sal still has not found a house. Correct.
Correct. We put an offer in last week on a house god Deny, which I knew we would because we came in low, but we didn't look for a house last week. We'll be back probably this weekend. Problem is you can't just go look at houses. They have to be there. So if there's nothing that we want to see, then I get another week off. But obviously a prolongs was finding something.
So Sal got a break from house hunting last weekend and I was there. I went to his house Sunday some other people, a couple of guys from us and why JJJ Strempsky people know from the Ringer, and we finally had our first Sunday ticket. YouTube glitches, which a lot of people tweeted me about because I've been raving about how great YouTube has been, but I did not know because again I've said this before and when the one o'clock game start. I rarely check Twitter. I don't I'm locked in. So when all these glitches were occurring, I was blaming Sala's Wi Fi and ripping salad shreds for the shitty Wi Fi. And then he saw that on Twitter people were saying there were glitches. It was uh funny to me that the first glitches happened while I was at your house. Yeah, some day afternoon football.
Guess it wasn't funny to me because the last thing, like I legit, I've had other people over, but not to this extent, how many people we had, and plus you, who was like the last person I would ever want eighty issues whatsoever.
With So I made you?
Why is that you make me feel like a monster?
No, no, but I know there's certain things you can't mess with and football Sunday YouTube TV directe. But we want to say the Sunday take you can.
What do you think I was gonna rip you on the podcast or something.
No, but just I wouldn't have a bad experience. I don't wait. So seven weeks in, I'm like, I think we're ready to go. We can now have people over. There is not one I use three streaming devices every week. There was not one issue. Naturally, this is the week with an issue.
It was so funny because at one point everyone thought it was your shitty Wi Fi. So a couple of the guys were like, I'm getting off the Wi Fi on my phone. I did not get off the Wi Fi on my phone. I stayed on the Wi Fi.
Yeah, I said, it's probably because everybody's pulling from the Wi Fi because it never happened before.
But I'm like, he has to you work, you do radio and TV shows from home. You have to have good Wi Fi. So I didn't think it was your WiFi. I wanted to say it was your Wi Fi to make you sweat a little bit. But you must how relieved were you when you saw the tweet that it was YouTube?
Very very when one of you guys mentioned it that there were issues on on uh on Twitter, people talking about it, And then I knew it actually made sense, and I was like, oh, okay, now it's still sock to have to go through it. And by the way, it wasn't for us as bad as it seems. We were inconvenienced by the third TV with the least important games that we wanted to watch. For the most part, everything else was pretty good.
People on Twitter are very angry though, yeah, well I wasn't that angry, but we were annoyed from what I from what I gathered from what I saw on people on Twitter. I think a lot of the issue is because it costs so much money, people are not going to tolerate.
Did they offer a refund?
I didn't see that they did, and I would not hold my breath. I mean, so directly, what are they gonna What would they offer you that would satisfy you? Like, here's ten bucks right?
No?
No, nothing. I want them to get the fucking stream right so I can watch the games. So there's nothing they could do. But direct TV they had issues with. This was dreaming they would give you like a week's worth of money back, whatever that may be.
I mean direct TV. You would also go out every time it rained.
All right, better than nothing. I'm just saying, it's, you know, like to me, if.
You give me twenty bucks because you're the Sunday ticket crapped out on a Sunday, that doesn't make up for the for the issues agreed.
But twenty bucks is twenty bucks. Here's what I want, keep your twenty bucks. Don't let it ever happen again.
That's agreed. I was surprised the man people. People are rough. They don't give anyone a break, Like I like, I think I robbed you. Yeah, you didn't.
Even have a fucking painting anymore about something anyway, walk into.
The fan you can't. I mean, I like, they had a bad day. YouTube. Everyone's like YouTube socks bring back to you. No it doesn't. They had a bad that isn't if this happens again, yes, but you gotta give everything. You know opposed to give people three strikes. We don't even give people one strike. Just give them one strike. They're allowed one strike. Everyone calmed down and.
Relax, agreed.
Am I saying that because I won the under Jaguar Steeler bet? Yes? But Rex out.
So outside of the mild streaming issues, everything was good on your end on that.
Sunday, everything was very good. Everything was very good. You have a perfect setup. I mean that's what's not good. You have the perfect setup and now you're leaving it sold. Oh god, let me think it was everything good? Yeah, everything was good. Yeah, you know you forced me to listen to the sound on Juts Giants. That's okay, it was Catalan did a great job.
Well, you liked Catalan. I mean it was a hideous.
Game, but he made the game exciting. Andrew Catalan made that game exciting because it was pathetic. It was just pathetic. I don't I said I think. I said this on Sunday. If you have a game, if you have an NFL game where both quarterbacks are terrible, it's it's it's it's rough, man. And in that game both I mean it started out with both quarterbacks are terrible. Then it went to one quarterback is terrible and the other one doesn't even belong in the NFL, it seems. But yeah, it was rough. It was rough, but it was a good betting day. So that's all. That's how I judge it. If I had a bad, deaded betting day, wouldn't want to go back to your house.
Right exactly? Called JJ the most or something.
I don't like that I had you nervous, though, I don't want to make you nervous.
No, no, no, no, all. It's not that I know you like obviously we've been friends for a long time, but I also know like, first of all, i'd be pissed off more than anybody. But I know when you invite people over, especially people with expectations of, hey, you got a good setup for these games here, let's not have any funck ups.
So I knew you. I knew you were flustered when you couldn't find the multiview we needed and I had to take control of the remote, and I had to take over and say, I had to tell you to calm down and give me the remote, and then I found them the right one.
Well, it wasn't encouraging that we were able to get I only thought that there were certain game mixes, but you were able to find an additional one, which it allowed us to get all nine games up at once, which was nice, right. I went steady, the veteran steady hand at that moment.
Nobody works a remote better than me. Although that Apple remote, my god, it's just a disaster. Disaster.
You touch it, you touch it, and everything's fucked up, and you.
You made everything. I keep coughing. I apologize to people listening. You make everything more difficult because now you have YouTube TV. See I'm just used to getting the games with the regular YouTube, but you were on YouTube TV so it was a little different how to get used to it. But you're enjoying your YouTube TV experience while you used to have cable.
Yeah, I mean see yes so far. I mean that was the second week that I've had. I love just being able to put all the games on without restrictions in the local market. To me, that's the one thing that I've been missing forever. The only thing YouTube TV needs to do now is allow you to choose the games you want. That's it. It is a very simple thing. Allow us to just pick the games that we want.
I actually think I've been meeting three. I think they give you every single option in the multiview. What they don't give you is the ability to shift the box. So like let's say you're watching a multiview with four games and you have Jets Giants in the top left and steel As Jaguars in the top right, but you want to switch them for whatever reason, right, you can't do that. But I think they give you every I have not found. I have not had a week where they didn't have the option I needed. And I'm usually doing two four multiviews, or like a four and a three. That's how I do it. So they've done a good everything's been perfect except for the Sunday.
That's fine. And if they do that, then they don't make it as easily accessible as you'd like. Because I was looking for a multiview with the Jets Giants, I found one.
Yeah, you kept saying that, and I didn't believe you. I don't know if that's true.
Well it was for me, but maybe there was a way. I wasn't looking at it properly. I scrolled through twenty of them.
Anyway, that was a good time. It was a good time.
It it was a good Thanks for coming.
Are we going house hunting this weekend?
I hope that there are houses as of now it's Wednesday. No, as of now, there's nothing that's worth seeing. So a free weekend, well, it's never a free weekend, but potentially a house hunting free weekend.
Well, this is a good weekend to Naco house hunting because Dolphins Chiefs is at nine point thirty on Sunday morning.
Right, I got Dolphin Chiefs. That this is the week I got my nephew playing a hockey game at ubs at two o'clock. So especially not bad because I haven't looked at the one o'clock stillet, but I know the Giants.
It's terrible. It's actually gross. One of the here's how bad the one o'clock games are. Okay, Rams, Packers, melt Thanks, Commander's Patriots, No Buccaneers, Texans, no Cardinals, Browns, oh my god, Saints Bears.
No, that's it.
Here's by far the best one o'clock game by far, Seahawks Ravens.
That's a very good game.
And then Vikings Falcons.
That's an interesting game. Not all.
Yes, here's what's interesting about this week. The one o'clock's are pathetic because this is why the Dolphins Chiefs are at nine to thirty on NFL Network. But the Sunday night Green game is phenomenal too, Bill's Bengals and the four and the four to twenty five game is Cowboys Eagles. So the three best games are at nine thirty, four to twenty five Sunday night, right, Okay, so watch why one o'clock is a pig?
Now my dilemma is gonna be so I will watch. I'll watch that Dolphins Chiefs game so day morning. Then I will go to my nephew's game. I probably gotta leave it twelve whatever. The game should take it an hour. So from whenever that finishes, let's say three three thirty, I gotta make it back to my house by four to twenty five. Where is your nephew's game ubs Arena?
So you should come to my house after wow and watch the game?
Yeah? Okay, and tell me right, and tell my wife what I'll be out of the house all day long.
Here's what you tell her. I had Jimmy over last week, so he wants to have me over this week. He's reciprocating the invite.
You're gonna put the uh and you have to dines.
Down on and you have to you have to watch the game for work, so you need to instead of wasting that forty minutes to drive you come to my house instead.
Yeah, it is possible. Actually let me let me see it and get back to you on that. But I appreciate the invite, yeah, because that's my dilemma. And then I do want to watch this on the night. Game is a good one and Monday night of the Jet so this week actually works out well.
The problem the NFL three of the better teams watch on a weekly basis Lions, Jaguars, Niners are all on bias. So one o'clock is this If you're gonna blow off a one o'clock session, this is.
The week worked out well. Schedule makers to me a favor.
Yeah, speaking of the schedule, I don't know what the answer is for baseball, but it makes me say that nobody cares about the World Series, like I can't fault people for not getting into the Diamondbacks and Rangers. You know, here's the other thing about this too. I thought, you know, when the Yankees playing the World Series, or if the Yankees play the Red Sox, if the Yankees play the Mets, so that everyone complains, who know, we're sick of these teams, No one wants to see this, he's coast bias. Then you have a World Series with the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, and it's the lowest rated World Series of all time. So if you're gonna complain about the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Dodgers, then you got to watch the other teams. But nobody's watching lowest of all time. And I don't know what the sport is supposed to do. Like they open on a Friday Saturday. The two lowest nights when no one's watching the TV. They going against college for on Saturday. Then they're playing Monday night against Monday. I don't know what baseball is supposed to do. I feel terrible. I wish the sport would get more eyeballs on it and you know, not have the competition with the football. But I don't know what they're supposed to do. But I feel bad.
I don't know either. I love baseball. I used to love it a lot more nationally when I was a kid. Like obviously, I always love you know, the local with the Mets or the Yankees. There's interest there. But I cared more about Dodgers A's in nineteen eighty eight than I do or Red Z's in nineteen ninety than I do now about the Rangers. And that I love baseball, I don't give a shit. I don't know why that is.
Okay, So obviously when the World Seies open on Friday Saturday, you didn't watch it.
I have not watched one pitch of the World Series so far.
Okay, Now, are you watching TV at the times those games are on or you not even watch it? Because like to me, if like Friday night, I went out so if I go out Friday night, I can't watch World Series. Saturday I was home.
No.
Saturday night I got home, No, I got home at about nine, but I watched college football. I didn't even think to put on the World And Monday night I had it on the second TV, but the main TV was on Monday Night football.
I honestly don't even remember what the hell I did Friday.
Probably just say if you're a home and you're in front of the TV and you're not and you're watching you know whatever, you watch Beverly Hills Housewives or whatever, and you're not watching the World Series, I mean, that's sad.
But let me ask you something. Why would I watch the World Series if the only way to do it is if you either a have a team that you root for in it or be bet on it. Like otherwise, why am I supposed to care about it? Especially?
I mean, if you're a baby, if you're if you if you're a baseball fan, you don't want to see who's gonna take the title. I mean, I'm a baseball fan.
I don't care. I'm sorry. Maybe it's because of the two teams, like if it were Braves Rangers, different story. A little more care. If it were Philly Rangers, maybe I care a little bit.
So you didn't wat? Okay, Well, you're consistent because you said you didn't watch the NBA Finals last year? Right?
Who was in it again?
Last year?
The Nuggets?
Oh and heats? No, No, I don't think I did.
I watched and did you watch the Stanley Cup finals last year? Don't ask me who was in it because I couldn't tell you. Right, So you're you're basically only watching my World Series? Is Stanley your for your teams? All right? Well, then you're.
Consistent, basically, Yeah, basically.
I mean I watched the NBA Finals every night, but I come I can't the World Series for some reason. It's like it's secondary. I'm more focused on football, college and pro.
I think I'd rather watch the World Series than the a random World Series than a random NBA finals or even Cup final. But this matchup in particular Number two in New York. Both seasons have been over since July. Like the medic Yangs have been bad for so long, I'm waiting for the all season and plus the Diamondbacks, Like, the one thing I think baseball could do is limit the they're never, never gonna do it. Limit the amount of teams that get in, because you end up getting two teams in with eighty four wins. Not a great draw.
Yeah, I think it's more of a I don't know. I don't know how they can't get away from football, so I don't know what they're supposed to to like now, I mean, you know the Rangers are gonna win, so it's it's hard to get into it. But like if Game one was on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, when there's no NFL, no big college football, I think more people would get into it. But then I don't know.
Yeah, it's not it's not the it's not the anti sports thing. It's the for me just to care about you know, they care about the team like I love the sport. I just don't care about either team.
All right, Before we wrap, gotta mention Matthew Perry. Sal actually broke to news to me. I was literally in the diner at the counter paying for dinner on Saturday, paying for a Turkey club where I don't know. Turkey clubs are now like eighteen bucks, which is absurd, And I got to text from Sal that Matthew Perry had passed away, and you know, it's just when you see someone like that, it's gone through addiction, gets his life turned around. At least that's you know, and then it happens. It's just you know, where give me Like Friends when it was first on NBC, first run, not the reruns that are on like TBS twenty four to seven. Were you a big fan? I don't even know this about you? Were your Friends guy?
I enjoyed the show, but I was not. I think more reruns and I was always more Seinfeld than Friends. I know that there shouldn't have been a competition, but it felt like there was. And I enjoyed Friends, but I love Seinfeld and I'd like, I've seen every Seinfeld episode multiple times. I don't think I've seen every Friend's episode. I know enough about it and you know, obviously it's heartbreaking, But I was not like the biggest Friends fan, right See, I.
Was a huge I was a huge, huge, huge Friends fan when it was on NBC originally. I can't. I find it very hard to get into the repeats for whatever reason. Yeah, Like if it's a shitty day out and it's three o'clock in the afternoon and I go on the couch to relax, and I flipped through and I see Seinfeld on TBS or the Office. I'll watch it Friends never. I just can't interesting. I don't know why I loved it when it was first on and his character, I mean, there's so many he had so many memorable moments on that show, just you know, the way he delivered the lines. I thought the Friends reunion on HBO Max was phenomenal. I don't know if you watch that.
I did.
I did see that that was really well done. But he said, because I want to mention this since we're talking about friends. He gave an interview to Diane Sawyer. I saw the clip. They've played it constantly where he said that when he passes, he doesn't want friends to be the first thing people remember about him. He wants it to be that he would help anyone who came to him and needed some help for whatever addiction they're fighting. So were he talking about friends, and you know he wanted the first thing to be that, So I want to make sure we mentioned that that you know, he did a lot to overcome It's the stories he told, you know in that interview. They've replayed it where he said, They asked him, like, what was his lowest point with his alcoholism, and he said that on Sundays he used to go to open houses. And I'm not trying to make a joke. He would tie this in with you at all. He used to go to open houses and go through people's medicine cabinets to take whatever like vic it ins or his annix or whatever was like in there. That's how bad it got for him. And then he was able to overcome it, and you know, he got sober and he was, you know, clear that he did the Friends reunion and it looked like things were good, and people were worried about the way he looked on the Friends reunion, but he said he had dental work, That's why he was talking funny. So, you know, you don't know what the the story is. The toxicology report's going to come out, but Sad, it's just crazy. You know, it's a guy that's on He's literally on your TV almost at any point in the day. I mean the reruns are on TBS and I think Nickelodeon. I mean, you can put on the TV at almost any point your day and he's on it. And obviously the show is huge. You know, it was back before the streaming and all that when people watching it on TV, so their ratings. I mean, you know, I went to the Friends experience over the summer, That's what I thought of.
I went to the TIMETHELT one and did not go to the Friends one. But I heard about it, and look, dude, it was a great show. I mean it's not all the way around. It was a great show and he was a great actor, and it's sad to see how it ended.
My favorite episode was when they do the contest, the contest between the boys and the girls and about the apartment. If the boys win, they get the girls apartment. If the girls win, the boys have to get rid of the ducks, and uh, you know, just the way they did that. He was great in that too. But if you have not if your Friends fan and you have not seen the reunion, it's on HBO Max, I highly recommend it. Yeah, all right, I hate to end on a downer, but you know that that has been the story of the week for sure. And my appearance at sALS where I guess I made sell nervous. So if you come you come over this snday. I won't make you nervous. Games will be nice. I have good wifie. All right, who's your Wi Fi provider?
Uh OPTI?
I was ready, I was ready to take them down. I was ready to go on a crusade. You got you got bailed out, You got bailed out.
All good.
Don't expect the refund though, yeah.
Just just don't have it happen again. I'm good, all right, all.
Right, all right, my many many thanks to r G three, Peter Schrager Salak. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, subscribe to SI Media with Jimmy Traynor. If you've missed any recent episodes, going to the archives give them a listen. Sports radio legend Dan Patrick was on the show last week. Bill Simmons was on the show two weeks ago. Joe Buck and Troy Ayikman were on the show three weeks ago. So if you missed any of those, give them a listen. Subscribe to the pod and leave a review on Apple. All right, that wraps it up for this week. We'll see you next week. Stay safe and take care.
