September 14, 2020 • 35 mins
Clay Travis gives you his biggest takeaways from NFL Week 1. Plus, Clay goes-in on the Ravens pre-game!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis live every weekday
morning from six to nine a m. E Stern three
to six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your
local station for Outkicked the coverage at Fox Sports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every morning on the
i Heart Radio app by searching fs are you're listening
(00:22):
to Fox Sports Radio. Cowboy fans, I'm sorry you got screwed.
I said it at the top of our one. You
got screwed on the past interference call. But if you
take away that call late, which might have gotten you
into overtime, it might have given you a shot, take
another pass into the end zone if you take away
(00:44):
that play. The bigger issue I think that is out
there for Cowboy fans is you're the same team you
were last year. Last year the Dallas Cowboys couldn't win
a close game. They were one in six in one
score games. You saw Jerry Jones kind of pumping his fist.
Now's the time. You got the ball back. You got
(01:06):
to stop. You got the ball back with two and
a half minutes to go and one time out. All
you needed to do was get a field goal, get
into extra time, into overtime, and for almost every play
on that final two and a half minutes, the Rams one.
The Rams defensive line, you couldn't block them. They were
(01:29):
getting a lot of pressure on Dak Prescott. Credit to
Dak for making a good throw to Michael Gallup on
one play. But if you go back and you score
those plays for an offense or a defense, almost every
single one was one by the Rams. Now, I think
Jalen Ramsey got the benefit of the doubt on that call.
(01:51):
I think being the highest paid cornerback in the history
of the league gets you those calls. That was a
superstar call. I think he sold it a little bit.
Saw the same kind of cell going on with Honestly,
the Chargers you're waking up this morning in l A.
Both of the l A football teams won their games
(02:13):
because their corners sold an offensive pass interference call. And
I'm not sure. I'm pretty confident that Michael gallop l
was garbage. I'm not even sold on the idea that A. J.
Green's pass interference was pass interference either. If you didn't
see the end of the Bengals Chargers game, Joe Burrow
drove his team down the field, hits a J. Green
(02:36):
who's created space puts the ball exactly where it needs
to be. But did a J. Green push off or
was that a little bit of a flop? Are we
starting to see flopping everywhere in sports? Remember back in
the day, they used to make fun of Euro basketball
players for how much they flopped, in Euro soccer players
for how much they flopped. And now everybody and pretty
much every sport flops all the time. Everybody's at the
(03:00):
it or major used to be like, oh, nobody's gonna
take a dive like they do in soccer. Now you
see it happening everywhere now. He even got football players
taking dives. Ref even took a little bit of a dived.
You see the helmet of the chest. He can't touch
the ref. That was a bad decision. But in the
in the Bears and the Lions game, the helmet to
(03:22):
the chest, that was a questionable decision. He was trying
to demonstrate what had happened to him and he put
his helmet into the chest of the official and he
immediately got kicked out because you're not allowed to make
contact with an official. But the officials sold it a
little bit. Everybody exaggerates contact everybody's James Harden and the
paint now, And I thought that both of those calls,
(03:45):
you just don't see offensive pass interference called a lot
and usually it has to be pretty egregious. And I
gotta be honest with you, I thought, when Michael Gallup
got hit, I said, you know what, maybe this is
a new Cowboy team. And then boom, right back to
where the Cowboys have been in the past. So I'm
disappointed if I'm waking up this morning and I'm a
cowboy because I thought, hey, we're the same team that
(04:07):
we already were. You know who look different? Cam Newton.
I think there are a lot of different storylines that
you can dive into, but to me, to me, Cam
looked like already a different player. And this is why
you just heard us talking about at the end of
our two. This is why Bill Belichick's investment in Cam
(04:30):
Newton was so brilliant. If Cam doesn't work out, and
already he's got one win. And by the way, I
didn't think the Patriots looked good, look that good. I
watched most of that game. But Cam's already got one win,
all right. If by chance Cam isn't that great, let's
say he can't keep up the fifteen carries, he can't
score two rushing touchdowns a game. He's not gonna be
(04:53):
able to run the ball as frequently or as healthily
as he did in his first week. What are the
Patriot It's care if Cam can't be a playmaker all year?
They go to Jared Stidham and they say, okay, Jared'stidham
or you are guy. And if the answer is no,
they go back into the draft. They had a bunch
of dudes who start for them normally decided not to
play this year. If all of that falls apart, for
(05:16):
Bill Belichick, he says, you know what, I spent a
million dollars on Cam Newton. Didn't work out, there's an
investment worth making. But the reason right now why I
think it could make a lot of sense is because
Cam it doesn't have a million dollars at stake. This
is why Belichick is such a genius. The New England
Patriots have one million dollars at stake with Cam Newton.
(05:40):
If it doesn't work out in the grand scheme of things,
that is nothing. Cam Newton's got seventy five or a
hundred million dollars at stake. Why do I say that, Well,
because if Cam plays like he played today and continues
to get better fifteen and nineteen passing, able to manage
the offense, able to look as exp Wilson and dynamic
(06:01):
and healthy as he did, he's gonna make another seventy
five or a hundred billion dollars. Somebody is gonna sign
Cam Newton too a contract to be their starting quarterback.
It might be the New England Patriots. Somebody will say
this guy is worth twenty or twenty five million at
a minimum, and they will bring him in to be
their guy. Who'll get seventy five or a hundred million
dollars more because he's still not that old by quarterback
(06:24):
age standards. If it doesn't work out for him, the
Patriots go to Jared Stidham, they find out if he's
the guy, or they're back in the draft. They wasted
a million dollars. Cam Newton's careers mostly over because he's
not gonna be a guy who stands on the sideline
and holds the clipboard. He wanted to be an icon.
Cam did, and if you win with the New England
Patriots and Bill Belichick, you aren't at icon So we
(06:46):
have one team, the Dallas Cowboys, with a star quarterback
in Dak Prescott, who looked pretty much the same as
they did last year. Couldn't close the deal, couldn't make plays,
weren't able to win at winning time. And then you
have Cam Newton, who only played two games last year,
didn't look very good at all. The two games that
he played looked like a totally different player. That's coaching
to a large extent. The Patriots are able to get
(07:09):
the best out of every Patriots player, supremely talented or not.
And then they cut the cord and let you go.
Tom Brady speaking to cut the cord. Tom Brady and
Bill Belichick are going to be looking at each other
all season long like somebody who gets divorced looks at
somebody else. Both of them are trying to prove that
(07:33):
they were the reason for the Patriot dynasty. Week one,
Who do you have to give the award to? If
you have to give an oscar for lifetime achievement with
the New England Patriots, Everybody out there saying, we're calling
Bill Belichick's name. He found a way to get to
win with Cam Newton, with his new surrounding teammates. Meanwhile,
(07:54):
Tom Brady went down to Tampa Bay and his team
wasn't ready for the big in the big game against
the New England Patriots. Patriots, uh sorry, against the New
Orleans Saints. Now, remember the Saints have been together for years.
Alvin Kamar has been there working with that team. Taysom Hill,
the Swiss Army Knife of offensive weaponry, Michael Thomas, best
(08:19):
receiver in the league, Drew Brees been working with those
guys for years. They have all their wrink goals, they
have all their timing, they have everything ironed out and
ready to go. Brady's got a lot of weapons. Mike
Evans sore hamstring, made a play, a couple of plays,
Chris Godwin, O J. Howard, Cameron Braid, Rob Gronkowski, Leonard
(08:40):
four Nette, all of these guys, Ronald Jones coming together
and going to make plays. Eventually, that's an explosive cadre
of talent surrounding Tom Brady. But they're not ready to
do it yet. This offense didn't come out and make
a ton of great plays, and so when you actually
(09:00):
go look at the numbers, Brady wasn't ready yet. Through
the ball thirty six times two picks. Both those picks
not very good. It wasn't like it was a tip ball,
and it wasn't his fault. Both of those were on him. Uh.
Just not a lot of dynamicism from that offense yet,
despite the fact that you have a lot of dynamic playmakers,
(09:22):
and so when you actually look at everything, Michael Evans
clearly not he's going to be I think Mike Evans
is really really good with Brady when his hamstring gets better.
But he had the one catch for a touchdown down
near the goal line. Otherwise he was not much of
a threat godwin when you can't take when you can't
let Mike Evans be the speed demon, he's not allowed
(09:43):
to stretch the field. That changes everything. Hopefully that hamstring
will not linger for a long time with him, But
without any preseason games, without any ability to play together,
it's not really a surprise when you really dive into
it the way that they actually perform. So to me,
as I am, you know, sort of sitting around assessing
(10:04):
the three biggest storylines coming out of Week one, Cowboys
look like the same team by the way, good physical
Rams looked like a different team down the stretch, they
started to play more tight end sets. They're they're bullying,
playing a little bit more bully ball. I would say,
prior to that, with Sean McVeigh sort of had the
(10:24):
reputation of being a finesse guy. You didn't get that
sense last night. I felt like the Rams kind of
bullied the Cowboys around on the line of scrimmage at times.
Brady not ready for a final exam yet early exam
Drew Brees and the Saints win that battle, and the
Patriots going up against the Dolphins look like they are
(10:44):
ready to make big time plays. A couple of other
big storylines that to me stood out in uh the
NFL universe. Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers continue to make
throws that nobody else can make. I mean, both of
these guys were scintillating, continue to be extraordinary at just
placing the football where other people can't do it. Every
(11:06):
game they make a thrower to where your jaw just
kind of drops and you say, man, there just aren't
very many guys with the talent to make throws that
these guys can from the quarterback position. Lamar Jackson, there
was a suggestion some people were like, Hey, disappointing postseason again.
Maybe Lamar Jackson's gonna come back team teams will have
(11:28):
caught up with him. If that's gonna happen. It certainly
didn't happen with the Cleveland Browns, who were flat out atrocious.
Drew Drew Brees long term success story. Baker Mayfield needs
to think of himself as Drew Brees instead. He's running around,
He's not reading the field. Well. I have legitimate questions
(11:49):
about Baker Mayfield. Remember everybody went after Freddie Kitchens. They said, oh,
now you've got a new coach, things are gonna be
a lot better. You got two really good running backs
behind Baker Mayfield, Kareem hunt Uh and Nick Chubb. Shouldn't
be a lot of stress on him. Still got Odell
Beckham Jr. Jarvis Landry. This should be an offense that
can make plays. They can't. They just can't. And they
(12:11):
continued to not be able to make plays. And if
I am a Browns fan, Brown's now one twenty and
one in their last twenty two season openers. If I'm
a Browns fan, I'm looking around and saying, what in
the world is going on with our franchise. There was
so much optimism two years ago when Baker Mayfield made
his debut. All of last season there was nothing to
(12:34):
just to suggest that it was justified, and that continues
now speaking and not justified. How about Sam Donald and
the Jets. They are bad, They are downright bad. I
continue to believe that Josh Allen makes plays that are extraordinary,
but also makes plays that are extraordinarily bad. He still
plays too much like a rookie. The Redskins. What a
(12:54):
great story. How about what happened with Ron Rivera. The
guy goes in to get an ivy at halftime because
he's fighting cancer. His team comes back from a seventeen
to nothing deficit, takes down Carson Wins and the Eagles
who couldn't block for him. That is ominous. Indeed, Uh,
so many different stories we're gonna continue to get into,
(13:14):
but among them, as we run through the NFL Cardinals,
Kyler Murray on the road, I told you that I
thought the NFC West is the best division in football.
How good did Russell Wilson look? How good did Kyler
Murray look? Got an ability of Jared Goff to get
to win for the Rams in week one. How about
the Indianapolis Colts. I want to get into this a
(13:35):
little bit. They lost to the Jags. Their coach takes
a knee frank right. I'm gonna get into some of
the off the field related incidents a little bit later
in this program. Uh, so many different storylines to get
into as well as We're not gonna forget college football
with you, because there were a lot of interesting college
football games and there continues to be a lot of
drama surrounding what exactly is going to happen in the
(14:00):
Big Ten. I will discuss that this hour as well
and give you the absolute latest. This is outkicked the
coverage with Clay Travis. We have had a lot of
reactions going on all throughout this program. Appreciate Joel Klatt
joining me an hour to encourage you to go download
the podcast. Make sure you don't miss anything at all
(14:21):
if you're just waking up early with us. Right now.
We've been talking a lot about late night game last
night between the Cowboys and the Rams Sofi Stadium. How
incredible it looked, the fact that if you are Rams
or a Chargers fan, you might well owe your victory
to the fact that both teams had defensive backs who
flopped a little bit, and we're able to draw offensive
(14:43):
past interference penalties. We talked about Brady and Breeze, uh,
and certainly we talked about how good Cam looked with
the New England Patriots. A couple of other storylines that
I thought stood out. We'll get to those in a minute,
but first I want to tell you again the latest
that I am hearing about the Big Ten. Okay um,
we talked about this song with Joel Klatt an hour two. Uh.
(15:05):
The latest I am hearing about the Big Ten is
that the presidents and chancellors are going to allow a
return to play, that it is going to happen, and
that the goal is to start on October seventeen, which
would theoretically allow everyone to play eight or nine games
in the Big Ten schedule close out with a December nineteen.
(15:27):
The Big Ten title game the next day is December win. Theoretically,
the College Football Playoffs selections would be made if that
were to be able to be done. If that were
to be possible, then we would have an incredible turn
of events in the Big Ten and guests who would
(15:48):
have been the leader Nobody would have ever believed this.
I know has been an upside down year, But would
any of you out there who've been listening to out
kick for a while, if you were pinpointing who was
going to be the biggest voice for the Big Ten
actually taking place in the entire country, would any of
you have been like, Hey, you know who's gonna be
(16:10):
the biggest advocate for the Big Ten? Clay Travis. Nobody
would have ever predicted that. But I saw this story.
I knew Big Ten fans, players and coaches weren't being
treated fairly and that it made zero sends for everybody
to be shutting down. I've been in favor more more
so than anybody else. With a national platform for sports
(16:32):
to be taking place. There are tons of people out
there that maybe some of you follow on Twitter, maybe
some of you watch them on television, maybe some of
you listen to them. You know that there have been
a ton of people out there who I call corona brows,
meaning that they don't believe that anything is possible as
long as the coronavirus is out there, and so they
have been fully arguing that there's no way we can
(16:56):
play sports. Oh my god, it's terrifying. There's no way
kids can be back in school, there's no way colleges
can open up. I've been telling you that that is lunacy,
that the data doesn't reflect that that's true at all.
And it appears that the Big Ten is now circling
back around on the same arguments that I've been making
for the last five weeks, which were primarily that the
(17:17):
Big Tent had no reason to make a decision in
early August. The data continues to be such that the
coronavirus is now rapidly receding all over the country. Now,
I'm not gonna claim to be able to predict what
November is gonna look like or what December January are
gonna look like, certainly not in this year of all years.
But if you actually look at the data, we are
(17:41):
approaching the lowest number of patients for COVID nationwide since
this outbreak began in March. We are down at the
lowest level that we have been at almost since this
thing began in March in terms of number of patients
that are hospitalized with COVID right now, and that number
continues to decline precipitously. I hope it continues to decline
(18:05):
even more precipitously over the next month. Who knows for
sure what is going to happen, but it is beyond
a doubt that things look much better now in September
than they did back in early August when the Big
Ten made the decision to cancel the season. So what
I am being told is they are going to bring
back the season. They want to start by October seventeen,
(18:28):
play eight or nine conference games, close on December nineteen
with a Big Ten title game, and that they have
the votes to make that happen. And potentially it could
be either unanimous or close to unanimous to bring back
Big Ten sports in the fall. By the way, not
just football, all Big ten sports would theoretically be able
(18:51):
to if they can figure out the schedule, be able
to play again. I think you have to give a
lot of credit to the players, to the coaches, to
the errants, to the fans, to everybody out there in
the Big Ten who refused to accept the answer that
we can't play. Okay, some of you out there waking
up early because we have a big audience on the
West Coast, you're gonna be saying, what about the PAC
(19:12):
twelve I don't know exactly what the PAC twelve has
got going on, but I don't see anyway based on
the conversations that I have heard, I don't see any
way that the Pack twelve is gonna be able to
get into the playoff mix. So if they decide to
come back and play, they may be playing without any
chance at the playoff whatsoever. Now, some of you are
kind of laughing right now, and you're like, yeah, so
(19:33):
what changed it all? Most of the time, the PAC
twelve hasn't been in the playoff anyway. So that is
the latest so far as I am being told, based
on a lot of different private conversations that I have
had with people who would know about the absolute latest
in the Big Ten. Stay tuned to OutKick dot com
our website. We've been updating you better than any media
(19:54):
source has out there about the absolute latest with the
Big Ten. And I don't see any reason why that
is going to change going forward. So, uh, if you
heard Joel Klatt, he said an hour two of our program,
the Big Ten is playing. It's happening. Uh. Joel Clatt
pretty well informed as well. Uh. He calls all of
(20:15):
the biggest Big Ten games of the week. And so
that was Joel Klatt in hour to the Big ten
is playing It's happening. That was Joel breaking down everything
going on there. All right back to the NFL. Couple
of additional stories I want to hit on. I want
to talk a little bit. I know we got a
big audience in Indianapolis, and I think of all the
(20:39):
teams that played on Sunday, the most disappointing performance to
me had to be the Colts. Now, why would you
say some of your out there like, okay, why would
you say the most disappointing performance was the Colts, Clay
because of the expectation, expectation coming in with Philip Rivers
being signed and being the quarter back who was going
(21:00):
to be a difference maker, was that the Colts were
And this is this is not just my opinion, this
is the oddsmaker opinion. The Colts were favored to win
the a f C South and Philip Rivers came in
and he did basically what he did with the with
the Chargers last year. He threw the ball a lot,
(21:21):
He posted a decent number of yards, and he also
didn't protect the ball, and he threw a couple of
boud interceptions, and you got an injury unfortunately to your
running back in Marlon Mack. You've got otherwise a lot
of performances from guys who posted a decent number of
yards but weren't able to find a way to get
the victory. And what would be frustrating to me is
(21:44):
if you just look at the data on this game,
there's no way that the Colts should have lost. They
put up over two hundred more yards than the Jacksonville Jaguars.
They averaged substantially more yards her play. All right, they
had ten more first downs, but they still found a
(22:05):
way to win because they turned the ball over twice
and because they just went uh two for five on
their red zone opportunities. Now, Gardner Minshew wasn't revolutionary. He
wasn't like out of this world. I know there's a
lot of Menshew mania last year. But he was pretty good,
you know, like in the grand scheme of things, relative
(22:27):
to what we expected to see. Gardner Minshew only threw
the ball twenty times, but he had nineteen completions, three touchdowns.
He was insanely efficient. Even without Leonard four Net, the
Jags found a way to have a little bit of
a Russia attack. And this was a team that one
a game that a lot of you thought they had
(22:48):
no business winning. They were an eight point underdog. This
was now the game where the Colts were supposed to demonstrate, Hey,
we finally got a playmaker in Philip Rivers who can
lead us to a to the Promised Land. Uh. And
now you've got a really tough matchup if you're a
Colts fan. The Vikings didn't look very good at all
(23:09):
in Week one. They had a lot of high expectations there,
and now the Vikings get to go up against the Colts,
and one of these teams is gonna be O and two.
And it's tough to come out of an O and
two whole. It just is. The difference between being two
and O and O and two in the NFL is
far more substantial than you would anticipate in terms of
your likelihood to make the playoffs. So what exactly is
(23:32):
going on there now? That's on the field, off the field,
Frank Wright became the only NFL coach I believe I'm
correcting this. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I
think he was the only head coach to decide to
take a knee. Now, we got a lot of listeners
in Indianapolis. We're pretty popular all over the state of Indiana.
(23:55):
That is not something that is going to endear Frank
Wright to the entirety of the Colts fan base. Some
people are gonna say, hey, good for you, coach, I'm
glad that you decided to take a knee. A lot
more people, though, I think in particular in the state
of Indiana, are gonna say, wow, coach, you decided to
(24:15):
become the first NFL head coach to take a knee
for the national anthem. And then your team went out
and got whipped by arguably the worst team in the NFL,
A team that a lot of people believed, we're trying
to tank on the season so they could go draft
Trevor Lawrence. And certainly all the trades that they have made,
(24:38):
whether it's Jalen Jalen Ramsey, whether it's cutting Leonard four Nett,
whether it's whether it's their pass rush, the pass rusher
that they let go to Minnesota, this is a team
that felt like it was letting things go. They also
obviously let go with Nick Foles. They didn't feel like
a team that was built to try to win a
(25:00):
lot of games this year, and you lost a division
game in Week one. That's something that's gonna sting, and
that's gonna linger for the Colts. And now they really
are going up against the Vikings and what feels like
a must win game for both of those teams. The
other things that that stood out A couple of other
(25:21):
things that stood out in the NFL. How about the
DeAndre Swift drop touchdown pass the Lions collapse. I told
you the stat an hour one. I'm sorry to have
to belabor it Lion fans, but the Lions are just
the fourth team since two thousand six to blow a
seventeen plus point lead entering the fourth quarter. Teams had
(25:42):
been seven hundred and seventy nine and three. That's a
ninety nine point six win percentage in that time span,
and then boom, you end up with a loss like this.
That is pretty difficult to leave yourself with um and
so as you kind of make your way through this
(26:03):
and contemplate all of these different decisions, that is a
pretty difficult one to handle. And it just goes to
show that certain teams seem to have that culture of
losing like the Bears did. Like the Bengals did, Sorry,
like the Lions did, Like the Bengals did, where even
(26:23):
when you're in a position to win, you just can't
find a way to get it done. And frankly, that's
what's kind of become the case for the Cowboys. Cowboys
one and seven and one score games, just like we
saw happened to them again last night. They had an
opportunity and they allowed themselves to snag defeat from the
(26:44):
jaws of victory. All right, when we come back, I'm
gonna close out the show, give your reason for optimism,
but also go after one of the off the field
related things that I saw involving the Baltimore Ravens that
probably nobody else is going to talk about the way
they handled the Black National anthem, left every voice and
(27:06):
seeing and the way they handled the United States national anthem,
and I'm gonna go after him. Get your popcorn for that.
This is outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis. I said,
I want to talk about the Ravens and I'm hopeful.
(27:27):
Let me just say this right off the top. I
love football season. I like being able to sit down
with you guys every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
whatever it is during football season. I even said to
Dub and he knows this, Like I thought it was
awesome when I sat down and we started talking about
what happened in the Ram in the Rams Cowboys games,
(27:48):
I said, you know what, I'm excited to have a
questionable play call to debate again, like just being able
to have everybody watching the same game and have everybody
have an opinion like, hey, what that was a really
bad call for the Cowboys. Or if you're the Rams,
you're like, what are you talking about? That was clearly
pass interference, Or even if you're the Bengals and the Chargers,
(28:12):
that game came down to pass interference. You had some
questionable pass interference calls in uh the in the game
between the Bucks and the Saints. I think it's good
for us to have arguments about reficiating calls again, because
there's a long time in March and April and May
and in June, we don't have anything to talk about.
(28:33):
We couldn't even get upset about an officiating air because
there were no games going on. So it's hard for
me to get too worked up about the outcomes right
now because I'm so excited just to be able to
watch sports again and understand the luxury that we all
have from being able to get upset about the call
that an official makes. All Right, Having said all of that,
(28:56):
I hope and believe that all of the protest in
the NFL, the kneeling, uh, the the the all of
the different aspect of the kneeling national anthems and everything else,
that story is basically gonna die. I hope that that
is true. So why do you think that that's true, Clay?
Because my understanding is CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN they
(29:23):
don't want any part of it. Last time we had
a kneeling controversy, all these businesses lost hundreds of millions
of dollars in revenue because people turn their televisions off
the NFL Thursday night football game. Millions less people watched
than watched the past few years. I don't know what
(29:46):
the numbers are gonna reflect from Sunday NFL action, but
I know that NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN they don't
want to be covering anthem controversies all season long. They
want games to happen, and they want people to be
entertained and They want us sitting around arguing about whether
(30:08):
or not offensive or defensive pass interference should or should
not have been called, because that's good for their business.
People sitting around arguing about what's happening during the national anthem,
it ain't good for their business. It might be good
for Twitter, it might be good for social media business, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
(30:30):
wherever you guys spend Twitter all your time, but it
ain't good for the NFL business. And here is what
I have to say about the protests in general. I
think it's gonna die and go away because I think
a lot of people have recognized that this is mostly
a show and that it isn't really having any impact.
(30:52):
But I gotta go after the Baltimore Ravens and several
of their players, the majority of the team. What have
we heard over and over again. It's disresp It's not disrespectful,
that's what people say. It's not disrespectful to kneel for
the national anthem. That's what all the Colin Kaepernick stands.
Come out and tell us. If that's true. Why did
(31:15):
the Baltimore Ravens stand for lift every voice and sing
the so called black national anthem only two players kneeled
on the entire Baltimore Ravens team, Yet a huge percentage
of Baltimore raven players kneeled for the American national anthem. Okay,
(31:40):
if it's not disrespectful, why wouldn't you do the same
thing during both anthems? If you're going to stand for
lift every voice and sing, why wouldn't you also stand
for the national anthem itself? And if you're gonna kneel
(32:00):
for one, why wouldn't you kneel for the other? Your
logic here should be the same for both. You can't
stand for one and kneel for the other one without,
to me checkmating yourself and making it clear that your
intent is to disrespect one compared to the other if
(32:21):
it's respectful to kneel. I can't find a single person
who can make a compelling argument to me for why
kneeling for the national anthem is not disrespectful when you're
standing for the black national anthem. Incredibly, this to me
seems like a clear indication of sports disuniting us instead
(32:48):
of uniting us, and of sports being divisive instead of
it being something that is of a unifying nature. And
since so many people are listening to us right now
on the West Coast. I want to ask you this question.
I saw a videos very disturbing over the weekend to
Los Angeles Police department employees were shot, ambushed, not involved
(33:15):
in any kind of uh, any kind of physical alteration,
altercation in any way. A man in Compton just walked
right up and shot those two l A police officers.
Do you know what I've seen from leagues, from players,
from all these people who claim that they care about
(33:36):
life and justice, not one word nobody is talking about
those two police officers who got shot. Nobody in the
world of athletics is calling out the shooter or demanding
justice for those police officers. What I would argue to
(33:58):
them is that certainly hypocritical of you. And also I
want you to think about this. Are you looking at
the data since you started your protest. Shootings are up massively,
murders are up massively, People who are innocent are being
killed in a regular basis in our cities, and police
officers who are doing absolutely nothing wrong at all are
(34:21):
getting shot as well. I think there's a strong argument
that athletes are actually making things more dangerous for police
and for the people that police try to protect their
creating more animous, more discord, more distrust, which is creating
more dangerous situations. Think about what your actions are actually managing,
(34:46):
and also think about the consistency of your messaging when
none of you are speaking out about these two police
officers that just got shot, and when some of you
are standing for one anthem and kneeling for another. Clay Travis,
this has been OutKick will be back rolling with you
tomorrow on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
(35:06):
editions of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at
six am Eastern three am Pacific
I'll Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis live every weekday
morning from six to nine a m. E Stern three
to six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your
local station for Outkicked the coverage at Fox Sports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every morning on the
i Heart Radio app by searching fs are you're listening
(00:22):
to Fox Sports Radio. Cowboy fans, I'm sorry you got screwed.
I said it at the top of our one. You
got screwed on the past interference call. But if you
take away that call late, which might have gotten you
into overtime, it might have given you a shot, take
another pass into the end zone if you take away
(00:44):
that play. The bigger issue I think that is out
there for Cowboy fans is you're the same team you
were last year. Last year the Dallas Cowboys couldn't win
a close game. They were one in six in one
score games. You saw Jerry Jones kind of pumping his fist.
Now's the time. You got the ball back. You got
(01:06):
to stop. You got the ball back with two and
a half minutes to go and one time out. All
you needed to do was get a field goal, get
into extra time, into overtime, and for almost every play
on that final two and a half minutes, the Rams one.
The Rams defensive line, you couldn't block them. They were
(01:29):
getting a lot of pressure on Dak Prescott. Credit to
Dak for making a good throw to Michael Gallup on
one play. But if you go back and you score
those plays for an offense or a defense, almost every
single one was one by the Rams. Now, I think
Jalen Ramsey got the benefit of the doubt on that call.
(01:51):
I think being the highest paid cornerback in the history
of the league gets you those calls. That was a
superstar call. I think he sold it a little bit.
Saw the same kind of cell going on with Honestly,
the Chargers you're waking up this morning in l A.
Both of the l A football teams won their games
(02:13):
because their corners sold an offensive pass interference call. And
I'm not sure. I'm pretty confident that Michael gallop l
was garbage. I'm not even sold on the idea that A. J.
Green's pass interference was pass interference either. If you didn't
see the end of the Bengals Chargers game, Joe Burrow
drove his team down the field, hits a J. Green
(02:36):
who's created space puts the ball exactly where it needs
to be. But did a J. Green push off or
was that a little bit of a flop? Are we
starting to see flopping everywhere in sports? Remember back in
the day, they used to make fun of Euro basketball
players for how much they flopped, in Euro soccer players
for how much they flopped. And now everybody and pretty
much every sport flops all the time. Everybody's at the
(03:00):
it or major used to be like, oh, nobody's gonna
take a dive like they do in soccer. Now you
see it happening everywhere now. He even got football players
taking dives. Ref even took a little bit of a dived.
You see the helmet of the chest. He can't touch
the ref. That was a bad decision. But in the
in the Bears and the Lions game, the helmet to
(03:22):
the chest, that was a questionable decision. He was trying
to demonstrate what had happened to him and he put
his helmet into the chest of the official and he
immediately got kicked out because you're not allowed to make
contact with an official. But the officials sold it a
little bit. Everybody exaggerates contact everybody's James Harden and the
paint now, And I thought that both of those calls,
(03:45):
you just don't see offensive pass interference called a lot
and usually it has to be pretty egregious. And I
gotta be honest with you, I thought, when Michael Gallup
got hit, I said, you know what, maybe this is
a new Cowboy team. And then boom, right back to
where the Cowboys have been in the past. So I'm
disappointed if I'm waking up this morning and I'm a
cowboy because I thought, hey, we're the same team that
(04:07):
we already were. You know who look different? Cam Newton.
I think there are a lot of different storylines that
you can dive into, but to me, to me, Cam
looked like already a different player. And this is why
you just heard us talking about at the end of
our two. This is why Bill Belichick's investment in Cam
(04:30):
Newton was so brilliant. If Cam doesn't work out, and
already he's got one win. And by the way, I
didn't think the Patriots looked good, look that good. I
watched most of that game. But Cam's already got one win,
all right. If by chance Cam isn't that great, let's
say he can't keep up the fifteen carries, he can't
score two rushing touchdowns a game. He's not gonna be
(04:53):
able to run the ball as frequently or as healthily
as he did in his first week. What are the
Patriot It's care if Cam can't be a playmaker all year?
They go to Jared Stidham and they say, okay, Jared'stidham
or you are guy. And if the answer is no,
they go back into the draft. They had a bunch
of dudes who start for them normally decided not to
play this year. If all of that falls apart, for
(05:16):
Bill Belichick, he says, you know what, I spent a
million dollars on Cam Newton. Didn't work out, there's an
investment worth making. But the reason right now why I
think it could make a lot of sense is because
Cam it doesn't have a million dollars at stake. This
is why Belichick is such a genius. The New England
Patriots have one million dollars at stake with Cam Newton.
(05:40):
If it doesn't work out in the grand scheme of things,
that is nothing. Cam Newton's got seventy five or a
hundred million dollars at stake. Why do I say that, Well,
because if Cam plays like he played today and continues
to get better fifteen and nineteen passing, able to manage
the offense, able to look as exp Wilson and dynamic
(06:01):
and healthy as he did, he's gonna make another seventy
five or a hundred billion dollars. Somebody is gonna sign
Cam Newton too a contract to be their starting quarterback.
It might be the New England Patriots. Somebody will say
this guy is worth twenty or twenty five million at
a minimum, and they will bring him in to be
their guy. Who'll get seventy five or a hundred million
dollars more because he's still not that old by quarterback
(06:24):
age standards. If it doesn't work out for him, the
Patriots go to Jared Stidham, they find out if he's
the guy, or they're back in the draft. They wasted
a million dollars. Cam Newton's careers mostly over because he's
not gonna be a guy who stands on the sideline
and holds the clipboard. He wanted to be an icon.
Cam did, and if you win with the New England
Patriots and Bill Belichick, you aren't at icon So we
(06:46):
have one team, the Dallas Cowboys, with a star quarterback
in Dak Prescott, who looked pretty much the same as
they did last year. Couldn't close the deal, couldn't make plays,
weren't able to win at winning time. And then you
have Cam Newton, who only played two games last year,
didn't look very good at all. The two games that
he played looked like a totally different player. That's coaching
to a large extent. The Patriots are able to get
(07:09):
the best out of every Patriots player, supremely talented or not.
And then they cut the cord and let you go.
Tom Brady speaking to cut the cord. Tom Brady and
Bill Belichick are going to be looking at each other
all season long like somebody who gets divorced looks at
somebody else. Both of them are trying to prove that
(07:33):
they were the reason for the Patriot dynasty. Week one,
Who do you have to give the award to? If
you have to give an oscar for lifetime achievement with
the New England Patriots, Everybody out there saying, we're calling
Bill Belichick's name. He found a way to get to
win with Cam Newton, with his new surrounding teammates. Meanwhile,
(07:54):
Tom Brady went down to Tampa Bay and his team
wasn't ready for the big in the big game against
the New England Patriots. Patriots, uh sorry, against the New
Orleans Saints. Now, remember the Saints have been together for years.
Alvin Kamar has been there working with that team. Taysom Hill,
the Swiss Army Knife of offensive weaponry, Michael Thomas, best
(08:19):
receiver in the league, Drew Brees been working with those
guys for years. They have all their wrink goals, they
have all their timing, they have everything ironed out and
ready to go. Brady's got a lot of weapons. Mike
Evans sore hamstring, made a play, a couple of plays,
Chris Godwin, O J. Howard, Cameron Braid, Rob Gronkowski, Leonard
(08:40):
four Nette, all of these guys, Ronald Jones coming together
and going to make plays. Eventually, that's an explosive cadre
of talent surrounding Tom Brady. But they're not ready to
do it yet. This offense didn't come out and make
a ton of great plays, and so when you actually
(09:00):
go look at the numbers, Brady wasn't ready yet. Through
the ball thirty six times two picks. Both those picks
not very good. It wasn't like it was a tip ball,
and it wasn't his fault. Both of those were on him. Uh.
Just not a lot of dynamicism from that offense yet,
despite the fact that you have a lot of dynamic playmakers,
(09:22):
and so when you actually look at everything, Michael Evans
clearly not he's going to be I think Mike Evans
is really really good with Brady when his hamstring gets better.
But he had the one catch for a touchdown down
near the goal line. Otherwise he was not much of
a threat godwin when you can't take when you can't
let Mike Evans be the speed demon, he's not allowed
(09:43):
to stretch the field. That changes everything. Hopefully that hamstring
will not linger for a long time with him, But
without any preseason games, without any ability to play together,
it's not really a surprise when you really dive into
it the way that they actually perform. So to me,
as I am, you know, sort of sitting around assessing
(10:04):
the three biggest storylines coming out of Week one, Cowboys
look like the same team by the way, good physical
Rams looked like a different team down the stretch, they
started to play more tight end sets. They're they're bullying,
playing a little bit more bully ball. I would say,
prior to that, with Sean McVeigh sort of had the
(10:24):
reputation of being a finesse guy. You didn't get that
sense last night. I felt like the Rams kind of
bullied the Cowboys around on the line of scrimmage at times.
Brady not ready for a final exam yet early exam
Drew Brees and the Saints win that battle, and the
Patriots going up against the Dolphins look like they are
(10:44):
ready to make big time plays. A couple of other
big storylines that to me stood out in uh the
NFL universe. Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers continue to make
throws that nobody else can make. I mean, both of
these guys were scintillating, continue to be extraordinary at just
placing the football where other people can't do it. Every
(11:06):
game they make a thrower to where your jaw just
kind of drops and you say, man, there just aren't
very many guys with the talent to make throws that
these guys can from the quarterback position. Lamar Jackson, there
was a suggestion some people were like, Hey, disappointing postseason again.
Maybe Lamar Jackson's gonna come back team teams will have
(11:28):
caught up with him. If that's gonna happen. It certainly
didn't happen with the Cleveland Browns, who were flat out atrocious.
Drew Drew Brees long term success story. Baker Mayfield needs
to think of himself as Drew Brees instead. He's running around,
He's not reading the field. Well. I have legitimate questions
(11:49):
about Baker Mayfield. Remember everybody went after Freddie Kitchens. They said, oh,
now you've got a new coach, things are gonna be
a lot better. You got two really good running backs
behind Baker Mayfield, Kareem hunt Uh and Nick Chubb. Shouldn't
be a lot of stress on him. Still got Odell
Beckham Jr. Jarvis Landry. This should be an offense that
can make plays. They can't. They just can't. And they
(12:11):
continued to not be able to make plays. And if
I am a Browns fan, Brown's now one twenty and
one in their last twenty two season openers. If I'm
a Browns fan, I'm looking around and saying, what in
the world is going on with our franchise. There was
so much optimism two years ago when Baker Mayfield made
his debut. All of last season there was nothing to
(12:34):
just to suggest that it was justified, and that continues
now speaking and not justified. How about Sam Donald and
the Jets. They are bad, They are downright bad. I
continue to believe that Josh Allen makes plays that are extraordinary,
but also makes plays that are extraordinarily bad. He still
plays too much like a rookie. The Redskins. What a
(12:54):
great story. How about what happened with Ron Rivera. The
guy goes in to get an ivy at halftime because
he's fighting cancer. His team comes back from a seventeen
to nothing deficit, takes down Carson Wins and the Eagles
who couldn't block for him. That is ominous. Indeed, Uh,
so many different stories we're gonna continue to get into,
(13:14):
but among them, as we run through the NFL Cardinals,
Kyler Murray on the road, I told you that I
thought the NFC West is the best division in football.
How good did Russell Wilson look? How good did Kyler
Murray look? Got an ability of Jared Goff to get
to win for the Rams in week one. How about
the Indianapolis Colts. I want to get into this a
(13:35):
little bit. They lost to the Jags. Their coach takes
a knee frank right. I'm gonna get into some of
the off the field related incidents a little bit later
in this program. Uh, so many different storylines to get
into as well as We're not gonna forget college football
with you, because there were a lot of interesting college
football games and there continues to be a lot of
drama surrounding what exactly is going to happen in the
(14:00):
Big Ten. I will discuss that this hour as well
and give you the absolute latest. This is outkicked the
coverage with Clay Travis. We have had a lot of
reactions going on all throughout this program. Appreciate Joel Klatt
joining me an hour to encourage you to go download
the podcast. Make sure you don't miss anything at all
(14:21):
if you're just waking up early with us. Right now.
We've been talking a lot about late night game last
night between the Cowboys and the Rams Sofi Stadium. How
incredible it looked, the fact that if you are Rams
or a Chargers fan, you might well owe your victory
to the fact that both teams had defensive backs who
flopped a little bit, and we're able to draw offensive
(14:43):
past interference penalties. We talked about Brady and Breeze, uh,
and certainly we talked about how good Cam looked with
the New England Patriots. A couple of other storylines that
I thought stood out. We'll get to those in a minute,
but first I want to tell you again the latest
that I am hearing about the Big Ten. Okay um,
we talked about this song with Joel Klatt an hour two. Uh.
(15:05):
The latest I am hearing about the Big Ten is
that the presidents and chancellors are going to allow a
return to play, that it is going to happen, and
that the goal is to start on October seventeen, which
would theoretically allow everyone to play eight or nine games
in the Big Ten schedule close out with a December nineteen.
(15:27):
The Big Ten title game the next day is December win. Theoretically,
the College Football Playoffs selections would be made if that
were to be able to be done. If that were
to be possible, then we would have an incredible turn
of events in the Big Ten and guests who would
(15:48):
have been the leader Nobody would have ever believed this.
I know has been an upside down year, But would
any of you out there who've been listening to out
kick for a while, if you were pinpointing who was
going to be the biggest voice for the Big Ten
actually taking place in the entire country, would any of
you have been like, Hey, you know who's gonna be
(16:10):
the biggest advocate for the Big Ten? Clay Travis. Nobody
would have ever predicted that. But I saw this story.
I knew Big Ten fans, players and coaches weren't being
treated fairly and that it made zero sends for everybody
to be shutting down. I've been in favor more more
so than anybody else. With a national platform for sports
(16:32):
to be taking place. There are tons of people out
there that maybe some of you follow on Twitter, maybe
some of you watch them on television, maybe some of
you listen to them. You know that there have been
a ton of people out there who I call corona brows,
meaning that they don't believe that anything is possible as
long as the coronavirus is out there, and so they
have been fully arguing that there's no way we can
(16:56):
play sports. Oh my god, it's terrifying. There's no way
kids can be back in school, there's no way colleges
can open up. I've been telling you that that is lunacy,
that the data doesn't reflect that that's true at all.
And it appears that the Big Ten is now circling
back around on the same arguments that I've been making
for the last five weeks, which were primarily that the
(17:17):
Big Tent had no reason to make a decision in
early August. The data continues to be such that the
coronavirus is now rapidly receding all over the country. Now,
I'm not gonna claim to be able to predict what
November is gonna look like or what December January are
gonna look like, certainly not in this year of all years.
But if you actually look at the data, we are
(17:41):
approaching the lowest number of patients for COVID nationwide since
this outbreak began in March. We are down at the
lowest level that we have been at almost since this
thing began in March in terms of number of patients
that are hospitalized with COVID right now, and that number
continues to decline precipitously. I hope it continues to decline
(18:05):
even more precipitously over the next month. Who knows for
sure what is going to happen, but it is beyond
a doubt that things look much better now in September
than they did back in early August when the Big
Ten made the decision to cancel the season. So what
I am being told is they are going to bring
back the season. They want to start by October seventeen,
(18:28):
play eight or nine conference games, close on December nineteen
with a Big Ten title game, and that they have
the votes to make that happen. And potentially it could
be either unanimous or close to unanimous to bring back
Big Ten sports in the fall. By the way, not
just football, all Big ten sports would theoretically be able
(18:51):
to if they can figure out the schedule, be able
to play again. I think you have to give a
lot of credit to the players, to the coaches, to
the errants, to the fans, to everybody out there in
the Big Ten who refused to accept the answer that
we can't play. Okay, some of you out there waking
up early because we have a big audience on the
West Coast, you're gonna be saying, what about the PAC
(19:12):
twelve I don't know exactly what the PAC twelve has
got going on, but I don't see anyway based on
the conversations that I have heard, I don't see any
way that the Pack twelve is gonna be able to
get into the playoff mix. So if they decide to
come back and play, they may be playing without any
chance at the playoff whatsoever. Now, some of you are
kind of laughing right now, and you're like, yeah, so
(19:33):
what changed it all? Most of the time, the PAC
twelve hasn't been in the playoff anyway. So that is
the latest so far as I am being told, based
on a lot of different private conversations that I have
had with people who would know about the absolute latest
in the Big Ten. Stay tuned to OutKick dot com
our website. We've been updating you better than any media
(19:54):
source has out there about the absolute latest with the
Big Ten. And I don't see any reason why that
is going to change going forward. So, uh, if you
heard Joel Klatt, he said an hour two of our program,
the Big Ten is playing. It's happening. Uh. Joel Clatt
pretty well informed as well. Uh. He calls all of
(20:15):
the biggest Big Ten games of the week. And so
that was Joel Klatt in hour to the Big ten
is playing It's happening. That was Joel breaking down everything
going on there. All right back to the NFL. Couple
of additional stories I want to hit on. I want
to talk a little bit. I know we got a
big audience in Indianapolis, and I think of all the
(20:39):
teams that played on Sunday, the most disappointing performance to
me had to be the Colts. Now, why would you
say some of your out there like, okay, why would
you say the most disappointing performance was the Colts, Clay
because of the expectation, expectation coming in with Philip Rivers
being signed and being the quarter back who was going
(21:00):
to be a difference maker, was that the Colts were
And this is this is not just my opinion, this
is the oddsmaker opinion. The Colts were favored to win
the a f C South and Philip Rivers came in
and he did basically what he did with the with
the Chargers last year. He threw the ball a lot,
(21:21):
He posted a decent number of yards, and he also
didn't protect the ball, and he threw a couple of
boud interceptions, and you got an injury unfortunately to your
running back in Marlon Mack. You've got otherwise a lot
of performances from guys who posted a decent number of
yards but weren't able to find a way to get
the victory. And what would be frustrating to me is
(21:44):
if you just look at the data on this game,
there's no way that the Colts should have lost. They
put up over two hundred more yards than the Jacksonville Jaguars.
They averaged substantially more yards her play. All right, they
had ten more first downs, but they still found a
(22:05):
way to win because they turned the ball over twice
and because they just went uh two for five on
their red zone opportunities. Now, Gardner Minshew wasn't revolutionary. He
wasn't like out of this world. I know there's a
lot of Menshew mania last year. But he was pretty good,
you know, like in the grand scheme of things, relative
(22:27):
to what we expected to see. Gardner Minshew only threw
the ball twenty times, but he had nineteen completions, three touchdowns.
He was insanely efficient. Even without Leonard four Net, the
Jags found a way to have a little bit of
a Russia attack. And this was a team that one
a game that a lot of you thought they had
(22:48):
no business winning. They were an eight point underdog. This
was now the game where the Colts were supposed to demonstrate, Hey,
we finally got a playmaker in Philip Rivers who can
lead us to a to the Promised Land. Uh. And
now you've got a really tough matchup if you're a
Colts fan. The Vikings didn't look very good at all
(23:09):
in Week one. They had a lot of high expectations there,
and now the Vikings get to go up against the Colts,
and one of these teams is gonna be O and two.
And it's tough to come out of an O and
two whole. It just is. The difference between being two
and O and O and two in the NFL is
far more substantial than you would anticipate in terms of
your likelihood to make the playoffs. So what exactly is
(23:32):
going on there now? That's on the field, off the field,
Frank Wright became the only NFL coach I believe I'm
correcting this. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I
think he was the only head coach to decide to
take a knee. Now, we got a lot of listeners
in Indianapolis. We're pretty popular all over the state of Indiana.
(23:55):
That is not something that is going to endear Frank
Wright to the entirety of the Colts fan base. Some
people are gonna say, hey, good for you, coach, I'm
glad that you decided to take a knee. A lot
more people, though, I think in particular in the state
of Indiana, are gonna say, wow, coach, you decided to
(24:15):
become the first NFL head coach to take a knee
for the national anthem. And then your team went out
and got whipped by arguably the worst team in the NFL,
A team that a lot of people believed, we're trying
to tank on the season so they could go draft
Trevor Lawrence. And certainly all the trades that they have made,
(24:38):
whether it's Jalen Jalen Ramsey, whether it's cutting Leonard four Nett,
whether it's whether it's their pass rush, the pass rusher
that they let go to Minnesota, this is a team
that felt like it was letting things go. They also
obviously let go with Nick Foles. They didn't feel like
a team that was built to try to win a
(25:00):
lot of games this year, and you lost a division
game in Week one. That's something that's gonna sting, and
that's gonna linger for the Colts. And now they really
are going up against the Vikings and what feels like
a must win game for both of those teams. The
other things that that stood out A couple of other
(25:21):
things that stood out in the NFL. How about the
DeAndre Swift drop touchdown pass the Lions collapse. I told
you the stat an hour one. I'm sorry to have
to belabor it Lion fans, but the Lions are just
the fourth team since two thousand six to blow a
seventeen plus point lead entering the fourth quarter. Teams had
(25:42):
been seven hundred and seventy nine and three. That's a
ninety nine point six win percentage in that time span,
and then boom, you end up with a loss like this.
That is pretty difficult to leave yourself with um and
so as you kind of make your way through this
(26:03):
and contemplate all of these different decisions, that is a
pretty difficult one to handle. And it just goes to
show that certain teams seem to have that culture of
losing like the Bears did. Like the Bengals did, Sorry,
like the Lions did, Like the Bengals did, where even
(26:23):
when you're in a position to win, you just can't
find a way to get it done. And frankly, that's
what's kind of become the case for the Cowboys. Cowboys
one and seven and one score games, just like we
saw happened to them again last night. They had an
opportunity and they allowed themselves to snag defeat from the
(26:44):
jaws of victory. All right, when we come back, I'm
gonna close out the show, give your reason for optimism,
but also go after one of the off the field
related things that I saw involving the Baltimore Ravens that
probably nobody else is going to talk about the way
they handled the Black National anthem, left every voice and
(27:06):
seeing and the way they handled the United States national anthem,
and I'm gonna go after him. Get your popcorn for that.
This is outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis. I said,
I want to talk about the Ravens and I'm hopeful.
(27:27):
Let me just say this right off the top. I
love football season. I like being able to sit down
with you guys every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
whatever it is during football season. I even said to
Dub and he knows this, Like I thought it was
awesome when I sat down and we started talking about
what happened in the Ram in the Rams Cowboys games,
(27:48):
I said, you know what, I'm excited to have a
questionable play call to debate again, like just being able
to have everybody watching the same game and have everybody
have an opinion like, hey, what that was a really
bad call for the Cowboys. Or if you're the Rams,
you're like, what are you talking about? That was clearly
pass interference, Or even if you're the Bengals and the Chargers,
(28:12):
that game came down to pass interference. You had some
questionable pass interference calls in uh the in the game
between the Bucks and the Saints. I think it's good
for us to have arguments about reficiating calls again, because
there's a long time in March and April and May
and in June, we don't have anything to talk about.
(28:33):
We couldn't even get upset about an officiating air because
there were no games going on. So it's hard for
me to get too worked up about the outcomes right
now because I'm so excited just to be able to
watch sports again and understand the luxury that we all
have from being able to get upset about the call
that an official makes. All Right, Having said all of that,
(28:56):
I hope and believe that all of the protest in
the NFL, the kneeling, uh, the the the all of
the different aspect of the kneeling national anthems and everything else,
that story is basically gonna die. I hope that that
is true. So why do you think that that's true, Clay?
Because my understanding is CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN they
(29:23):
don't want any part of it. Last time we had
a kneeling controversy, all these businesses lost hundreds of millions
of dollars in revenue because people turn their televisions off
the NFL Thursday night football game. Millions less people watched
than watched the past few years. I don't know what
(29:46):
the numbers are gonna reflect from Sunday NFL action, but
I know that NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN they don't
want to be covering anthem controversies all season long. They
want games to happen, and they want people to be
entertained and They want us sitting around arguing about whether
(30:08):
or not offensive or defensive pass interference should or should
not have been called, because that's good for their business.
People sitting around arguing about what's happening during the national anthem,
it ain't good for their business. It might be good
for Twitter, it might be good for social media business, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
(30:30):
wherever you guys spend Twitter all your time, but it
ain't good for the NFL business. And here is what
I have to say about the protests in general. I
think it's gonna die and go away because I think
a lot of people have recognized that this is mostly
a show and that it isn't really having any impact.
(30:52):
But I gotta go after the Baltimore Ravens and several
of their players, the majority of the team. What have
we heard over and over again. It's disresp It's not disrespectful,
that's what people say. It's not disrespectful to kneel for
the national anthem. That's what all the Colin Kaepernick stands.
Come out and tell us. If that's true. Why did
(31:15):
the Baltimore Ravens stand for lift every voice and sing
the so called black national anthem only two players kneeled
on the entire Baltimore Ravens team, Yet a huge percentage
of Baltimore raven players kneeled for the American national anthem. Okay,
(31:40):
if it's not disrespectful, why wouldn't you do the same
thing during both anthems? If you're going to stand for
lift every voice and sing, why wouldn't you also stand
for the national anthem itself? And if you're gonna kneel
(32:00):
for one, why wouldn't you kneel for the other? Your
logic here should be the same for both. You can't
stand for one and kneel for the other one without,
to me checkmating yourself and making it clear that your
intent is to disrespect one compared to the other if
(32:21):
it's respectful to kneel. I can't find a single person
who can make a compelling argument to me for why
kneeling for the national anthem is not disrespectful when you're
standing for the black national anthem. Incredibly, this to me
seems like a clear indication of sports disuniting us instead
(32:48):
of uniting us, and of sports being divisive instead of
it being something that is of a unifying nature. And
since so many people are listening to us right now
on the West Coast. I want to ask you this question.
I saw a videos very disturbing over the weekend to
Los Angeles Police department employees were shot, ambushed, not involved
(33:15):
in any kind of uh, any kind of physical alteration,
altercation in any way. A man in Compton just walked
right up and shot those two l A police officers.
Do you know what I've seen from leagues, from players,
from all these people who claim that they care about
(33:36):
life and justice, not one word nobody is talking about
those two police officers who got shot. Nobody in the
world of athletics is calling out the shooter or demanding
justice for those police officers. What I would argue to
(33:58):
them is that certainly hypocritical of you. And also I
want you to think about this. Are you looking at
the data since you started your protest. Shootings are up massively,
murders are up massively, People who are innocent are being
killed in a regular basis in our cities, and police
officers who are doing absolutely nothing wrong at all are
(34:21):
getting shot as well. I think there's a strong argument
that athletes are actually making things more dangerous for police
and for the people that police try to protect their
creating more animous, more discord, more distrust, which is creating
more dangerous situations. Think about what your actions are actually managing,
(34:46):
and also think about the consistency of your messaging when
none of you are speaking out about these two police
officers that just got shot, and when some of you
are standing for one anthem and kneeling for another. Clay Travis,
this has been OutKick will be back rolling with you
tomorrow on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
(35:06):
editions of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at
six am Eastern three am Pacific
Hosts And Creators
Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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