Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
It's the most magical time of the year, and I'm not talking about Christmas. I'm talking about the NFL season. So make sure you're ready with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Get the most live NFL games all in one place. Right now, you can save $85 when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket with YouTube TV. Sign up today at youtubetv.com slash Spotify. Device and content restrictions apply. Discount apply to first four months of YouTube TV, then $72.99 a month. Ends August 29th. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. No refunds.
School is back, and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at Dick's.com. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 61, in honor of Roger Marris.
This is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the daily debate show that is undisputed. Today, I will fire back at Travis Kelsey and his brother Jason. Today, I will tell you why Lil Wayne, my brother, is crushed over Jalen Hurts. Today, I will tell you why I now have fallen in love with bowling. Yes, bowling.
Today, I will answer your questions about LeBron James and about my quote-unquote daughter, Hazel. And today, in conclusion, I will fire back at Merrill Hodge about Johnny Manziel. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. So the other night, my wife Ernestine says to me, what's all this about Travis Kelsey saying you couldn't get one yard? Huh?
I couldn't get one yard over what? She had no idea. I don't follow anyone on Twitter, though I do see when my name is trending on Twitter, but Ernestine does get Google alerts every time my name comes up because of something I've said or because of something some famous somebody in or out of sports has said about me. A lot of times...
Ernstine will get three or four of these Google alerts and she won't say a peep to me about them because she knows I really don't want to be bothered unless they become significant, unless they become, as they say, viral. So a lot of times I won't hear anything until her rule gets broken. Her rule of thumb is double digits. If she gets 10 or more websites writing about what I've said or somebody has said about me,
Ernestine does inform me, or more accurately, she asks me if I know anything about this or that. Her point is that at a certain point, I just need to know. And at a certain point, according to Ernestine, I need to respond. Of course, you know what my stance is about Twitter, that I don't read what anybody says about me on Twitter because...
I'll say it one more time. I've worked so closely with several people in sports media. I'm talking about big people who let Twitter own them, shape them, even define them. Even reading the comments directed at them immediately after I've been involved with them in some kind of on-air discussion or even debate, reading these comments during commercial breaks,
These comments that tell them they just got their ass kicked on live national TV or that they look terrible on that given day. Their hair looks terrible, their clothes are an embarrassment, whatever. And then taking these comments from nobody straight to heart, letting these comments immediately affect their on-air performance, their demeanor, their mood, immediately making them mad or distracted.
about how they now look on live national TV. That, to me, is just so dangerous. It is so destructive. It is so diabolically awful. Twitter has empowered the powerless, sometimes in great ways. But now anybody, anybody, any nobody can have direct and immediate access to media stars, sports stars,
can say to these stars just about anything they want to without fear, without consequences. And even the worst case scenario, quote unquote, can be the best case if said star suddenly fires right back publicly on Twitter at said nobody, then said nobody can suddenly gain hundreds, if not thousands of new followers in an instant because said star is
has put said nobody on the Twitter map by reposting him or her, his or her tweet in an instant. I always think of that famous quote, Henry David Thoreau, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. If Thoreau had been alive today, he'd live long enough to see Twitter in operation, not to mention IG or Facebook or TikTok or whatever. Thoreau would have been forced to say, uh,
I was wrong about that. But when I need to know, when I need to know about what a somebody has said about me, in part because a whole lot of nobodies are talking about what somebody said about me, somebody important, then Ernstine does clue me in, though she usually waits to see if three or four websites she's actually heard of pick up the story, which is often the case.
And this was the case in point with Travis Kelsey the other night. I said to Ernestine, I have no idea about anything involving Travis Kelsey. The only thing I could remotely think of was when it was announced right after the Super Bowl that Travis Kelsey would host Saturday Night Live, I did tweet, I did wonder out loud, so to speak, what Patrick Mahomes thought about that. I mean...
Mahomes was the Super Bowl MVP, not his tight end. But obviously, Travis Kelsey is regarded as having a much bigger, much brasher, less reverent, more made-for-live-TV personality, live-wire personality. So he, Travis, got the gig. Even though to me, Patrick Mahomes is very good in interviews and can have a big combative chip on his shoulders during interviews, he's
and on his shoulder pads when he's playing quarterback. So if I had been Patrick Mahomes right after the Super Bowl, I would not have loved it that my quote-unquote outrageous tight end got to host Saturday Night Live instead of me. But I digress. So I sighed and I said to Ernestine, send me one of the stories about Travis Kelsey. I think she sent me the Sports Illustrated account. And I quickly realized...
This came from the podcast Travis does with his older brother, Jason, called New Heights Podcast. I've seen clips from it, but I've never actually listened to it or watched it. But aha, I realized as I read the story, I had come up because that week's New Heights guest had been Shannon Sharp, the Hall of Fame tight end who happens to be my Undisputed Debate partner.
and who happens to love him some, Travis Kelsey, because Shannon has agreed with me more and more so that Travis Kelsey is simply the greatest pass-catching tight end ever, even beyond Gronk, as in Rob Gronkowski. That's because Kelsey obviously is more wide receiver than tight end, and is so much quicker and faster, more elusive after the catch than Gronk was.
Gronk was classic old school tight end, probably the best blocking tight end we've ever seen. Just a devastating force in New England's and then Tampa Bay's run game. Travis Kelsey is none of that. But what quickly became clear to me was that Travis Kelsey had asked Shannon Sharp a question about me that had triggered this viral mudslide. So,
Travis Kelsey asked the weekly question that, and I quote, you don't have to answer, but we got to ask, disqualified. Travis asked a question derivative of one that he and his brother had debated on a previous podcast. And that question was, could the average person rush for a single yard in an NFL game? So now Travis asked Shannon on their podcast,
Could Skip Bayless get a single yard? That's why Ernestine asked me, what's this about you and Travis and a single yard? She couldn't get it. She doesn't really get football that well. God bless her. She'll figure it out. Of course, Shannon immediately boomed out a no. I can't do Shannon's deep voice. It blows me off my chair every day. Live TV.
And yet Shannon quickly qualified by saying, not saying that Skip's average, but Shannon's point was that defensive players would hate me so much that they would be obsessed, that they would be possessed to not allow me to get that single yard because they wouldn't want to give up a single yard to that bleeping Skip Bayless. And then Shannon even threw in a
what I thought was a funny line, he said he wouldn't even be sure my own offensive lineman would block for me. It was funny, but maybe not that funny, because Travis and Jason hee-hawed like a couple of meat-headed football players in a locker room. "Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck." Okay, so the pencil-necked non-athlete, me, couldn't even get a single yard in an NFL game. Hmm.
This got me to thinking, and I'll admit it, to quietly seething over this unspoken, between-the-lines notion that I despise the most, that I don't know anything about football because I never played football, not past ninth grade. Huh, interesting. So could somebody please ask Jason Kelsey, who was the football genius? Who was football brilliant enough to
to draft him in the sixth round way back in 2011. What a career he's had as a sixth-round draft pick. Hmm. You know who picked him? A guy named Howie Roseman, who's still the GM and the draftmaster of the Philadelphia Eagles. Howie Roseman built the Eagles Super Bowl team last year. Howie Roseman, who didn't even play high school football. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. Huh.
So who would have a better shot at gaining one yard in an NFL game, me or Howie Roseman? Well, I'm pretty sure I would for what it's worth. So please step back for just a moment and consider the reality of this. To me, age is just a number, but I'm what, I don't know, almost 40 years older than Jason Kelsey is. But I'll say it again, just for the sake of this argument, I defy you
to find someone my age in any better shape than I am as I sit here right now. I'm talking about cardio shape, weightlifting shape. Hey, I'm in decent one-on-one basketball shape as I sit here right now. Look, I've said this before and I'll say it again. I just believe in body as temple. You only get this one body and I believe in keeping it as healthy and as strong as I possibly can.
obviously through nutrition and fitness. I'll admit I'm obsessed, but at least it's a positive obsession, if not addiction. I'll say it one last time. Above all, you are what you eat. In the end, that's what you are, what you eat, what you put in your mouth. And it just gave me pause the other night. I sat back and I wondered, wonder what the Kelsey brothers will look like when they're my age. Just a thought. I weigh...
165 pounds. My body fat is right around 5%. I can push up quite a bit of weight for my size. And you're just going to have to trust me on this. I can still run pretty fast. On Sundays, when I run my hard run, I try to run the final mile of an eight-mile course all out as fast as I can run. So I assume a lot of people my age...
Never run fast because I'm going to assume a whole lot of people my age just don't run at all. At least I do run fast once a week and once upon a time, just for the record, when I ran my fastest marathon. It's a long time ago. 1984. 1984.
I ran two hours, 47 minutes and 20 seconds. That's six minutes and 20 second a mile. I only say this to show you, trust me on this, go out and try to run one six minute and 20 second mile, let alone 26.2 miles in a row at six minute and 20 second pace. That's my average pace per mile. It's hard to run a six minute and 20 second mile. I have some, thank you God's speed. I have some, I'm not slow.
So it wouldn't take that long for me to get in what's called an aerobic shape, you know, short burst shape, you know, run the ball kind of shape. So these concepts fascinate me because I am the ultimate frustrated athlete, as I've mentioned many times before, something I do not hide.
I was a decent high school athlete, better at baseball than basketball. I did make an all-region team after my senior year in high school baseball. But football was the one game I didn't play past seventh grade because when we got to our high school, biggest high school in the state of Oklahoma, they wanted you to choose two out of the three sports. You couldn't play all three. You just didn't have time. The seasons overlapped too much, so I chose football.
My two best sports, basketball and then, of course, baseball. But this got me thinking, what if? I don't know. What if Jerry Jones, I know Jerry pretty well, what if he agreed to let me suit up and actually try to run the ball in, let's say, a preseason NFL game? That would be after, of course, just a little bit of practice, maybe near the end of a camp practice. So the question would become, would I just get one carry, one try to get one yard?
could I at least get maybe three carries total to try to get that one yard? Of course, I would, you know, I'd get hit hard on the first carry. I don't doubt that. And there'd be a question of would I be able to continue after the first carry? Would I actually get hurt? I'd sign a waiver. Jerry would want me to sign a waiver protecting him and the Cowboys and the National Football League. I would be happy to do that because the truth is I don't think I would get hurt.
I think I could figure out how to survive three carries in an NFL game. That's just me. And to Shannon's point, would the defense just rise up in all-out attack just because it doesn't want to get shamed, giving up one yard or even two yards or three yards to bleep and skip Bayless? Maybe so. But wait a second. How fair would it be for me to just go into the game for one play?
with the defense knowing I was going to try to run it right up the gut for that one yard. No, no, no, no, no, no. I would have to get at least two series in said game, and there would have to be some element to protect me of surprise. Maybe on the first down that we try, we try play fake to me, and trust me, I would get down, as in hit the dirt quickly, because I wouldn't want to get some linebacker
a cheap free shot at me when I didn't even have the ball in my hand. So as soon as I play faked, I'm hitting the dirt. Then maybe, I don't know, on the third play, I might fake right, I might counter back to my left, and I would hope, I would pray to the Lord above that my left guard and my left tackle could create just a sliver of daylight and that I could hit that sliver just fast enough, just fearlessly enough to get
two yards before I got smashed, and I would get smashed. I don't have any doubt about that. I just don't think I would get hurt because I would go in without fear. I do think I could gain two yards, especially, look, if I were playing, let's do the reality of this. If I were playing in a preseason game, late in a preseason game, it'd be backups against backups. Obviously, it
It wouldn't be realistic for me to get a couple of series and a couple of carries in a real, live, regular season NFL game. It's just beyond the realm of possibility. It's just not realistic. So I give in to that. I'm just thinking about, would this ever happen in a preseason game? Jerry could certainly sell it, right? Wouldn't it be must-see TV to see if I got killed in an NFL preseason game? But in theory, even at my age...
But in the shape I'm in, yes, I believe I could gain a couple of yards, you yuck brothers. And by the way, just a quick thought. The reason I would be comfortable trying this, just a quick aside, quick story for you, is that I actually went through something kind of like this. It's been a while back. It was in 1992 when I got into a discussion with an editor at a magazine called Men's Journal.
about what would happen if I actually got to play left field for, say, a month the last month of the season in Major League Baseball.
What could I do? Could I be a competent left fielder? Because once upon a time, you won't remember Lee Mazzilli. He got traded from the Mets to the Rangers, and immediately when they put him in left field instead of center, he called left field the idiot's position because left field's the shortest throw, obviously, to third and to second, and that you can kind of hide your worst fielder in left. It's funny. When you're in Little League baseball, you hide your worst fielder in right field, and
But in right field, that throw to third in big league baseball is the longest, hardest throw. And it seems like you have to cover more ground in right field somehow than left field. So the question became, could I play the idiot's position? And then what would happen if I played for a whole month and I got, you know, say 120 odd at bats, could I get one hit? Could I get two or three? What would happen? So
We got into this discussion deeply enough that I called my friend Tom House. You might know him as the throwing guru who's taught Tom Brady and Drew Brees, dozens of quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts, all the way back to Tim Tebow.
Anybody who wants to perfect throwing the football comes out here to Southern California, to the University of Southern California, to meet with the professor, Tom House, who will teach you how to throw it better than you did before, even Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. Well, at this point, back in 92, Tom had been the pitching coach in baseball for the Texas Rangers. I was living in Dallas. I'd gotten to know him very well.
And at that point, he'd become more of a, he'd sort of been kicked upstairs to an advisor role, presided over spring training that also included the extended spring training where they brought their draft choices in. So he said to me, why don't you come down to extended spring after the vets have gone back to open the season in April, come down to extended spring and I'll put you through a week of your paces here. We'll figure you out. He said, I will give you
a harshly objective conclusion about how you would do in big league baseball as an everyday left fielder. And then if you had maybe 120 odd at bats, what would happen? How, how shameful would it get for you? So I went down for a whole week and this is with their, their draft choices. So I'm on center stage and I,
There's high humiliation factor, and Tom House was hard on me. He, as they say, dog cussed me. He was all over me. He pitched to me. Tom's, he pitched for the Atlanta Braves, if you don't remember. He was a relief pitcher who could just do tricks with the baseball. So he pitched to me. I hit off some of their draft pick kids in the cage. I got to play in one game for a couple of innings. Anyway, he figured out after all was said and done,
that I could be, in his words, a competent left fielder for a month or so in big league baseball, just competent. I would not embarrass myself in left field because I always had a pretty good arm and I can run. So I can catch. So that all part, he had me a thousand fungos, flies, line drives. I did okay there. I could be serviceable in left field. I would not embarrass myself. Then hitting, I was always a pretty good contact hitter, just a line drive hitter.
He figured out that if I got 120 at-bats, that he thought I could get 10 hits and 120 at-bats. Well, the batting average would be horrible, be under 100, obviously. But he thought I could make enough contact that I would just get lucky enough to get 10 hits. So my point is, I have some background in trying to go through this where I'm on stage trying to do something against people far younger than me and to have the guts to...
to grin and bear it, to grit my teeth and try to get through it. And I got through it in extended spring and not this has well ever happened, but I throw it out there. I just think I could get a couple of yards. So now back to the Kelseys. Now I'm gonna turn the tables on the Kelseys. And I have a question to ask them about the two of them. It's a question they do have to answer because I gotta ask it.
If either of them raced me, could they even make it one mile? That's my question. My one-yard question is, could they even make it one mile? I mean, just one measly mile, I seriously doubt Jason could. Could he even make it a quarter of a mile? I don't know. But Travis, come on, surely Travis could make it one mile. I mean, he can run all day. He's a professional athlete. He's the best pass-catching tight end to me ever.
run all day on a football field. So, okay, let's forget about Jason, offensive lineman, center, just me versus Travis. But you know me, I don't want to just run one mile. That's for weenies and sissies and softies. Come on, real men race for at least five miles. I usually run eight. I'm sure I could run 10 or 12 if I had to, but hey, I am what? Almost 40 years older
than Jason is, so okay, I'll settle. I'll do five miles. You and me, Travis, one-on-one for five miles. Test your manhood. Test your heart. Test your guts. Test your will. I'm sure you could run a little on me right into the ground. You could embarrass me. You could shame me. You could beat me at my own game. But I wonder, could Travis Kelsey even make it one mile? I really wonder. So I dare you, Travis.
You have been challenged. I predict I would have the last yuck, yuck, yuck. We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't a search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates for
Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. And Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent Indeed survey. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast.
Let's get to your questions. This is Greg from Brooklyn.
With an NBA title this season, LeBron would move to where on your all-time list? Okay, look, Greg, I'd have to see exactly how much LeBron had to do with said title. Did he hit five walk-off shots along the title trail? Or did Anthony Davis, Austin Reeves mostly carry him to that title? But for me, forgive me, Greg, but
the facts about LeBron's career just remain the facts. I'm talking about indelible, inexorable facts. I can't help it. I can't erase it. I can't expunge it from his record. LeBron suffered epic meltdowns, the likes of which I have never seen another NBA superstar ever suffer. You remember versus Boston?
Final go-around in Cleveland the first time, games four, five, and six, 2010. Then that first finals for the Heat, 2011, games four, five, and six. Even against my Spurs in 2014, when LeBron's team got blown off the floor in five games by a record finals margin. This after going home for games three and four with the series tied one-to-one, leaving San Antonio.
How did that happen? And Greg, have you watched closely what's happened this basketball season? I love when LeBron says it feels like we played four or five seasons just this season. And it does seem like this because it seems like ancient history, but it did happen this regular season. There were 15 games that I counted that I thought LeBron should have closed, couldn't close, didn't close.
No way this team should have been in a play-in game. Are you kidding me? You know, LeBron spent much of the season mired in his worst ever three-point shooting slump, mired near the bottom of the league in three-point shooting. It was an embarrassment for his career.
He has been a notoriously poor three-point and free throw shooter. Yes, I say this time after time after time. Nobody wants to hear, but he's an all-time great passer, still the best passer in all of basketball today, still the greatest driver of the basketball I have ever seen, still the greatest driver in the game today, but he currently is ranked ninth on my all-time list.
You know who I have number one. It's obvious. I don't even have to say his name. That guy. Number two is Magic. Three, Shaq. Four, Kareem. Five, Tim Duncan. Six, Mr. Russell, as in Bill. Seven is Kobe, late great. Eight is Larry Bird. Nine is LeBron, just ahead of the all-time stat machine, Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain. That's ninth because I'll be nice about this. He's a below-average shooter.
without a closer or a clutch gene. Look, if he led the Lakers to this year's championship, if he was the driving force, he was the reason for that being, if he were the MVP of the finals and he won his fifth ring, I might move him ahead of an all-time clutch closer, an all-time great shooter in Larry Bird, eight ahead of his ninth.
So I'll give you a maybe on that. I will concede maybe, but only maybe. Allow me a quick aside about my brother, Lil Wayne, currently on tour. This is about my brother, Lil Wayne, and a quarterback I have loved, Jalen Hurts. Recently, Jalen Hurts left the representation agency that Wayne oversees. That's Young Money Sports.
Nicole Lynn, who represents Jalen, also left Wayne's agency to join Clutch Sports. Wayne was crushed over these developments. Wayne loves Jalen Hurts as much or maybe more than I do. For several years, Wayne has touted me on, has told me to keep an eye on Nicole Lynn because she
According to Wayne, all along, she had superstar, excuse me, superstar potential as an agent. I also was intrigued by Nicole because I'm from Oklahoma City. She grew up in Tulsa and attended the University of Oklahoma. And of course, as you probably know, Nicole just negotiated the richest NFL contract ever for Jalen Hurts. Congrats to them both.
I don't know exactly why Jalen and Nicole left Wayne. I don't. There has been some speculation that I'm vaguely aware of that it had something, maybe a little something or a lot something, I don't know, but something to do with the picture that was taken of Trump and Wayne when Wayne went to talk to Trump about that $500 billion package deal
that was aimed at creating jobs for the black community. That was back in October of 2020. Then, of course, Trump, just before he left office, did pardon Dwayne. That was in January of 2021. I don't know much about politics. I am not political, as my wife, Ernestine, will tell you. I did not vote for Donald Trump. All I know for sure is that Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.,
has as big and good a heart as any human I have ever known. His heart was hurt over this. And I guess the only silver lining for me is I've always been such a Jalen fan, predicting the day they drafted him in Philadelphia that he would change their life, change their culture, which he did. But I've always been such a fan of his that it made it a little hard for me last year when my Cowboys played Jalen's Eagles,
made it a little harder for me to root against the Eagles because of Jalen. That will no longer be the case. Next question comes from Clarence from New York. Will you watch any playoff games with Wayne? Maybe some Saturday afternoon game, maybe Saturday evening game, but I seriously doubt it. I mentioned before, I'm a solo act when it comes to immersing myself
in big games, playoff games, and I can be a flat-out insufferable lunatic during said games of which I am not proud. As you also might know, I live tweet throughout these big games, which would be very difficult to do if I were going back and forth with Wayne, which would sort of take the place of my tweeting. So I never watch a game with Ernestine.
Only with our quote-unquote daughter, Hazel, our six-year-old Maltese, who invariably sleeps at my feet as I watch these games in her little pink bed at my feet. Tuesday night, Clippers at Suns. My man Kevin Durant found himself all alone at the three-point line for what could have been the late-game dagger for the Clippers. And my man KD flat-out missed it.
First easy look he'd had in two games, and he missed it. And I literally raised the roof. I unleashed some bleepity bleeps that I feared would have our neighbors calling the cops. I tried to get hold of myself. I sat back down. I said, oh, I'm sorry, Hazel. Then I looked under the table at her bed. She was still asleep. Didn't even phase her, did not wake her. She...
She tolerates me in ways that Ernstine would not, will not. And the point is, I'm not sure Lil Wayne would tolerate my outbursts either. Lil Wayne prefers to watch big games alone. And in that way, we're very much alike, which means we're very different when it comes to games because we'll text each other, but we don't want to be in each other's company.
This is Torin from Los Angeles who asks, "Would you ever get another dog along with Hazel?" Hmm. Phew. I do appreciate this question, Torin. Unfortunately, it's a bigger and deeper question than you probably think it is. That question looms over our household as we speak. Look, I'll be the first to admit, I have become way too attached to Hazel. I said back in 2002,
when I had to put an ailing dog to sleep, also a female dog named Dusty. I said that day, I've become way too attached to Dusty. And I said and vowed that day, I will never ever do this again. I will never ever have a dog again or ever get that close to a dog again. And look at me now. Ernestine wanted a dog for her. And trust me,
Hazel's mission in life is to protect her quote-unquote mom, Ernestine. She would die for her mom, Ernestine, but Hazel spends most of her time with her quote-unquote dad, the guy who didn't want her in the first place. Ernestine now believes that Hazel needs a quote-unquote friend to keep her company, especially when we leave the house. As soon as we close the door,
Hazel begins to howl with anguish. Oh, just tears my heart out. She has separation anxiety and so do I. I fear I wouldn't have enough love for a second dog. I fear Hazel would not love any attention that I or Ernestine paid to a second dog. Hazel, trust me, is a 10-pound terror. I fear she would make life miserable forever.
for her new quote unquote friend. I'm saying a big no to another dog, but Hazel was supposed to be Ernestine's dog from the start. So I am leaving this call up to Ernestine. Speaking of women, a quick thought about bowling. Bowling? You might remember a couple of podcasts back, I compared golf, the world's hardest game, to bowling, the world's easiest game.
And I referred to my all-time favorite country western line, I don't know whether to kill myself or go bowling. Then the other day, I was made aware that my school, Vanderbilt, just won the Women's National Bowling Championship. That's right. We won it all in bowling.
In fact, I'm embarrassed to admit publicly, I did not realize that's actually the third national championship our women's bowling program has won. We won in 2007, in 2018, and just the other day in Las Vegas, we won our third national championship in bowling. So we've won two in baseball, 2014, 2019. We've won one in tennis, 2015,
But in bowling, this year, we even had the national player of the year, Mabel Cummins, C-U-M-M-I-N-S, Mabel Cummins. What a great old school name, Mabel. I don't know anyone named Mabel anymore. There used to be, but not anymore. But we had Mabel and nobody else did. We won the national championship in bowling. We won it in Las Vegas, bright lights.
I've decided now that I love bowling. In fact, this Friday night, I just might take Ernestine bowling. Forgive me, bowling. Congratulations, Vanderbilt. Now, bear with me on this as I walk you through the anatomy of some recent on-air bets I made with my man Shannon Sharp live on Undisputed.
I'm going to give you the backstage background of how my mind was working as these bets got proposed and accepted. In my view, most undisputed bets are won in the setup in the negotiation. And I'm going to give you a case in point. I had talked up and talked up and talked up most of the season the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder bet.
Shannon all season had talked down about the New Orleans Pelicans, in part because our moderator, Jen Hale, loves and actually lives in New York, excuse me, in New Orleans and covers the Pelicans. And it's also because if you go deeper into Shannon's mind, he's never been a big fan of Zion because Shannon predicted that Ja would turn out to be a better player ahead of their draft.
than Zion because he said Ja would stay healthier. I think that's still debatable, but I said that Zion would be far more of a wrecking ball force than Ja, which he has been all time when he's healthy, which hasn't been all that often. Now, Ja has been getting hurt more and more, so we'll see how all that plays out. And I also point out that up and coming New Orleans is
had come to Los Angeles at the end of last season and effectively embarrassed LeBron's Lakers at what we call the crypt out here in Los Angeles and effectively ended their season. So I think that still sticks in Shannon's craw. But very quietly, unbeknownst to Shannon, New Orleans had won
10 of its last 12 late in the season. Let's just say 10 out of 12. It wasn't exactly its last 12, but they had one 10 out of 12 and had slowly come together with clearly without Zion. So I loved New Orleans at home in a play-in game against the up-and-coming Thunder and Shannon Bitt. So we bet one case, in case you don't know, weirdly, we bet cases of Diet Mountain Dew.
I do allow myself one diet do every morning before the show for the jolt of caffeine. It's my lone vice. I love the taste of it. I do call it the breakfast of champions, the nectar of the gods. And yeah, it was the first day we ever did the show. It was September 6th of 2016. Shannon just blurts out of nowhere, I'll bet you a six pack of your favorite drink that blah, blah, blah beats blah, blah, blah.
And I said, six-pack, make it a case. So here we went. Now we bet cases. Sometimes one, two, three, four, five. We've had some bets up to 10 cases. So in said game at New Orleans playing game, Pelicans versus Thunder, Brandon Ingram had the ball in his hands with the lead late in the game and got stripped by Shea Gilgis-Alexander.
All he has to do is make that shot, just a two-point shot, I win the bet. But I get a reprieve. I get a second shot. C.J. McCollum, who's been pretty clutch in his time, had a jumper from about the free throw line. It wasn't a great look. He was leaning left. But nonetheless, a shot that he's made numerous times in the clutch with the lead late in the game. He's got a shot, and he missed it badly.
And I lost. 123 to 118, I lost. In my gambling days, we used to say that you were on the right side or the wrong side of a bet. I was on the right side of that bet. But the next day, Shannon came in and gloated all morning long, not only about that game, but about the other playing game that we also bet on. This one was Bulls at Toronto, you might remember. I loved the home team in this game because quietly...
Last month of season, the Raptors, or baby dinosaurs as Shannon derisively refers to them, had come together. They were playing pretty good basketball. At home, they should have beaten the Bulls soundly, and they were. With 9-0-9 left in the third quarter, they were up 19 points.
They proceeded from that moment on to miss 11 free throws. That's impossibly bad because they wound up missing 18 free throws for the game. Impossibly wrong. They're an average free throw shooting team. There's no way they're going to miss 18 or 11 over the last quarter and a half. But they just kept missing and missing and missing. DeMar DeRozan's daughter got some credit for it because she was shrieking.
She sort of grew up in that building when he played for the Raptors, and she was from the third row shrieking each time the home team shooters shot free throws. I think it might have gotten in their heads. I don't know, but it worked because the Bulls stole that game. And the next day, Shannon gloated and gloated and gloated. It was pure luck. But I thought, okay, here we go. So the trap has been set.
So here we go with the final play in games. And here we have more opportunities for me to get even and even get my pound of flesh back from Shannon because we've got games coming up where Oklahoma City is now going to go to Minnesota and Shannon is on fire for the Thunder. And I'm thinking Minnesota is just better at home. That's what the point spread said. And I'm thinking...
Okay, so I'll talk up that at home, I don't really love Minnesota because they've got the Rudy Gobert cloud hanging over them. He'd been suspended. He'd gotten into it with Kyle Anderson. Kyle Anderson had called him the B word. So I'm talking up to Shannon on the air. I don't love their chances at home because they got...
internal problems, internal combustion problems. Meanwhile, the Bulls are going to Miami, who just shamefully stunk it up at home against the Atlanta Hawks. That's one of the worst losses I've ever seen in a game of any magnitude because I keep saying Trey Young is the most overrated player by far in all of basketball.
They held him to nothing in that game. He turned it over five turnovers because he's led the league in turnovers ever since he walked in the door for the Hawks, shot one for eight from three, and they still won the game easily over a Heat team that just didn't show up. They didn't care. They looked like they had no pride. So I'm talking up on the air to Shannon that, hey,
The Heat got problems. Jimmy Butler had missed the practice the day before, and it sounded like he was pouting, which he is wont to do. So I'm talking and talking it up. Hey, Miami's got deep, serious cultural problems that they'd never faced before, and it sounds like Jimmy Butler, playoff Jimmy, has gone south. And I didn't even have to propose the bets. Shannon jumped on both. He's taken the Thunder. He's taken his Bulls. His Thunder, his Bulls.
And I'm like, and I got him good on both games because the home teams won both of those games, which led to the next bet. Just to give you the background of this, my mind is working because
Shannon picked the Warriors to beat the Kings. At the last second, I took the Kings only because I decided that the numbers are screaming. The Kings are just better than the Warriors. They have been all year long. They ranked first in offense. The Warriors ranked 17th in defense. De'Aaron Fox voted the clutchest player in basketball because he's far more clutch to me right now than the guy I see in every other ad on TV, Steph Curry.
I'll take De'Aaron Fox in the clutch, in the fourth quarter clutch over Steph Curry any day or night, and I'll just show you the numbers. So I closed my eyes. I took a little bit of a plunge on the Kings, and the Kings, as you know, they had to rally. It was a furious rally, and they survived and prevailed in game one. So they're up one game to none. Well, now I got Shannon on the ropes and on the run over the proverbial barrel because
What's he going to do in game two? Well, if you picked the Warriors, you can't go down 0-2 in any NBA playoff series because what are the odds? It says that 92% of the time, the team that goes up 2-0 wins the series. 92%. So I had him dead to rights. I knew what was going to come. As soon as I picked the Kings to win game two at home, Shannon's like,
how much do you want to put on it? So we put two more cases on that because I like my chances. And here we went again, and here they went again. And you know the story. I won two more cases. So this is just to give you the background of how my mind and wheels turn. And we've lost track of this. I've lost a little bit of count of this. But just for the record, over the
What are we up to now from 2016, six and a half years, going on seven years that I have worked with my man, Shannon Sharp. I have won over 200 cases. I'm up over 200 cases on Shannon Sharp. And it's all in the negotiation and the setup as opposed to who knows the most about football or basketball or whatever we're going to bet on.
Make this new school year an opportunity for your kids to learn important life skills with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app for families where kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely while parents keep an eye on kids' money habits. Greenlight also helps families get into their fall routine with a chores feature that lets parents assign chores and pay kids allowance when they check them off. Get your first month free at greenlight.com slash spotify. greenlight.com slash spotify.
Final topic. Here I go again. I just can't help myself. Forgive me. My wife, Ernestine, recently alerted me to another weirdly viral video. Suddenly popped up from a 2014 first take episode. She said she was getting an onslaught of Google alerts about this. So once again, I said, okay, help me out. What's this about? I think this
video detonated because Merrill Hodge tweeted about it, or I should say gloated about it. And this was a first take clip featuring Merrill and I going back and forth about Johnny Manziel ahead of Johnny's draft. I'm not sure what Merrill's doing now. I do know he got laid off by ESPN in 2017, but
My fiercely loyal wife, Ernestine, continues to tell me, you need to defend yourself more. Quit turning the proverbial other cheek. So when it's called for, I use this podcast to respond. This Johnny Manziel issue just keeps rearing its ugly head. So here's the truth as I saw it, as I know it. Let's start with this.
Merrill Hodge was one of a parade of ex-players who told me on air, on first take, on ESPN, that Tim Tebow could not play in the National Football League. Before Tebow's draft, I argued with all of the above, and I said I would take Tim Tebow at the bottom of the first round.
I said, if you would just let Tim Tebow run his college offense, his Florida ride and decide, his Gator read option, that he will win games. No Pro Bowls, will win games. I didn't even say championships. I just said he will win games. Josh McDaniels, then the head coach of the Denver Broncos, validated my opinion by taking Tim Tebow with the 25th overall pick.
shocking some of my debate partners at ESPN, who scoffed and laughed at that. Merrill Hodge had Johnny going in the... I'm sorry, Merrill Hodge had Tebow going in the fifth or sixth round. Unfortunately, Josh McDaniels, as you might remember, got fired midway through Tebow's rookie year, or who knows, Tebow's career might have been very different. But as it was, in his second season,
Tebow got thrown into the fire with a one and four Broncos team, and he turned it completely around. He led it to the AFC West title. He led it to a home playoff win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. And week after week on ESPN, Merrill Hodge and a long line of other ex-NFL players continue to tell me Tebow cannot play in the NFL because he cannot throw.
Yet, Tim Tebow led the NFL that year in QBR in the last five minutes of games. You want to talk about clutch? Obviously, Tebow was doing it with intangibles more than tangibles. But as my man Eric Mangini said back in those days in 2011 on ESPN...
Tebow sure gets a lot more accurate in the last five minutes of games. He did. He would will the ball exactly where it was supposed to be. And his arm was always pretty strong. And as long as the Broncos let Tebow run that Florida offense at read option, well, all Denver did was lead the NFL in rushing. And Tebow got a late start at one and four. They led the NFL in rushing. So
I wish somebody would go dig out all the clips of Merrill Hodge telling me again and again and again through the 2011 season that Tim Tebow could not play. I thought Merrill looked foolish, along with many, many other ex-players who came through to debate me about Tim Tebow. I will give Merrill this. He did see Khalil Mack coming long before anyone else did. I had no opinion about Khalil. I was not a Jadavian Clowney fan.
Low motor, constantly hurt, South Carolina. But I give Merrill Hodge high marks for Khalil Mack. I don't know, maybe he had a scout tip him off. Maybe he knew an assistant coach somewhere who played against Khalil Mack. I don't know, but he knew about Khalil Mack, and then he had watched tape of, and he was the first that I knew of to predict, hey, he's going to be really good in a league coming virtually from nowhere at the University of Buffalo,
Again, I just watch TV and I never watched a single University of Buffalo football game. Now to Johnny Manziel. Merrill also said Johnny was nothing more than a fifth or sixth round pick. And I did go on record. I said if I were the Houston Texans drafting number one overall, I'd take Johnny Manziel in part because he was a Texas kid from San Antonio.
who had played his college football just up the road from Houston at College Station, home of Texas A&M. John Gruden, then ESPN's voice of Monday Night Football, also said on first take that he definitely would take Johnny Manziel number one overall. Now for my key disclaimer. Again and again and again and again, I said on first take, on ESPN, on live national TV,
If Johnny Manziel had any alcohol and or drug issues, I was out. If he just had party issues, I was out. I was plugged into the Manziel camp at that point. I knew he was having his problems. I did not know if they would persist and continue in the NFL. They did. I was out.
I guess I was more plugged in to what could go wrong with Johnny than the Cleveland Browns, who on the fly on that draft night traded up from 26 to 22 and snatched Johnny Manziel. But the point here is I did not have any doubt about Manziel's ability to star. I mean, star in the National Football League. I had zero doubts, and to this day, I have none. I don't study coaches' tape the way Merrill did.
but I carefully watch TV games. I do lots of homework behind the scenes about what makes so-and-so tick. Merrill Hodge did play in the NFL, played, what, seven seasons in Pittsburgh. He was a later round pick, I think a 10th rounder at that point, way back in the 90s. Played running back his first year, then
segue to fullback, did suffer some concussions, but had a decent career. One year had 772 yards rushing really as a fullback. But I got to tell you, I'd never seen anything like Johnny Manziel. That's why this has turned into such a sad story for me personally. I'm talking about throwing it and running it, never seen anything like him. I just wonder, did anybody out there actually watch what he did
As a redshirt freshman at Texas A&M, he went to Tuscaloosa against number one-ranked Alabama, threw for .253 and ran for .92 in the upset of the year, A&M 29-24. Manziel on his way as a redshirt freshman his first year of starting.
to winning the Heisman Trophy. Did anybody out there actually watch what Johnny Manziel did that year in the Cotton Bowl to my 10 and two Oklahoma Sooners at Jerry World? He threw for 287, not bad. He ran 17 times for 229 yards.
I'm not talking about Michael Vick or Lamar Jackson, but in the ballpark, at least in the conversation, at least close enough to those guys to think about it. I'm talking about broken plays, open field. He was virtually untackleable. I don't know. Did Merrill Hodge watch that tape of Johnny? I don't know.
Then against Nick Saban's vaunted defense again the next year, early the next year at Texas A&M, Johnny just threw for 464 yards, ran for 98 more, kept them in a game that they narrowly lost. By the way, Johnny Manziel measured one inch taller than Bryce Young. I love Bryce Young. I think he's hands down, no doubt, no-brainer number one overall pick, and he's going to be
very good in the National Football League. I don't want to put the great label on a kid, but he's going to be, trust me, very good. I thought exactly the same thing about Johnny Manziel, one inch taller than Bryce Young. I heard legendary Manziel stories from inside Texas A&M, from then A&M offensive coordinator Cliff Kingsbury. I have no doubt that Johnny could have been a big star in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, I went so far as to say
He could become bigger than LeBron in Cleveland because the Browns are so much bigger than the Cavaliers. That is a football town at heart. Diehard football town. And Johnny had the charisma and personality doing his money sign, money gesture, to just take it over. But I also heard from the inside about problems, big problems that Johnny was having, legendary stories.
that even carried into the summer that he spent out here in Los Angeles living in a West Hollywood apartment with Josh Gordon. You remember Josh? I lost track of how many times Josh got suspended for substance abuse. Those two shared an apartment for an entire summer, and the stories were legendary. So now, thanks to the tip from Ernestine, I had to sit back and read Merrill Hodge's tweet along with that clip
of me versus Merrill on first take back in 2014. Merrill's tweet said, "This is why watching tape is vital to evaluating players and their ability to transition to the NFL. No STAT all caps can all caps ever tell you about a college player's ability to play in the NFL. And no award or championship they won means they can play in the NFL."
To that, I say baloney. I'm going to say it again. I'll put my football knowledge up against Merrill Hodges or anybody else's who played pro football. I did learn my football from the great Bill Walsh, from Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson, and I can go on and on. I'll put my record of picking quarterbacks ahead of these drafts up against anybody's, anytime. I said from the start, big no on Carson Wentz.
And I was a big yes on Jalen Hurts. I said from the start, Baker Mayfield will be better than Sam Darnold. And he has proven to be way better than Sam Darnold, even though you can say the jury is still out on Baker. He has had stretches in pro football of, I'm not going to say greatness, but a very goodness. I can go on and on. I'm not going to bore you with my track record on quarterbacks, but you can check it out. I'm sure it's somewhere on YouTube. But yes, I said if Johnny Manziel is unable to
to prioritize football over partying, of quarterbacking over partying, then I'm out. And you know what happened. Johnny Manziel quickly partied. I'll use the word as a euphemism. He partied his way right out of the league. He once texted on draft night, a Browns assistant, let's wreck the league together. And Johnny self-destructed and wrecked himself. I know Johnny a little bit. I like Johnny a lot.
Honestly, from my heart, I pray, every time I pray, I pray for Johnny to find himself, find his way. Johnny turned into one of the saddest wastes, maybe the saddest waste of talent that I have ever seen. I did see, I did fear what potentially could happen to Johnny in pro football when he was in college. No amount of studying coach's tape could have predicted what would happen to Johnny Manziel in the National Football League. And look, in closing,
I know there are many, many people out there who just don't like me. I'm just too opinionated. They want to see me proven wrong. They want to see me fail. They want to see me exposed. I don't know. They're probably LeBron fans. They just can't stand it that I tell the truth about LeBron. But for once, I'm going to start listening to my wife, Ernestine. From here on, when it's called for, when it's significant, I will defend myself.
That is it for episode 61. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed, every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, The Skip Bayless Show, every week.