February 11, 2019 • 49 mins
Clay Travis has a lot of opinions about the new AAF experiment and explains how it could not only help the NFL but college programs. Clay has more audio where Stephen A. whiffs on something most fans know, and Clay has questions. Plus, will a loss to the Sixers heal Clay’s broken heart from his lost Celtics bet last week? It’s a LA-Bron report!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of OutKick the Coverage podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning from
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by searching f s R. This is the best of
OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio.
(00:27):
Did any of you watch the A A F. Danny G.
Did you watch? No? And I'm upset that I didn't.
Had I known what time it started, I would have watched.
So for whatever reason, I don't think it was advertised
very well. I agree with you. I think there were
a lot of people out there that are hearing this
right now. And again that's why I think it's so
intriguing that it beat the NBA head to head CBS
(00:50):
versus ABC, because I think there were a lot of
people out there that didn't know about it at all. Uh,
Eddie Garcia, did you watch? I did watch the first
half of the San Antonio Commanders San Diego Fleet game,
which sounds funny to say. I know all these different teams,
but what did you think of the quality of play?
I thought it was pretty mediocre. Mediocre meaning like, see,
(01:11):
here's my thing. In general. I have thought for a
long time that if you took Triple A baseball players
and you put them in Major League baseball uniforms, that
people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that
and Major League Baseball. In other words, that overall quality
of play would not be significantly different enough. One of
the reasons why we think players are really good is
(01:34):
because we're used to seeing those players and we know
their names. Did you know any of the players that
were on the field? I recognized the name of the
quarterback for San Diego, Mike Bergovici from state back in
the day. Yes, I did not. I had no clue
what the other quarterback was for San Antonio. Never heard
of before. Yeah, all right, what about you tub Did
you watch any of this? I absolutely did watch my
(01:57):
San Antonio Commanders take care of business against the San
Diego Fleet. Were you planning to watch it or did
you see it on social media and just flip over
and end up watching. I saw it earlier on in
the day, so then I planned it from there. So
in the morning I saw it, and so I made
some plans and arrangements to be able to watch it.
Now that game was on what Sunday, That was Saturday
(02:18):
Saturday Night. Which the game that was on Saturday night
that was the primetime game on CBS was the Spurrier game,
right Orlando against whoever it was. I believe they're playing Atlanta. Yeah, yeah,
Orlando Atlanta. I think that was the game that I
was see. I went back and watched all the highlights
and so I've got all the games like crossed over
now in my head. What about you, uh, Samson Ferberto,
(02:40):
I was slad. Did you watch any of this? I
did not, Um, But you were you aware it was
going on? Yes? Yes, Um? But I work overnights on
the weekends, so I was snoozing at that point. But
I think that it beat the NBA in ratings because
things that are novel just tend to garner more eyes.
I think that we'll see the ratings go down, especially
(03:02):
when you see a lot of these like forty two
six scores and then you get like a fifteen to thirteen.
They need scores four, you need close games. But I
get I also get that the uh the league is
just getting started, and these guys are getting a field
for it. So yeah, I appreciate that. I actually think
the numbers could go up next week because I think
there are a lot Yeah, I think there are a
(03:22):
ton of people out there that are listening to us
right now that had no idea this league was starting,
that had no idea was on, and they just kind
of caught it. Maybe you saw it. It was trending
on social media. Maybe you were just flipping around and
like I know, for instance, that when I got home,
So I was down in Florida this weekend. When I
got home on Sunday night, my oldest was like, oh,
(03:45):
I'd like to watch that and see, you know what
this football league looks like? And something simple like you know,
I went into Comcast and I put on you know
how you can if you have Comcast, you can hit
the C button and it will show you all the
sporting events that are going going on. Like it wasn't
in the sport It wasn't in that window. Right, There's
no tab for the A, A F so that I
(04:07):
could see if there were games going on Saturday or Sunday.
You had to know this game was going on. You
had to seek it out, and I think simple things
like that I was talking earlier about. I went in
because I was curious what the scores were and kind
of what the stats look like. And the ESPN's app
doesn't have a tab to allow me to watch the
A A F or to even see what the highlights are.
(04:30):
Those are things that need to get reconciled. I'm curious
what everybody else is saying out there. Let me start
taking some of your calls. Let me start with skip
in l A Skip, what's up? Excellent? How are you idiot?
Thank you? Yeah, I just have a quick question. They
should or comment they should make it more like baseball
and like have a minor league system and have so
(04:52):
young backup quarters at facts that they draft having play
in that league, because obviously the NFL has something to
do with if they're showing on their network. Yeah, look,
I think thanks for I don't think that's a bad
idea where you have an affiliation with an NFL team, um,
and if you have guys who are on your practice
squad or guys who maybe didn't quite make your team,
(05:13):
or that you just want to season almost in the
same way they did back in the day. With the
I think it was the World League of American Football
right the games they played in Europe. UM. I don't
think that's a bad idea at all. I think that
could definitely make sense and it would give people rooting interest.
Um Steve in Ohio? What's up, Steve? Hello, Yes, Thanky,
(05:33):
how are you good morning? Yeah? Doing well? What's up? Nothing, man,
I was just thinking about your take this morning on
the a F and UH. I believe that, you know,
they could take a page out of the baseball playbook
UH in the minor league system. However, I also believe
that they would have to, you know, train those guys
kind of like the baseball UH teams do year round.
(05:56):
You know. Those guys are the minor leaguers are invited
in and they participate in spring training, um, you know,
and the rosters are expanded there in the beginning of
spring training so that the guys, the younger guys, can
get that experience, and then they call him down to
the minors. So I guess it's kind of like a
touch and go feel for this new league. We'll see
what happens. What do you think, Thanks for the call.
(06:18):
I think that that there are a lot of guys
who want to continue to play in the NFL and
may not be able to put together the tape. They
may not get the opportunity. I think it's spring league
makes a ton of sense for these guys because you
could play the entire spring league and then go into
the NFL for training camps. I think that makes a
world of difference for these guys to be able to
(06:39):
put themselves on tape against other talented, you know, just
below NFL caliber athletes. Jared in Kansas City, what's up, Jared? Hey?
Now much? Yeah, George watching the game? Uh, we got
the San Antonio San Diego game and there was some
nice sits in that game. Something I liked it. Man,
(07:02):
I'm a each football fan and I agree with some
of the columns. This should like make Uh these teams
in the a F like affiliated with some of the team. Fact,
what the NWS does the Women's Professional Soccer League, some
of those teams are like affiliated with the MS teams,
(07:24):
So you're not doing it. Yeah, thanks for the call.
I think that that's what they're waiting to see is
whether or not the spring league works. But I think
that could make a lot of sense. Chad in Missouri.
What's up chat? Hey Clay, thanks for taking my call.
I love your show, listen to you on the way
to the gym every morning. Appreciate. I just wanted to
comment on the NBA versus A. Yeah. I just think
(07:44):
besides that, you know, the United States love and football.
I mean, the NBA's become a player sports, a team sport.
Who can sell those shoes? Yeah, and people are just
intrigued by football. I'd like to see ESPN and y'all
who get on and open up some fantasy league. Yeah,
that's interesting. I mean that that's hardcore if you're getting
(08:05):
fantasy league football in in the mix. I also think
this is significant because the NBA. I think there are
a lot of people out there who feel like the
NBA is so bludgeoned over our heads and promoted to
such an extent because ESPN spent way too much money
for the NBA and so they promote it like crazy.
I mean, you can't put on an ESPN broadcast of
(08:29):
anything without the NBA being promoted an insane amount. I
love to see the data, but I watched the UV
A Duke game was my primary focus on on Saturday.
From like whatever it was five to seven o'clock, uh
my time, six to eight o'clock East Coast, and I
bet they promoted the NBA more during the Duke uv
(08:51):
A game, which actually got more viewership than any NBA game.
Uh the the game on Saturday night between Duke and
uv A had more viewers than the NBA A game did.
But I felt like I was watching an NBA game
the way they promoted it, and by the way, Zion
and Duke were pretty phenomenal. They made outside shots, which
has been the one thing that people have said about
Duke all season. They have a huge achilles heel. They
(09:13):
can't make outside shots. They were draining them in and
that was the difference. I mean, they took care of
uv A now swept him on the season. Rough week
for the state of Virginia. You got your entire political
process falling apart, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. And
then also your team in Charlottesville gets their ass kicked
at home Mike in Omaha, Nebraska. What's up, Mike? What's up? Um?
(09:37):
I just I'll be honest. I didn't watch any of
the New Football League, but I was reading an article
in my local paper. They have I want to say
it's Salt Lake anyway, have like four x Nebraska corn
Huskers on it. And the way they were describing this league,
they said, there's no kickoffs. If you score, you get
it on the other team's twenty five, and you have
to go for two after every yep score And I
(09:58):
didn't watch any of that. Did you know what I
was going on prior to the game's actually taking place? No,
I did not. I just kind of heard about it
from guys at work. I worked the night shift last night,
and yeah, I didn't even know anything about it until
last night. Yeah, thanks for cool. I think there are
one of the fun things about minor league football is
(10:20):
you basically get a laboratory and you can determine maybe
there's a rule that makes more sense, and they get
to check it. I thought there were several things that
were great about about the a f L one. I
like the idea of not kicking extra points. You have
to go for two after every touchdown. I think that's
just more entertaining. The extra point, even when it's moved
back in the NFL, has I think just become not
(10:42):
as entertaining of a part of the game as going
for two, so I like the fact that you have
to go for two. I also like how open they
are with the instant replay review. You can hear the
instant replay judges talking. It takes it out of like
this mysterious room where you're like, hey, what's going on,
puts it directly front and center for you. I don't
(11:04):
dislike the taking away of the of the kickoff either. Um.
I also love that they knocked thirty minutes of commercials
out of this game, so ideally the game's last two
and a half hours instead of three hours, which means frankly,
that the game just feels like it moves faster. I
think that's a good addition as well. They have a
lot of short commercial breaks as opposed to the long
(11:27):
ones that you often get used to h in the NFL.
Elvin in Salt Lake City, what's up, Elvin? How are
you at? What I wanted to comment on this was that, Yeah,
I like that the new aspect of it. Yeah, it
seems an overshadow basketball. But I fast lost a lot
of viewers over the years. Was if everybody becoming you know,
(11:49):
pans these to say, and I mean, I take a
little extra competition would be better to you know, increase
the competitive nature. And you got a bunch of hungry
guys out there playing for a position on the team
or you know, hoping for the opportunity to move up
the league. I do believe you chat problems and results. Yeah,
(12:10):
thanks for the call. Nick in Kansas City, what's up, Nick? Yeah,
I didn't really watch the game that I came across
a YouTube clip and I haven't seen a hit on
the quarterback. Berkovici got destroyed, helmet came flying off. I
mean it was it was es air of football. There's
no doubt, no flag. And you were like, man, I'd
(12:33):
like to watch this just based on that hit. Oh yeah,
hit and it told me yeah it sold you. Uh.
There are a lot of people tweeting out that head.
It was definitely on social media everywhere. A Berkovici who
went to Arizona State basically got decapitated. He was fine,
but the boy was a hell of a hit. JJ
in Uh, Indiana, what's up? JJ? Iving home with a
(12:56):
cup of coffee. Listen, you guys appreciate show as always.
Really just asking on this league. Is it an affiliate
of the NFL, maybe, like a feeder because it is
going close into the combine. And I hear names like
Prent Richardson playing in this league, and are they probably
using this league more like a practice as far as
the prostigures, like what you guys are talking about, where
you can hear the officials going over the instant replays
(13:18):
and the reviews and everything like that, maybe like a
moleitude practice on to see if they can transition it
into the NFL. I think that's a great idea. Yeah,
I think the it's a good question. I think the
NFL is cautiously optimistic about spring football, but I don't
think they want to jump all in. I think the
NFL still misses the World League of American Football because
(13:40):
they developed so much young talent in those European Football
League member back in the day. Uh. The league that
they played in Europe was the idea being that it
was a minor league of the NFL and that guys
could go play and get seasoning and you could develop
some talent and figure out whether or not these guys
could grow into contribut years in the NFL level. I
(14:01):
think there's that desire about these minor leagues in football
as well. I think we have audio for those of
you who didn't watch of what it sounded like while
there was an instant replay review going on. Listen to this,
tell me that it doesn't make you feel like things
are a little bit more open in terms of the process.
The ball hits the ground. I adn't gonna let this stand,
(14:26):
Terry Valenti the replay rolling on the ground. He's using
the ground to keep it in there. The ball on
the ground helps him. We're gonna let it stand. So
she's going to agree with the call on the field,
no touchdown. She feels that the ground helped the catch
and they touched. Call is down on the ground sliding.
Wait a minute, one second, we've got an elbow down,
(14:48):
he's got it and touch. Now we're gonna overturn this
and reverse this to a catch in the end zone
for a score by Orlando. He's got possession. He tucks
it in, his elbow hits, the ball is in control
in his arms. We've got a score. That's pretty cool,
I thought. I mean, I think it takes it out
of the conspiracy laden. Oh, somebody's trying to look out
(15:10):
for this team or that team. If they bring you
the actual audio of the instant replay official reviewing the
play saying what the call is as opposed to we
get silence, which is what the NFL does now, right,
You get silence, and then until the NFL official turns
his mic on and announces what the play's outcome is
(15:31):
gonna be, it's all just discussion from inside the booth
waiting to see what the appropriate call is. And I
think there are a lot of people out there, regardless
of of who you root for, that actually find that
to be a lot more open and uh and real
than than just kind of having the voice of God
suddenly come out with the official announcing the play. I
(15:53):
think that was really intriguing and an interesting That's why
I said, this minor league can kind of be a
laboratory for the NFL to see how some ideas pan out.
And I thought that was pretty intriguing. Tyler in Minnesota,
what's up? Tyler? Eg more excellent? Good. So before the
game started, Napoleon talked a little bit about you know
(16:16):
what he would like his his the big picture of
this to be would do to have an NFL team
say alright, af here's your here's your NFL practice squad.
Now take these guys um season of Tournament of Pros.
I think that that idea could work, um towards having
affiliate teams with NFL teams. Now as far as the
(16:39):
game goes and the instant replays, guys they're talking about
if this league does pick up steam and become something
that you know, bridges a gap between NFL seasons for US,
I would just hate for it to lose. You know,
some of the things that do make a difference, such
as you know, tuning us into instant replay officials and
things like that. So, UM, bigger picture, it would be
(17:00):
cool if they did affiliate with NFL in the future,
I think yeah. I think next year it will be
a challenge to see how the a f L a
f L. You know, they need to knock out one
of the a's first of all, Um, and the a
a f L and the XFL do with both playing
two different leagues. I almost feel like I was texting
(17:20):
with with an executive at Fox and he was like, man,
maybe they should play a championship game between the a
f L and the XFL. I feel like they should
merge at some point and there should be one Spring
football league that people are able to watch Brian and Orlando.
It's up. Brian. Hey, good morning, Clay. Hey, look I
actually down here in Orlando. I have found myself at
(17:43):
a sports bar on Saturday night. I'll tell you how
how great my life is. But anyway, I'm not a
sports bar watching this game. And I gotta admit for
the Orlando market, and maybe it's just because we are
in a football crez state. We don't have a professional
football team. You know, we got a subpar pro basketball team. Um,
(18:03):
it was really marketed well. I thought they did a
great job of the local sports station letting people know
this was happening. Uh, they were billboards for about the
months two months out. Of course, we got Steve Spurrier
big time. You know that is big too, especially in
the state of Florida, to have Steve Spurriers or coach.
And I gotta admit I love seeing him on the
sideline coaching exactly. You know, in first playoff the box,
(18:28):
he's throwing deep thirty yards down the field. So I mean,
you had about pointy something thousands at UCF Stadium to
watch this, and you know, I'll tell you obviously, as
I'm at the bar, sitting there by myself, and this
is a place where I normally go to watch NFL games, right,
So obviously as I'm watching people come in, they kind
of see that there's a game when they're like, oh, yeah,
I forgot about this, and I'm listening to people around
(18:50):
me kind of explain, you know, oh yeah, this is
a minor league team, you could do this, blah blah
blah um. As far as far as the action, I
swear if you didn't, if you knew the players, you
would say I didn't see any difference between maybe a
mid leveled high tier college game and what I saw
(19:10):
today more in that on on Saturday. And I think
as this grows with name recognition and some guys, it
will it will get bigger, especially in these particular markets.
And and like you said, the question is which national
media outlets give you those score dates? Because I saw
I think it maybe it was your tweet about hey,
(19:32):
where do you see the live scores, or maybe it
was somebody else, And I started scouring and that's where
I realized, oh, hell, I can't find the score updates
until you go to their actual website. That's where you
found it. Yeah, that was crazy the call. I appreciate
the on the on the field reaction down there in
one of the city's erl and Orlando wants to weigh
in as well or all what's up, Hey, good Martin Clay,
(19:54):
thanks for having me on. Yeah. I was at that game,
and I'm telling you, even though it's only twenties something
thousand people, you felt like it was a full stadium.
Just how excited people were to have that type of football.
And I think it's a great idea to take away
the kickoff and the extra point one. If you're going
to use it as a minor league, he gives you
an opportunity to make sure no one gets hurt over
(20:17):
those type of things. That's where you lose the most
players on those two types of UM plays. So I
think it's really smart for them to take those things away.
The other thing that I think is the way they
did market. It's amazing how involved they had the local community. Um.
They came to my job, they set up boost, Steve
came out and did UM pictures. UM. It's a really,
(20:40):
really um great opportunity for people to maybe make it
to the NFL. Even if they don't, it's giving these
kids UM or guys a chance to make make some money,
UM build something for Orlando, especially UM. I was born
here and I'm I've been dying to have a football
team that actually makes it, and then playing at UCS
(21:01):
Stadium really UM brings it home too. Because we're trying
to build this school. Even though we're one of the
larger schools, we just don't have the following that we
need and I think this will help. Yeah, thanks for
the call. Let me uh. We'll continue to take your
calls if you guys want to weigh in. We're talking
about the A F H eight seven seven nine nine
six six three six nine debut and beat the NFL
(21:23):
head to head. I'm gonna tell you about the impact
potentially I could see for college football because that's one
thing that I think a lot of people wanted to discuss.
How does this impact not just the NFL, but also
college football. Be sure to catch live editions about kick
the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern
three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I
Heart Radio apps. We're talking about the debut of the
(21:45):
A A F taking your calls eight seven seven nine
six three six nine poll question also up did you
watch any of the a a F the new minor
league football games this weekend? You can go vote in
that at Clay Travis find me on and Twitter there um,
And I think this is actually really intriguing. Some people said, Okay, well,
(22:06):
I'd like to have these teams connected to the NFL
UH teams as a minor league, and I can certainly
see how that could make some sense. Also a lot
of questions about, well, how does this impact college football
with both the a F and the upcoming XFL Spring
football leagues. The XFL has been pretty pretty straightforward about this.
(22:27):
They're gonna recruit guys who are eighteen and nineteen years
old to join their league. And I actually think this
could have a substantial impact on college football because I
think there are a lot of guys out there who
go off to play college football that have zero interest
at all and being in college. And so if you
gave them a choice, hey, you can make a hundred
(22:48):
thousand dollars right now playing minor league football at nineteen
or twenty years old, or you can go to college football.
I think a lot of them would say, hey, I'll
take a hundred grand I I really do, and um,
I think if they really got aggressive, if the XFL did,
imagine if they started trying to recruit guys that you
knew were gonna be first round picks in the NFL
(23:10):
but they weren't eligible for a couple of years to
join the NFL. Let me give you an example. What
if the XFL decided, Hey, Trevor Lawrence, will give you
a big contract, a couple of million dollars guaranteed, and
we'll let you sign any sponsorship deals that you want to.
(23:30):
We know you're gonna be the overall number one pick
in the NFL draft. Are you interested in leaving Clemson
early and making a few million dollars to play football
at nineteen or twenty years old until you're eligible to
become an NFL player. Now, maybe a guy like Trevor
Lawrence doesn't take it because he thinks that the coaching
(23:51):
he's gonna get at Clemson and being on a college
campus and all those things are good for him. But
I bet there are a lot of guys out there
who would say, you know what, why wouldn't I make
a few million dollars if you're a high level, potential
first round draft pick or several hundred thousand dollars. If
you're a guy who's eventually going to go into the
(24:11):
NFL and not have any obligation to go to class
at all and just be able to focus full time
on being a professional football player, I would think there
are a lot of guys that would be interested in that.
I also don't think that's bad because a lot of
you are immediately right now saying well, I think that
would be bad for the college football game. I don't
know necessarily that it would at all, for a couple
(24:33):
of reasons. One, most people root for college football team
teams because of the names on the front of the jersey,
not the names on the back of the jersey. So
you're rooting for Clemson or Alabama or Michigan or USC
or whoever the school is because of the name on
the front much more than the name on the back. Secondly,
(24:55):
I think this really cleans up college football in terms
of people saying, well, these guy, I should get paid. Well,
if you want to get paid, you can go get paid.
Go to the minor league football league. You don't have
to wait around for three years to go pro. Right now.
In the NFL, they require you to be three years
out of high school before you can get graduate, before
(25:16):
you can get drafted. I think it cleans up college
football a lot because suddenly people out there who are saying, oh,
they should pay these players, they don't have that concern. Moreover,
you could go theoretically straight from finishing a college football
season into a training camp for either the A a
F or the XFL. So let's say you complete your
(25:40):
sophomore year and you've played two years of college football,
and you're like, you know what, I've got to sit
out another year, but I'm ready to go pro. What
if you could sign and get a couple of million
dollars in order to go straight to the A A
F to play for a year. Because think about it,
what's typically gonna make people watch this league is the
(26:02):
quarterback position, just like it is in the NFL. If
you knew that you could watch a big time quarterback
prospect who was potentially going to be in the NFL
next year in the A F, would you watch? I
think there are a lot of people who would, or
in the XFL. I think that could make a lot
of sense. So while I think some people might be
(26:23):
nervous about the impact overall in college football. I think
this could be good because it would mean the people
who go to college football actually have some interest at
least a little bit in going to school and combining
that with football. Whereas, if you don't want to do
it at all, okay, go pro and don't make the
charade of college football and academics and being a student
(26:44):
athlete even exist. Go ahead and go straight pro. And
are there a lot of guys out there who'd make
a couple of hundred thousand dollars and feel like they
were getting a good deal and instead of going to school.
I think so, more of your calls, more reaction. Next
on Our Kick, be sure to catch live editions of
Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am
Eastern three am Pacific. We're talking about the debut of
(27:06):
the A A f But man one guy who's not
going to be playing in the A A Feast Dwayne Haskins,
quarterback for Ohio State, probably going to be a first
round draft pick, alongside I think Drew lock and Kyler
Murray for sure. Maybe Will Greer sneaks in at the
end of the first round as well. Duke's quarterback who's
coming out early. All those guys potentially top of the
(27:29):
level quarterbacks in this year's NFL draft at the end
of April. Look, I do fifteen hours of live radio.
I do five hours a week of live television. I
also do Periscope and Facebook and I write. There's probably
very few people who produce more original sports content, maybe
no one in the entire country right now than me.
(27:52):
And as part of that, I know it's tough, right,
You've got a lot of work to do. There's a
lot of things to stay on top of. But my
odd stephen A. Smith, who is holding out hope and
I hope he gets it. Look, I root for everybody
to get as much money as they possibly can. Stephen A.
Smith is going out there right now. He wants to
(28:13):
make ten million dollars a year in the next contract
he gets. He We had him talking about the breakdown
when he said Hunter Henry versus uh in the in
the playoff game or no. I guess it was the
end of the regular season between the Chargers in the Chiefs.
He said Hunter Henry was gonna be a key. Well,
Hunter Henry was on injured reserve for almost the entirety
(28:34):
of the year, and now he's breaking down to Wayne
Haskins at quarterback. This happened on ESPN's airwaves on Friday.
I believe if you haven't heard this, listen to this.
This is Stephen A. Smith breaking down d Wayne Haskins.
Haskins is no joke as well. I know that he's bigger,
he can make all the requisite throws on the NFL.
Lovely played for a big time program at Ohio State.
(28:57):
I just wont him to be more of a run up.
I could be wrong about that, but that's what I fought.
Stephen A. Smith says that Dwayne Haskins is more of
a runner than a thrower. Let me give you a
couple of stats. Haskins last year passed for nearly five
thousand yards and ran for a hundred and eight yards
(29:18):
on seventy nine attempts and average of one point four
yards per rush. I don't believe you can have the
opinion that Stephen A. Smith just had and have watched
a single Ohio State football game all year. Dwayne Haskins
might be the least athletic quarterback in the NFL this year. Alright,
(29:39):
So a couple of questions for you out there. I'm
gonna open up the phone lines, but I want to
start with the crew eight seven seven nine six three
six nine. Is this what do you expect from your
quote unquote sports experts. I'm not saying that every opinion
I have on this show is flawless and perfect, but
I don't think I've ever said anything as off base
(30:01):
as what Stephen A. Smith just said about Dawayne Haskins. Again,
Let's play that one more time if we could. You
just heard me say, the guy through for nearly five
thousand yards. He isn't a mobile quarterback at all. In fact,
he can barely run. He's much more of a statue,
more of a Byron left which than he is a
Michael Vick by far right if you want to compare
(30:23):
him only to black quarterbacks. But I think he's actually
the least athletic quarterback of all the guys out there.
I think Will Greer is more mobile. It's not like
Will Greer is known as a great mobile guy. Drew
Lock as a lot more athletic than Dwayne Haskins. Certainly,
we know Kyler Murray, who's able to run all over
the field and make plays is a different kind of
(30:43):
caliber of athlete. Kyler Murray basically Doug Flutie reincarnate, reincarnated.
But but let's uh, but let's listen to this audio
clip one more time. Play it. Haskins is no joke
as well. I know he's bigger, he can make all
the requisite throws on the end felt lovely played for
a big time program at Ohio State. I just fond
(31:03):
him to be more of a runner than a thrower.
I could be wrong about that, but that's what I fought,
all right. So I do fifteen hours of radio a week,
I do five hours of television a week, plus what
I do on Periscope and Facebook, and plus what I write.
I think I probably almost in the country and more
uniquely suited to break this down than almost anybody. This
is inexcusable. There is no way that you can make
(31:27):
this error if you are in Stephen A. Smith's position.
By the way, the setup was, they were debating Kyler
Murray versus Dwayne Haskins, so they know exactly what they're
gonna talk about. For people who don't do television, that
everything in television is like a script, right, It's like
a play. You don't necessarily have lines, certainly, but you
(31:49):
know what you're gonna talk about. If you watch my
show Lock It In in the afternoons. On television, we
have a script, a set up out of the A block.
We call it the first segment. We know the first
five topics, what they're gonna be, and I can call
for a graphic to support that. In television, it is
all very scripted in the way that you're gonna talk.
(32:11):
Not necessarily that you're reading like and you have memorized lines,
nothing like that. But hey, we're gonna talk about you know,
Lebron James going up against uh. I don't know that,
the seventies sixers, which just happened over the weekend, Lakers sixers.
We don't do that at all on radio. Some people,
probably in radio, I don't know, Danny g You've worked
with a lot of people in radio, may send out
(32:31):
like a, Hey, here's the twelve topics we're gonna talk about,
and here's the order we're gonna talk about him. I
never knew that. Because I want to be flexible and
I want to adjust in real time, I come in
with three or four topics that I think are potentially
interesting for a show day and then just kind of
roll with him as the show progresses and get a
good read on it. When you guys, I want to
bring in the crew because you guys work in this
(32:53):
space too. When you hear Steven A. Smith give that opinion,
first of all, I think it's indefensible because he knew
exactly what they we're gonna be talking about. Secondly, all
you have to have done is watched one half of
an Ohio State football game this year to know that
Dwayne Haskins is not a runner. Third, and I really
do believe this. I think he's saying that because Dwayne
(33:14):
Haskins is a black quarterback. And I think, in all honesty,
I think if a white guy said this, there would
be an outrage in the Twitter streets everywhere else, people
be saying, Oh, this is why black quarterbacks can't get
a fair shot, even when a guy is not a
mobile quarterback at all. And in fact, like I said,
I think Dwayne Haskins probably the worst athlete of any
(33:34):
of the available top first round caliber quarterbacks in terms
of his mobility and his speed and his ability to
move outside the pocket. So I think all those things
are true if you watch Drew lockplay, even if you
watched Will Greer play, I saw more mobility out of
both those guys. Drew Locks actually a really good athlete.
Um and uh, And I think Will Greer's more mobile
than Dwayne Haskins is. We know Kyler Murray is uh,
(33:57):
and we know I think it's Jones from Duke I
believe also is as well. So when you hear that,
Danny G what's your thought? Shake my head? National sports
is hard because you need to know a little bit
about a lot of things. But that doesn't give him
any excuse because of his paycheck. You have to do
the work. You have to at least watch as much
(34:18):
sports as the casual fan. Now, I'm a huge NFL, NBA,
Major League Baseball guy. College football wasn't big on my
go to list until I started working on this program.
I knew, you know, I know Clay loves college football.
He's gonna talk about college football more than your average
radio show. So four years ago I really dug in
(34:40):
and started paying attention to college football. Not being a
college football guru, I saw three Ohio State games last season.
I know that Haskins through for what almost fifty touchdowns
and is known for his right here and when this
dude drops back, he basically stands up. He's a statue. Yes,
(35:02):
So as a casual football fan, college football fan, I
should say I'm obsessed with NFL, but just a casual
college football fan who now pays attention for work. I
know more than Stephen A. Smith and I get paid
percentile of his check. So yeah, it's annoying. Not just
him either, It's that he has an entire staff on
(35:24):
television designed to help him. That's how television works. I
always say there's a reason why people don't go television
to radio to writing if you follow career trajectories. I
know we got a lot of young guys and girls
who go into school in the morning, you're riding with
your parents and you're thinking, oh, I'd like to make
a living in sports one day. I always say the
foundation which you should pursue is writing. Read as much
(35:47):
as you can, write as often as you can, because
writing is the most difficult of the disciplines to learn.
There are lots of people who have gone writing to
radio to TV. I'm not saying it's easy to do,
or that each doesn't have its own unique difficulties and challenges.
It's a lot. There's a reason why you see relatively
few guys go RAI television to radio to writing, because
(36:11):
as you move down that way, everything gets more difficult.
When I write an article, it's me sitting in front
of a computer screen all by myself, with nobody else
to work with me. When I do radio, a lot
of it's me sitting down doing it almost entirely on
my own, compared to TV, where there's tons of people
working with me all the time, giving me stats, sending
me things saying, hey, have you considered this? TV is
(36:34):
by far the easiest. So it's not just as Stephen
A Smith failure here, it's that he's not relying in
any way on the massive staff. I'm sure they have
dozens of people just about who work on first take
every day. Uh, Eddie Garcia. When you hear something like this,
what do you think you know? It kind of reminds
me of every once in a while you'll watch the
local news and they'll try and do a sports story
(36:57):
and they'll butcher it. Yeah, and you're do you think
yourself up? If they don't, If they can't get this right,
something that I know about all the things that they
tell me that I don't know about. How do we
know they're not getting that wrong at either point. Basically,
he has no credibility in my eyes whatsoever, none a dub.
When you hear something like this, what are your thoughts?
I mean, it's essentially the equivalent of calling grey oat
(37:17):
and a spot up shooter. I mean, if you watch
any college football at all, you're gonna see at least
one Ohio's Day game, and you will see Dwayne Haskins,
and you will realize within a quarter that he is
a pocket passer and his threat to run is pretty
much nonexistent. In fact, you would dream, if you are
a defensive coordinator in the Big Ten, of Dwayne Haskins
leaving the pocket and trying to run like that would
(37:40):
be ideal for you. Is him scrambling and trying to
convert first downs because his danger is standing in the
pocket and throwing the football. I always say, I mean,
this is just you've never watched an Ohio State game.
And by the way, think of all the massive games
that Ohio State has played, and think about all the
opinions stephen A. Smith probably had during the course of
season on Ohio State. Did they deserve to make the playoff?
(38:04):
Is Urban Meyer? Uh? In trouble based on the way
that the off the field issues arose, Like all of
these things, to me, it's just evidence of not doing
your most basic homework. And look, I get it. I
feel like I'm uniquely suited to be able to talk
about this because I do fifteen hours of radio national radio.
I do five hours of television. I don't think I've
(38:24):
ever said anything that dumb. Not to say, I don't
say dumb stuff because, as Danny g pointed out, it's
hard to be great on every different subject, particularly when
there's so many moving parts and every day there's different
stories and everything else. But you at least have to
be somewhat well versed. This would be like me saying
about Zion Williamson, Uh, you know, I just don't know
that he has the physical skills and athleticism to play
(38:47):
at the next level. You'd be like, have you ever
watched did you watch him swat that three boy shot
into the third third row? I mean, it would be
evidence that I had never seen Zion Williamson play. If
I came on and I just said, you know what,
I just questioned if he has the natural athleticism to
be able to play at a high level in the NBA.
Every single person who has watched Duke play for five
(39:07):
minutes would be like, would be a record scratch moment.
I can't trust that guy's opinion going forward any further. Iowa, Sam,
are you with me here? Oh? Absolutely? If I played
word association with uh Dwayne Haskins, I would say he's
a bomber. I mean he he said he broke Drew
Brees touchdown record for the Big Ten with fifty touchdown passes.
But this is kind of the problem with the debate
(39:28):
show guys and Steven A. Smith is a great reporter
and he he knows a lot about sports. But this
happened a few months ago where he had he talked
about some guy who had been traded to another team.
He gets sort of the cliff notes things on a
lot of things, and he when you have an array
of topics, the guy will screw up on things and
show that he is massively misinformed on a topic such
(39:49):
as this. Yes, I don't I don't know. You know,
Dwayne Haskins. I'm sure can take off here and there,
But he's a bomber. So he got this wrong. He
gets informed and notes on a lot of different things.
But he said in that clip, I could be wrong here,
and I'm like, uh, yeah, you're you're flat out wrong
and someone should have been whispering in your ear that. No,
we gotta scratch that, go to something else, all right.
(40:09):
I want to open up a phone lines. I want
to hear from you guys out there. I want to
ask this question too. We hear a lot about black
quarterbacks and the fact that they are stereotyped. If a
white guy had said this, would this be a major
story or do you just write it off and be like,
Stephen A. Smith is a clown and so I'm not
(40:30):
necessarily looking for him to be the expert here. Or
is this sort of an invidious and insidious stereotype that
Stephen A. Smith is getting away with. Oh, the black guy,
he's more of a runner than he is a passer,
even though anybody who has watched Dwayne Haskins play knows
that this guy is the most prototypical pocket passer of
(40:53):
anybody available in the draft this year. This is the
most statuesque stand in the pocket, make reads and throw
the ball down the field. Is it fair to point
out that Steven A. Smith is just relying potentially on
a stereotype year and assuming that a black guy is
athletic and mobile and you see him as more of
a runner, I'm curious maybe also from the black audience
(41:16):
out there, are you given Steven a pass here? Or
if a white guy said this, would you rip him?
Eight seven seven six three six nine. This is out
kicked The coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s
(41:37):
R to listen. Lock Mark's not available in every state.
Taking to your calls reacting to Steven A. Smith saying
that Dwayne Haskins is more of a running quarterback, We've
got a lot of loaded lines here. Let's dive through.
Also take him at the top of our three in
the event that I can't get to everybody, Mike and Modesto, California.
What's up man? When you said that, that's exactly went
(41:59):
through my And he didn't do his homework, and he
went right to his stereotype, and he didn't know what
he was talking about if that was a white guy
who said that they'll do some loser in his mother's basement,
social justice lawyer sending up the emails to all the
all the nerdy social justice Warrior club, and the guy
(42:20):
would have been ripped apart that it's unacceptable that he
did that. Come on, man, do some homework. I know
your specialty is MBA and a little bit the NFL,
but do not talk about something that you do not
know about, because didn't the people know you're stupid? Thank
you for the time play. Yeah, all you have to
(42:41):
do is watch one half of an Ohio state game
and you would know Dwayne Haskin one Ohio State full game.
They played a lot of big games. Just watch one.
Just watch the Michigan game. Robin Ohio, what's up? Good morning, sir,
um love your show, you your sort spot on and
(43:01):
and you're the type of guy will say, hey, I
might be wrong. Stephen A. If he said I might
be wrong with say but I'm not. And the sixth
year old man, it's a sixth year old man in
central Ohio, like the other guys said, look, if you're
watching the game, Hastin's does not run. And the tapes
are inflammatory, and I think the hyperbole of his of
(43:22):
alf his tastes to draw rolled the audience up to
get ratings or whatever. It's not informative, it's not fact based,
and that's what's great about your show. And you have
a lot of converse or keep up the good work.
I appreciate that. Look, there are lots of things I
say that many of you out there can hear. It'd
be like, I think Clay Travis is totally wrong about that,
(43:44):
But I think there are very very few things where
the very basis of my opinion you couldn't accept off
the jump, and that's one of those. That's the kind
of you got to just pass the eye test. To
use a cliche, does this our ument past the eye test?
If you've watched Dwayne Haskins play at all, the answer
(44:06):
is no. The guy through for almost five thousand yards
over fifty touchdowns, whatever the heck it was. He ran
four around a hundred yards and all of those were
short scrambles. They weren't designed runs. I'm gonna keep taking
your calls on this will also dive in if you're
just waking up to the A A F as well
(44:26):
as we'll talk to our guy Alex Marvez about all
of this and more. All that's still the coming hour three.
Hope your Monday is going well. This is Outkicked the
Coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
editions of Outkicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at
six am Eastern three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app. Poll question up. Nearly
(44:48):
twenty one thousand of you voted during the course of
today's show. Did you watch any of the A A
F the New minor league football game this weekend? You
said yes again, nearly one tho of you weighing in, Uh,
you know what, I have not heard a lot away Again,
everybody and their mother wanted to hit me when the
Lakers and Rondo hit that jumper to win by a
(45:11):
point over the Celtics, and everybody was all fired up
about how good the how good the Lakers looked with
Lebron James coming back. You know what, I haven't heard
a lot of since the Lakers got their ass kicked
this weekend yesterday by the seventies sixers, I haven't heard
a lot of Laker talk. Let's cue the music. Boys,
It's time for l A Broun. Hey, I got I got,
(45:35):
I got I got from the first show in the
country to predict hashtag future Laker. Instead of three hours
of it, Clay Travis captures all the mania in three minutes.
Lebron has picked up the circus tent and it has
followed him wherever he is gone. I told you the
win over the Celtics was fool's gold, and I told
(45:55):
you it was fool's gold because for some reason, the
Lakers came out and they couldn't miss a three point shot.
They shot fifty four percent from the floor against the Celtics,
the best they've ever done in the history of their
franchise in terms of makes. I think they were like
twenty two of forty one if I'm not mistaken. Well,
guess what happened going up against the Philadelphia seventy six
(46:19):
ers just a couple of days later. The Lakers couldn't
make anything from outside. They shot just ten for twenty seven,
which is about what they've been shooting all season long,
and as a result, they got whipped. They lost by
twenty three points. They are now pretty substantially out of
(46:40):
the playoffs, probably will beat the Hawks. Defend your boys. Well,
last week you predicted that they are not going to
make the playoffs at all. Are you still standing by that?
That's fine, You're just sounding like a whiner because of
the money you lost on that Celtics game. But you realize, no,
but even before Celtics, even before I lost the money
(47:01):
on the Celtics, I said that the Lakers were not
going to make the playoffs. And I said that that
game was fool's gold because it was not representative overall.
And by the way, the Celtics gave up an even
bigger lead to the Clippers over the week after Kyrie
went down with a knee injury. They were up twenty eight.
I think in that game or whatever the heck it was,
(47:21):
I think the Lakers will come back and they'll be
So let's let's stop right there. You predicted also that
the Celtics were gonna win the East, So is that
changing now now Kyrie is okay? I still think the
Celtics are the best team in the East. They're more
dysfunctional than the Lakers. Well, they're also better, they're more dysfunctional. No,
no one is more dysfunctional than the Lakers. You go
(47:42):
back and forth. Na, I never thought that you would
pull up Ben Mallard when it came to the NBA.
But now you're turning into an official, legit Laker hater. No,
I'm not a hater. I'm just a realistic person. Lebron
almost had a triple double and didn't even play that
any minutes he was on the bench. Yeah, they lost.
(48:02):
I understand. Once he's engaged and he's into the game
the way he wasn't that Celtics game, you realize that
he can single handedly get a team into that eighth spot. Right.
First of all, I hope the Lakers make the playoff
and get into that eight spot because I want that's
gonna happen, to beat him by fifty in every game
and humiliate the Lakers humiliated the Warriors in Oakland without Lebron. Well,
(48:27):
Lebron hurt his groin in that game, right, but they
finished that game by blowing out the Warriors. So if
you've already proven that they could beat the Warriors, if
you think that the Warriors in the regular season is
anything like the Warriors in the postseason, we could make
that same argument for Lebron. Lebron in the postseason is
a completely different player than he is on cruise Control
(48:49):
in the regular when he gets to play against the
Eastern Conference teams. Laker fans just listen to me right now.
Don't get your hopes. They're not getting them. America. You
got your ass kicked by the seventies sixers, and you
should have gotten your ass kicked by the Celtics too.
Whenever you go up against good teams, Lebron's gonna leave
(49:09):
the court crying. There you go, that's that's losing money
on another NBA bet. No, I I will talk got
some NBA bets coming up on walking in later today
Lakers Dead, I love all of you. My name is
Clay Travis. Download the podcast will be live tomorrow. This
is Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six
(49:31):
am Eastern three am Pacific
Thanks for listening to the best of OutKick the Coverage podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning from
six to nine am Eastern three to six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for OutKick
the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every morning on the I Heart Radio app
by searching f s R. This is the best of
OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio.
(00:27):
Did any of you watch the A A F. Danny G.
Did you watch? No? And I'm upset that I didn't.
Had I known what time it started, I would have watched.
So for whatever reason, I don't think it was advertised
very well. I agree with you. I think there were
a lot of people out there that are hearing this
right now. And again that's why I think it's so
intriguing that it beat the NBA head to head CBS
(00:50):
versus ABC, because I think there were a lot of
people out there that didn't know about it at all. Uh,
Eddie Garcia, did you watch? I did watch the first
half of the San Antonio Commanders San Diego Fleet game,
which sounds funny to say. I know all these different teams,
but what did you think of the quality of play?
I thought it was pretty mediocre. Mediocre meaning like, see,
(01:11):
here's my thing. In general. I have thought for a
long time that if you took Triple A baseball players
and you put them in Major League baseball uniforms, that
people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that
and Major League Baseball. In other words, that overall quality
of play would not be significantly different enough. One of
the reasons why we think players are really good is
(01:34):
because we're used to seeing those players and we know
their names. Did you know any of the players that
were on the field? I recognized the name of the
quarterback for San Diego, Mike Bergovici from state back in
the day. Yes, I did not. I had no clue
what the other quarterback was for San Antonio. Never heard
of before. Yeah, all right, what about you tub Did
you watch any of this? I absolutely did watch my
(01:57):
San Antonio Commanders take care of business against the San
Diego Fleet. Were you planning to watch it or did
you see it on social media and just flip over
and end up watching. I saw it earlier on in
the day, so then I planned it from there. So
in the morning I saw it, and so I made
some plans and arrangements to be able to watch it.
Now that game was on what Sunday, That was Saturday
(02:18):
Saturday Night. Which the game that was on Saturday night
that was the primetime game on CBS was the Spurrier game,
right Orlando against whoever it was. I believe they're playing Atlanta. Yeah, yeah,
Orlando Atlanta. I think that was the game that I
was see. I went back and watched all the highlights
and so I've got all the games like crossed over
now in my head. What about you, uh, Samson Ferberto,
(02:40):
I was slad. Did you watch any of this? I
did not, Um, But you were you aware it was
going on? Yes? Yes, Um? But I work overnights on
the weekends, so I was snoozing at that point. But
I think that it beat the NBA in ratings because
things that are novel just tend to garner more eyes.
I think that we'll see the ratings go down, especially
(03:02):
when you see a lot of these like forty two
six scores and then you get like a fifteen to thirteen.
They need scores four, you need close games. But I
get I also get that the uh the league is
just getting started, and these guys are getting a field
for it. So yeah, I appreciate that. I actually think
the numbers could go up next week because I think
there are a lot Yeah, I think there are a
(03:22):
ton of people out there that are listening to us
right now that had no idea this league was starting,
that had no idea was on, and they just kind
of caught it. Maybe you saw it. It was trending
on social media. Maybe you were just flipping around and
like I know, for instance, that when I got home,
So I was down in Florida this weekend. When I
got home on Sunday night, my oldest was like, oh,
(03:45):
I'd like to watch that and see, you know what
this football league looks like? And something simple like you know,
I went into Comcast and I put on you know
how you can if you have Comcast, you can hit
the C button and it will show you all the
sporting events that are going going on. Like it wasn't
in the sport It wasn't in that window. Right, There's
no tab for the A, A F so that I
(04:07):
could see if there were games going on Saturday or Sunday.
You had to know this game was going on. You
had to seek it out, and I think simple things
like that I was talking earlier about. I went in
because I was curious what the scores were and kind
of what the stats look like. And the ESPN's app
doesn't have a tab to allow me to watch the
A A F or to even see what the highlights are.
(04:30):
Those are things that need to get reconciled. I'm curious
what everybody else is saying out there. Let me start
taking some of your calls. Let me start with skip
in l A Skip, what's up? Excellent? How are you idiot?
Thank you? Yeah, I just have a quick question. They
should or comment they should make it more like baseball
and like have a minor league system and have so
(04:52):
young backup quarters at facts that they draft having play
in that league, because obviously the NFL has something to
do with if they're showing on their network. Yeah, look,
I think thanks for I don't think that's a bad
idea where you have an affiliation with an NFL team, um,
and if you have guys who are on your practice
squad or guys who maybe didn't quite make your team,
(05:13):
or that you just want to season almost in the
same way they did back in the day. With the
I think it was the World League of American Football
right the games they played in Europe. UM. I don't
think that's a bad idea at all. I think that
could definitely make sense and it would give people rooting interest.
Um Steve in Ohio? What's up, Steve? Hello, Yes, Thanky,
(05:33):
how are you good morning? Yeah? Doing well? What's up? Nothing, man,
I was just thinking about your take this morning on
the a F and UH. I believe that, you know,
they could take a page out of the baseball playbook
UH in the minor league system. However, I also believe
that they would have to, you know, train those guys
kind of like the baseball UH teams do year round.
(05:56):
You know. Those guys are the minor leaguers are invited
in and they participate in spring training, um, you know,
and the rosters are expanded there in the beginning of
spring training so that the guys, the younger guys, can
get that experience, and then they call him down to
the minors. So I guess it's kind of like a
touch and go feel for this new league. We'll see
what happens. What do you think, Thanks for the call.
(06:18):
I think that that there are a lot of guys
who want to continue to play in the NFL and
may not be able to put together the tape. They
may not get the opportunity. I think it's spring league
makes a ton of sense for these guys because you
could play the entire spring league and then go into
the NFL for training camps. I think that makes a
world of difference for these guys to be able to
(06:39):
put themselves on tape against other talented, you know, just
below NFL caliber athletes. Jared in Kansas City, what's up, Jared? Hey?
Now much? Yeah, George watching the game? Uh, we got
the San Antonio San Diego game and there was some
nice sits in that game. Something I liked it. Man,
(07:02):
I'm a each football fan and I agree with some
of the columns. This should like make Uh these teams
in the a F like affiliated with some of the team. Fact,
what the NWS does the Women's Professional Soccer League, some
of those teams are like affiliated with the MS teams,
(07:24):
So you're not doing it. Yeah, thanks for the call.
I think that that's what they're waiting to see is
whether or not the spring league works. But I think
that could make a lot of sense. Chad in Missouri.
What's up chat? Hey Clay, thanks for taking my call.
I love your show, listen to you on the way
to the gym every morning. Appreciate. I just wanted to
comment on the NBA versus A. Yeah. I just think
(07:44):
besides that, you know, the United States love and football.
I mean, the NBA's become a player sports, a team sport.
Who can sell those shoes? Yeah, and people are just
intrigued by football. I'd like to see ESPN and y'all
who get on and open up some fantasy league. Yeah,
that's interesting. I mean that that's hardcore if you're getting
(08:05):
fantasy league football in in the mix. I also think
this is significant because the NBA. I think there are
a lot of people out there who feel like the
NBA is so bludgeoned over our heads and promoted to
such an extent because ESPN spent way too much money
for the NBA and so they promote it like crazy.
I mean, you can't put on an ESPN broadcast of
(08:29):
anything without the NBA being promoted an insane amount. I
love to see the data, but I watched the UV
A Duke game was my primary focus on on Saturday.
From like whatever it was five to seven o'clock, uh
my time, six to eight o'clock East Coast, and I
bet they promoted the NBA more during the Duke uv
(08:51):
A game, which actually got more viewership than any NBA game.
Uh the the game on Saturday night between Duke and
uv A had more viewers than the NBA A game did.
But I felt like I was watching an NBA game
the way they promoted it, and by the way, Zion
and Duke were pretty phenomenal. They made outside shots, which
has been the one thing that people have said about
Duke all season. They have a huge achilles heel. They
(09:13):
can't make outside shots. They were draining them in and
that was the difference. I mean, they took care of
uv A now swept him on the season. Rough week
for the state of Virginia. You got your entire political
process falling apart, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. And
then also your team in Charlottesville gets their ass kicked
at home Mike in Omaha, Nebraska. What's up, Mike? What's up? Um?
(09:37):
I just I'll be honest. I didn't watch any of
the New Football League, but I was reading an article
in my local paper. They have I want to say
it's Salt Lake anyway, have like four x Nebraska corn
Huskers on it. And the way they were describing this league,
they said, there's no kickoffs. If you score, you get
it on the other team's twenty five, and you have
to go for two after every yep score And I
(09:58):
didn't watch any of that. Did you know what I
was going on prior to the game's actually taking place? No,
I did not. I just kind of heard about it
from guys at work. I worked the night shift last night,
and yeah, I didn't even know anything about it until
last night. Yeah, thanks for cool. I think there are
one of the fun things about minor league football is
(10:20):
you basically get a laboratory and you can determine maybe
there's a rule that makes more sense, and they get
to check it. I thought there were several things that
were great about about the a f L one. I
like the idea of not kicking extra points. You have
to go for two after every touchdown. I think that's
just more entertaining. The extra point, even when it's moved
back in the NFL, has I think just become not
(10:42):
as entertaining of a part of the game as going
for two, so I like the fact that you have
to go for two. I also like how open they
are with the instant replay review. You can hear the
instant replay judges talking. It takes it out of like
this mysterious room where you're like, hey, what's going on,
puts it directly front and center for you. I don't
(11:04):
dislike the taking away of the of the kickoff either. Um.
I also love that they knocked thirty minutes of commercials
out of this game, so ideally the game's last two
and a half hours instead of three hours, which means frankly,
that the game just feels like it moves faster. I
think that's a good addition as well. They have a
lot of short commercial breaks as opposed to the long
(11:27):
ones that you often get used to h in the NFL.
Elvin in Salt Lake City, what's up, Elvin? How are
you at? What I wanted to comment on this was that, Yeah,
I like that the new aspect of it. Yeah, it
seems an overshadow basketball. But I fast lost a lot
of viewers over the years. Was if everybody becoming you know,
(11:49):
pans these to say, and I mean, I take a
little extra competition would be better to you know, increase
the competitive nature. And you got a bunch of hungry
guys out there playing for a position on the team
or you know, hoping for the opportunity to move up
the league. I do believe you chat problems and results. Yeah,
(12:10):
thanks for the call. Nick in Kansas City, what's up, Nick? Yeah,
I didn't really watch the game that I came across
a YouTube clip and I haven't seen a hit on
the quarterback. Berkovici got destroyed, helmet came flying off. I
mean it was it was es air of football. There's
no doubt, no flag. And you were like, man, I'd
(12:33):
like to watch this just based on that hit. Oh yeah,
hit and it told me yeah it sold you. Uh.
There are a lot of people tweeting out that head.
It was definitely on social media everywhere. A Berkovici who
went to Arizona State basically got decapitated. He was fine,
but the boy was a hell of a hit. JJ
in Uh, Indiana, what's up? JJ? Iving home with a
(12:56):
cup of coffee. Listen, you guys appreciate show as always.
Really just asking on this league. Is it an affiliate
of the NFL, maybe, like a feeder because it is
going close into the combine. And I hear names like
Prent Richardson playing in this league, and are they probably
using this league more like a practice as far as
the prostigures, like what you guys are talking about, where
you can hear the officials going over the instant replays
(13:18):
and the reviews and everything like that, maybe like a
moleitude practice on to see if they can transition it
into the NFL. I think that's a great idea. Yeah,
I think the it's a good question. I think the
NFL is cautiously optimistic about spring football, but I don't
think they want to jump all in. I think the
NFL still misses the World League of American Football because
(13:40):
they developed so much young talent in those European Football
League member back in the day. Uh. The league that
they played in Europe was the idea being that it
was a minor league of the NFL and that guys
could go play and get seasoning and you could develop
some talent and figure out whether or not these guys
could grow into contribut years in the NFL level. I
(14:01):
think there's that desire about these minor leagues in football
as well. I think we have audio for those of
you who didn't watch of what it sounded like while
there was an instant replay review going on. Listen to this,
tell me that it doesn't make you feel like things
are a little bit more open in terms of the process.
The ball hits the ground. I adn't gonna let this stand,
(14:26):
Terry Valenti the replay rolling on the ground. He's using
the ground to keep it in there. The ball on
the ground helps him. We're gonna let it stand. So
she's going to agree with the call on the field,
no touchdown. She feels that the ground helped the catch
and they touched. Call is down on the ground sliding.
Wait a minute, one second, we've got an elbow down,
(14:48):
he's got it and touch. Now we're gonna overturn this
and reverse this to a catch in the end zone
for a score by Orlando. He's got possession. He tucks
it in, his elbow hits, the ball is in control
in his arms. We've got a score. That's pretty cool,
I thought. I mean, I think it takes it out
of the conspiracy laden. Oh, somebody's trying to look out
(15:10):
for this team or that team. If they bring you
the actual audio of the instant replay official reviewing the
play saying what the call is as opposed to we
get silence, which is what the NFL does now, right,
You get silence, and then until the NFL official turns
his mic on and announces what the play's outcome is
(15:31):
gonna be, it's all just discussion from inside the booth
waiting to see what the appropriate call is. And I
think there are a lot of people out there, regardless
of of who you root for, that actually find that
to be a lot more open and uh and real
than than just kind of having the voice of God
suddenly come out with the official announcing the play. I
(15:53):
think that was really intriguing and an interesting That's why
I said, this minor league can kind of be a
laboratory for the NFL to see how some ideas pan out.
And I thought that was pretty intriguing. Tyler in Minnesota,
what's up? Tyler? Eg more excellent? Good. So before the
game started, Napoleon talked a little bit about you know
(16:16):
what he would like his his the big picture of
this to be would do to have an NFL team
say alright, af here's your here's your NFL practice squad.
Now take these guys um season of Tournament of Pros.
I think that that idea could work, um towards having
affiliate teams with NFL teams. Now as far as the
(16:39):
game goes and the instant replays, guys they're talking about
if this league does pick up steam and become something
that you know, bridges a gap between NFL seasons for US,
I would just hate for it to lose. You know,
some of the things that do make a difference, such
as you know, tuning us into instant replay officials and
things like that. So, UM, bigger picture, it would be
(17:00):
cool if they did affiliate with NFL in the future,
I think yeah. I think next year it will be
a challenge to see how the a f L a
f L. You know, they need to knock out one
of the a's first of all, Um, and the a
a f L and the XFL do with both playing
two different leagues. I almost feel like I was texting
(17:20):
with with an executive at Fox and he was like, man,
maybe they should play a championship game between the a
f L and the XFL. I feel like they should
merge at some point and there should be one Spring
football league that people are able to watch Brian and Orlando.
It's up. Brian. Hey, good morning, Clay. Hey, look I
actually down here in Orlando. I have found myself at
(17:43):
a sports bar on Saturday night. I'll tell you how
how great my life is. But anyway, I'm not a
sports bar watching this game. And I gotta admit for
the Orlando market, and maybe it's just because we are
in a football crez state. We don't have a professional
football team. You know, we got a subpar pro basketball team. Um,
(18:03):
it was really marketed well. I thought they did a
great job of the local sports station letting people know
this was happening. Uh, they were billboards for about the
months two months out. Of course, we got Steve Spurrier
big time. You know that is big too, especially in
the state of Florida, to have Steve Spurriers or coach.
And I gotta admit I love seeing him on the
sideline coaching exactly. You know, in first playoff the box,
(18:28):
he's throwing deep thirty yards down the field. So I mean,
you had about pointy something thousands at UCF Stadium to
watch this, and you know, I'll tell you obviously, as
I'm at the bar, sitting there by myself, and this
is a place where I normally go to watch NFL games, right,
So obviously as I'm watching people come in, they kind
of see that there's a game when they're like, oh, yeah,
I forgot about this, and I'm listening to people around
(18:50):
me kind of explain, you know, oh yeah, this is
a minor league team, you could do this, blah blah
blah um. As far as far as the action, I
swear if you didn't, if you knew the players, you
would say I didn't see any difference between maybe a
mid leveled high tier college game and what I saw
(19:10):
today more in that on on Saturday. And I think
as this grows with name recognition and some guys, it
will it will get bigger, especially in these particular markets.
And and like you said, the question is which national
media outlets give you those score dates? Because I saw
I think it maybe it was your tweet about hey,
(19:32):
where do you see the live scores, or maybe it
was somebody else, And I started scouring and that's where
I realized, oh, hell, I can't find the score updates
until you go to their actual website. That's where you
found it. Yeah, that was crazy the call. I appreciate
the on the on the field reaction down there in
one of the city's erl and Orlando wants to weigh
in as well or all what's up, Hey, good Martin Clay,
(19:54):
thanks for having me on. Yeah. I was at that game,
and I'm telling you, even though it's only twenties something
thousand people, you felt like it was a full stadium.
Just how excited people were to have that type of football.
And I think it's a great idea to take away
the kickoff and the extra point one. If you're going
to use it as a minor league, he gives you
an opportunity to make sure no one gets hurt over
(20:17):
those type of things. That's where you lose the most
players on those two types of UM plays. So I
think it's really smart for them to take those things away.
The other thing that I think is the way they
did market. It's amazing how involved they had the local community. Um.
They came to my job, they set up boost, Steve
came out and did UM pictures. UM. It's a really,
(20:40):
really um great opportunity for people to maybe make it
to the NFL. Even if they don't, it's giving these
kids UM or guys a chance to make make some money,
UM build something for Orlando, especially UM. I was born
here and I'm I've been dying to have a football
team that actually makes it, and then playing at UCS
(21:01):
Stadium really UM brings it home too. Because we're trying
to build this school. Even though we're one of the
larger schools, we just don't have the following that we
need and I think this will help. Yeah, thanks for
the call. Let me uh. We'll continue to take your
calls if you guys want to weigh in. We're talking
about the A F H eight seven seven nine nine
six six three six nine debut and beat the NFL
(21:23):
head to head. I'm gonna tell you about the impact
potentially I could see for college football because that's one
thing that I think a lot of people wanted to discuss.
How does this impact not just the NFL, but also
college football. Be sure to catch live editions about kick
the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern
three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I
Heart Radio apps. We're talking about the debut of the
(21:45):
A A F taking your calls eight seven seven nine
six three six nine poll question also up did you
watch any of the a a F the new minor
league football games this weekend? You can go vote in
that at Clay Travis find me on and Twitter there um,
And I think this is actually really intriguing. Some people said, Okay, well,
(22:06):
I'd like to have these teams connected to the NFL
UH teams as a minor league, and I can certainly
see how that could make some sense. Also a lot
of questions about, well, how does this impact college football
with both the a F and the upcoming XFL Spring
football leagues. The XFL has been pretty pretty straightforward about this.
(22:27):
They're gonna recruit guys who are eighteen and nineteen years
old to join their league. And I actually think this
could have a substantial impact on college football because I
think there are a lot of guys out there who
go off to play college football that have zero interest
at all and being in college. And so if you
gave them a choice, hey, you can make a hundred
(22:48):
thousand dollars right now playing minor league football at nineteen
or twenty years old, or you can go to college football.
I think a lot of them would say, hey, I'll
take a hundred grand I I really do, and um,
I think if they really got aggressive, if the XFL did,
imagine if they started trying to recruit guys that you
knew were gonna be first round picks in the NFL
(23:10):
but they weren't eligible for a couple of years to
join the NFL. Let me give you an example. What
if the XFL decided, Hey, Trevor Lawrence, will give you
a big contract, a couple of million dollars guaranteed, and
we'll let you sign any sponsorship deals that you want to.
(23:30):
We know you're gonna be the overall number one pick
in the NFL draft. Are you interested in leaving Clemson
early and making a few million dollars to play football
at nineteen or twenty years old until you're eligible to
become an NFL player. Now, maybe a guy like Trevor
Lawrence doesn't take it because he thinks that the coaching
(23:51):
he's gonna get at Clemson and being on a college
campus and all those things are good for him. But
I bet there are a lot of guys out there
who would say, you know what, why wouldn't I make
a few million dollars if you're a high level, potential
first round draft pick or several hundred thousand dollars. If
you're a guy who's eventually going to go into the
(24:11):
NFL and not have any obligation to go to class
at all and just be able to focus full time
on being a professional football player, I would think there
are a lot of guys that would be interested in that.
I also don't think that's bad because a lot of
you are immediately right now saying well, I think that
would be bad for the college football game. I don't
know necessarily that it would at all, for a couple
(24:33):
of reasons. One, most people root for college football team
teams because of the names on the front of the jersey,
not the names on the back of the jersey. So
you're rooting for Clemson or Alabama or Michigan or USC
or whoever the school is because of the name on
the front much more than the name on the back. Secondly,
(24:55):
I think this really cleans up college football in terms
of people saying, well, these guy, I should get paid. Well,
if you want to get paid, you can go get paid.
Go to the minor league football league. You don't have
to wait around for three years to go pro. Right now.
In the NFL, they require you to be three years
out of high school before you can get graduate, before
(25:16):
you can get drafted. I think it cleans up college
football a lot because suddenly people out there who are saying, oh,
they should pay these players, they don't have that concern. Moreover,
you could go theoretically straight from finishing a college football
season into a training camp for either the A a
F or the XFL. So let's say you complete your
(25:40):
sophomore year and you've played two years of college football,
and you're like, you know what, I've got to sit
out another year, but I'm ready to go pro. What
if you could sign and get a couple of million
dollars in order to go straight to the A A
F to play for a year. Because think about it,
what's typically gonna make people watch this league is the
(26:02):
quarterback position, just like it is in the NFL. If
you knew that you could watch a big time quarterback
prospect who was potentially going to be in the NFL
next year in the A F, would you watch? I
think there are a lot of people who would, or
in the XFL. I think that could make a lot
of sense. So while I think some people might be
(26:23):
nervous about the impact overall in college football. I think
this could be good because it would mean the people
who go to college football actually have some interest at
least a little bit in going to school and combining
that with football. Whereas, if you don't want to do
it at all, okay, go pro and don't make the
charade of college football and academics and being a student
(26:44):
athlete even exist. Go ahead and go straight pro. And
are there a lot of guys out there who'd make
a couple of hundred thousand dollars and feel like they
were getting a good deal and instead of going to school.
I think so, more of your calls, more reaction. Next
on Our Kick, be sure to catch live editions of
Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am
Eastern three am Pacific. We're talking about the debut of
(27:06):
the A A f But man one guy who's not
going to be playing in the A A Feast Dwayne Haskins,
quarterback for Ohio State, probably going to be a first
round draft pick, alongside I think Drew lock and Kyler
Murray for sure. Maybe Will Greer sneaks in at the
end of the first round as well. Duke's quarterback who's
coming out early. All those guys potentially top of the
(27:29):
level quarterbacks in this year's NFL draft at the end
of April. Look, I do fifteen hours of live radio.
I do five hours a week of live television. I
also do Periscope and Facebook and I write. There's probably
very few people who produce more original sports content, maybe
no one in the entire country right now than me.
(27:52):
And as part of that, I know it's tough, right,
You've got a lot of work to do. There's a
lot of things to stay on top of. But my
odd stephen A. Smith, who is holding out hope and
I hope he gets it. Look, I root for everybody
to get as much money as they possibly can. Stephen A.
Smith is going out there right now. He wants to
(28:13):
make ten million dollars a year in the next contract
he gets. He We had him talking about the breakdown
when he said Hunter Henry versus uh in the in
the playoff game or no. I guess it was the
end of the regular season between the Chargers in the Chiefs.
He said Hunter Henry was gonna be a key. Well,
Hunter Henry was on injured reserve for almost the entirety
(28:34):
of the year, and now he's breaking down to Wayne
Haskins at quarterback. This happened on ESPN's airwaves on Friday.
I believe if you haven't heard this, listen to this.
This is Stephen A. Smith breaking down d Wayne Haskins.
Haskins is no joke as well. I know that he's bigger,
he can make all the requisite throws on the NFL.
Lovely played for a big time program at Ohio State.
(28:57):
I just wont him to be more of a run up.
I could be wrong about that, but that's what I fought.
Stephen A. Smith says that Dwayne Haskins is more of
a runner than a thrower. Let me give you a
couple of stats. Haskins last year passed for nearly five
thousand yards and ran for a hundred and eight yards
(29:18):
on seventy nine attempts and average of one point four
yards per rush. I don't believe you can have the
opinion that Stephen A. Smith just had and have watched
a single Ohio State football game all year. Dwayne Haskins
might be the least athletic quarterback in the NFL this year. Alright,
(29:39):
So a couple of questions for you out there. I'm
gonna open up the phone lines, but I want to
start with the crew eight seven seven nine six three
six nine. Is this what do you expect from your
quote unquote sports experts. I'm not saying that every opinion
I have on this show is flawless and perfect, but
I don't think I've ever said anything as off base
(30:01):
as what Stephen A. Smith just said about Dawayne Haskins. Again,
Let's play that one more time if we could. You
just heard me say, the guy through for nearly five
thousand yards. He isn't a mobile quarterback at all. In fact,
he can barely run. He's much more of a statue,
more of a Byron left which than he is a
Michael Vick by far right if you want to compare
(30:23):
him only to black quarterbacks. But I think he's actually
the least athletic quarterback of all the guys out there.
I think Will Greer is more mobile. It's not like
Will Greer is known as a great mobile guy. Drew
Lock as a lot more athletic than Dwayne Haskins. Certainly,
we know Kyler Murray, who's able to run all over
the field and make plays is a different kind of
(30:43):
caliber of athlete. Kyler Murray basically Doug Flutie reincarnate, reincarnated.
But but let's uh, but let's listen to this audio
clip one more time. Play it. Haskins is no joke
as well. I know he's bigger, he can make all
the requisite throws on the end felt lovely played for
a big time program at Ohio State. I just fond
(31:03):
him to be more of a runner than a thrower.
I could be wrong about that, but that's what I fought,
all right. So I do fifteen hours of radio a week,
I do five hours of television a week, plus what
I do on Periscope and Facebook, and plus what I write.
I think I probably almost in the country and more
uniquely suited to break this down than almost anybody. This
is inexcusable. There is no way that you can make
(31:27):
this error if you are in Stephen A. Smith's position.
By the way, the setup was, they were debating Kyler
Murray versus Dwayne Haskins, so they know exactly what they're
gonna talk about. For people who don't do television, that
everything in television is like a script, right, It's like
a play. You don't necessarily have lines, certainly, but you
(31:49):
know what you're gonna talk about. If you watch my
show Lock It In in the afternoons. On television, we
have a script, a set up out of the A block.
We call it the first segment. We know the first
five topics, what they're gonna be, and I can call
for a graphic to support that. In television, it is
all very scripted in the way that you're gonna talk.
(32:11):
Not necessarily that you're reading like and you have memorized lines,
nothing like that. But hey, we're gonna talk about you know,
Lebron James going up against uh. I don't know that,
the seventies sixers, which just happened over the weekend, Lakers sixers.
We don't do that at all on radio. Some people,
probably in radio, I don't know, Danny g You've worked
with a lot of people in radio, may send out
(32:31):
like a, Hey, here's the twelve topics we're gonna talk about,
and here's the order we're gonna talk about him. I
never knew that. Because I want to be flexible and
I want to adjust in real time, I come in
with three or four topics that I think are potentially
interesting for a show day and then just kind of
roll with him as the show progresses and get a
good read on it. When you guys, I want to
bring in the crew because you guys work in this
(32:53):
space too. When you hear Steven A. Smith give that opinion,
first of all, I think it's indefensible because he knew
exactly what they we're gonna be talking about. Secondly, all
you have to have done is watched one half of
an Ohio State football game this year to know that
Dwayne Haskins is not a runner. Third, and I really
do believe this. I think he's saying that because Dwayne
(33:14):
Haskins is a black quarterback. And I think, in all honesty,
I think if a white guy said this, there would
be an outrage in the Twitter streets everywhere else, people
be saying, Oh, this is why black quarterbacks can't get
a fair shot, even when a guy is not a
mobile quarterback at all. And in fact, like I said,
I think Dwayne Haskins probably the worst athlete of any
(33:34):
of the available top first round caliber quarterbacks in terms
of his mobility and his speed and his ability to
move outside the pocket. So I think all those things
are true if you watch Drew lockplay, even if you
watched Will Greer play, I saw more mobility out of
both those guys. Drew Locks actually a really good athlete.
Um and uh, And I think Will Greer's more mobile
than Dwayne Haskins is. We know Kyler Murray is uh,
(33:57):
and we know I think it's Jones from Duke I
believe also is as well. So when you hear that,
Danny G what's your thought? Shake my head? National sports
is hard because you need to know a little bit
about a lot of things. But that doesn't give him
any excuse because of his paycheck. You have to do
the work. You have to at least watch as much
(34:18):
sports as the casual fan. Now, I'm a huge NFL, NBA,
Major League Baseball guy. College football wasn't big on my
go to list until I started working on this program.
I knew, you know, I know Clay loves college football.
He's gonna talk about college football more than your average
radio show. So four years ago I really dug in
(34:40):
and started paying attention to college football. Not being a
college football guru, I saw three Ohio State games last season.
I know that Haskins through for what almost fifty touchdowns
and is known for his right here and when this
dude drops back, he basically stands up. He's a statue. Yes,
(35:02):
So as a casual football fan, college football fan, I
should say I'm obsessed with NFL, but just a casual
college football fan who now pays attention for work. I
know more than Stephen A. Smith and I get paid
percentile of his check. So yeah, it's annoying. Not just
him either, It's that he has an entire staff on
(35:24):
television designed to help him. That's how television works. I
always say there's a reason why people don't go television
to radio to writing if you follow career trajectories. I
know we got a lot of young guys and girls
who go into school in the morning, you're riding with
your parents and you're thinking, oh, I'd like to make
a living in sports one day. I always say the
foundation which you should pursue is writing. Read as much
(35:47):
as you can, write as often as you can, because
writing is the most difficult of the disciplines to learn.
There are lots of people who have gone writing to
radio to TV. I'm not saying it's easy to do,
or that each doesn't have its own unique difficulties and challenges.
It's a lot. There's a reason why you see relatively
few guys go RAI television to radio to writing, because
(36:11):
as you move down that way, everything gets more difficult.
When I write an article, it's me sitting in front
of a computer screen all by myself, with nobody else
to work with me. When I do radio, a lot
of it's me sitting down doing it almost entirely on
my own, compared to TV, where there's tons of people
working with me all the time, giving me stats, sending
me things saying, hey, have you considered this? TV is
(36:34):
by far the easiest. So it's not just as Stephen
A Smith failure here, it's that he's not relying in
any way on the massive staff. I'm sure they have
dozens of people just about who work on first take
every day. Uh, Eddie Garcia. When you hear something like this,
what do you think you know? It kind of reminds
me of every once in a while you'll watch the
local news and they'll try and do a sports story
(36:57):
and they'll butcher it. Yeah, and you're do you think
yourself up? If they don't, If they can't get this right,
something that I know about all the things that they
tell me that I don't know about. How do we
know they're not getting that wrong at either point. Basically,
he has no credibility in my eyes whatsoever, none a dub.
When you hear something like this, what are your thoughts?
I mean, it's essentially the equivalent of calling grey oat
(37:17):
and a spot up shooter. I mean, if you watch
any college football at all, you're gonna see at least
one Ohio's Day game, and you will see Dwayne Haskins,
and you will realize within a quarter that he is
a pocket passer and his threat to run is pretty
much nonexistent. In fact, you would dream, if you are
a defensive coordinator in the Big Ten, of Dwayne Haskins
leaving the pocket and trying to run like that would
(37:40):
be ideal for you. Is him scrambling and trying to
convert first downs because his danger is standing in the
pocket and throwing the football. I always say, I mean,
this is just you've never watched an Ohio State game.
And by the way, think of all the massive games
that Ohio State has played, and think about all the
opinions stephen A. Smith probably had during the course of
season on Ohio State. Did they deserve to make the playoff?
(38:04):
Is Urban Meyer? Uh? In trouble based on the way
that the off the field issues arose, Like all of
these things, to me, it's just evidence of not doing
your most basic homework. And look, I get it. I
feel like I'm uniquely suited to be able to talk
about this because I do fifteen hours of radio national radio.
I do five hours of television. I don't think I've
(38:24):
ever said anything that dumb. Not to say, I don't
say dumb stuff because, as Danny g pointed out, it's
hard to be great on every different subject, particularly when
there's so many moving parts and every day there's different
stories and everything else. But you at least have to
be somewhat well versed. This would be like me saying
about Zion Williamson, Uh, you know, I just don't know
that he has the physical skills and athleticism to play
(38:47):
at the next level. You'd be like, have you ever
watched did you watch him swat that three boy shot
into the third third row? I mean, it would be
evidence that I had never seen Zion Williamson play. If
I came on and I just said, you know what,
I just questioned if he has the natural athleticism to
be able to play at a high level in the NBA.
Every single person who has watched Duke play for five
(39:07):
minutes would be like, would be a record scratch moment.
I can't trust that guy's opinion going forward any further. Iowa, Sam,
are you with me here? Oh? Absolutely? If I played
word association with uh Dwayne Haskins, I would say he's
a bomber. I mean he he said he broke Drew
Brees touchdown record for the Big Ten with fifty touchdown passes.
But this is kind of the problem with the debate
(39:28):
show guys and Steven A. Smith is a great reporter
and he he knows a lot about sports. But this
happened a few months ago where he had he talked
about some guy who had been traded to another team.
He gets sort of the cliff notes things on a
lot of things, and he when you have an array
of topics, the guy will screw up on things and
show that he is massively misinformed on a topic such
(39:49):
as this. Yes, I don't I don't know. You know,
Dwayne Haskins. I'm sure can take off here and there,
But he's a bomber. So he got this wrong. He
gets informed and notes on a lot of different things.
But he said in that clip, I could be wrong here,
and I'm like, uh, yeah, you're you're flat out wrong
and someone should have been whispering in your ear that. No,
we gotta scratch that, go to something else, all right.
(40:09):
I want to open up a phone lines. I want
to hear from you guys out there. I want to
ask this question too. We hear a lot about black
quarterbacks and the fact that they are stereotyped. If a
white guy had said this, would this be a major
story or do you just write it off and be like,
Stephen A. Smith is a clown and so I'm not
(40:30):
necessarily looking for him to be the expert here. Or
is this sort of an invidious and insidious stereotype that
Stephen A. Smith is getting away with. Oh, the black guy,
he's more of a runner than he is a passer,
even though anybody who has watched Dwayne Haskins play knows
that this guy is the most prototypical pocket passer of
(40:53):
anybody available in the draft this year. This is the
most statuesque stand in the pocket, make reads and throw
the ball down the field. Is it fair to point
out that Steven A. Smith is just relying potentially on
a stereotype year and assuming that a black guy is
athletic and mobile and you see him as more of
a runner, I'm curious maybe also from the black audience
(41:16):
out there, are you given Steven a pass here? Or
if a white guy said this, would you rip him?
Eight seven seven six three six nine. This is out
kicked The coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s
(41:37):
R to listen. Lock Mark's not available in every state.
Taking to your calls reacting to Steven A. Smith saying
that Dwayne Haskins is more of a running quarterback, We've
got a lot of loaded lines here. Let's dive through.
Also take him at the top of our three in
the event that I can't get to everybody, Mike and Modesto, California.
What's up man? When you said that, that's exactly went
(41:59):
through my And he didn't do his homework, and he
went right to his stereotype, and he didn't know what
he was talking about if that was a white guy
who said that they'll do some loser in his mother's basement,
social justice lawyer sending up the emails to all the
all the nerdy social justice Warrior club, and the guy
(42:20):
would have been ripped apart that it's unacceptable that he
did that. Come on, man, do some homework. I know
your specialty is MBA and a little bit the NFL,
but do not talk about something that you do not
know about, because didn't the people know you're stupid? Thank
you for the time play. Yeah, all you have to
(42:41):
do is watch one half of an Ohio state game
and you would know Dwayne Haskin one Ohio State full game.
They played a lot of big games. Just watch one.
Just watch the Michigan game. Robin Ohio, what's up? Good morning, sir,
um love your show, you your sort spot on and
(43:01):
and you're the type of guy will say, hey, I
might be wrong. Stephen A. If he said I might
be wrong with say but I'm not. And the sixth
year old man, it's a sixth year old man in
central Ohio, like the other guys said, look, if you're
watching the game, Hastin's does not run. And the tapes
are inflammatory, and I think the hyperbole of his of
(43:22):
alf his tastes to draw rolled the audience up to
get ratings or whatever. It's not informative, it's not fact based,
and that's what's great about your show. And you have
a lot of converse or keep up the good work.
I appreciate that. Look, there are lots of things I
say that many of you out there can hear. It'd
be like, I think Clay Travis is totally wrong about that,
(43:44):
But I think there are very very few things where
the very basis of my opinion you couldn't accept off
the jump, and that's one of those. That's the kind
of you got to just pass the eye test. To
use a cliche, does this our ument past the eye test?
If you've watched Dwayne Haskins play at all, the answer
(44:06):
is no. The guy through for almost five thousand yards
over fifty touchdowns, whatever the heck it was. He ran
four around a hundred yards and all of those were
short scrambles. They weren't designed runs. I'm gonna keep taking
your calls on this will also dive in if you're
just waking up to the A A F as well
(44:26):
as we'll talk to our guy Alex Marvez about all
of this and more. All that's still the coming hour three.
Hope your Monday is going well. This is Outkicked the
Coverage on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
editions of Outkicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at
six am Eastern three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app. Poll question up. Nearly
(44:48):
twenty one thousand of you voted during the course of
today's show. Did you watch any of the A A
F the New minor league football game this weekend? You
said yes again, nearly one tho of you weighing in, Uh,
you know what, I have not heard a lot away Again,
everybody and their mother wanted to hit me when the
Lakers and Rondo hit that jumper to win by a
(45:11):
point over the Celtics, and everybody was all fired up
about how good the how good the Lakers looked with
Lebron James coming back. You know what, I haven't heard
a lot of since the Lakers got their ass kicked
this weekend yesterday by the seventies sixers, I haven't heard
a lot of Laker talk. Let's cue the music. Boys,
It's time for l A Broun. Hey, I got I got,
(45:35):
I got I got from the first show in the
country to predict hashtag future Laker. Instead of three hours
of it, Clay Travis captures all the mania in three minutes.
Lebron has picked up the circus tent and it has
followed him wherever he is gone. I told you the
win over the Celtics was fool's gold, and I told
(45:55):
you it was fool's gold because for some reason, the
Lakers came out and they couldn't miss a three point shot.
They shot fifty four percent from the floor against the Celtics,
the best they've ever done in the history of their
franchise in terms of makes. I think they were like
twenty two of forty one if I'm not mistaken. Well,
guess what happened going up against the Philadelphia seventy six
(46:19):
ers just a couple of days later. The Lakers couldn't
make anything from outside. They shot just ten for twenty seven,
which is about what they've been shooting all season long,
and as a result, they got whipped. They lost by
twenty three points. They are now pretty substantially out of
(46:40):
the playoffs, probably will beat the Hawks. Defend your boys. Well,
last week you predicted that they are not going to
make the playoffs at all. Are you still standing by that?
That's fine, You're just sounding like a whiner because of
the money you lost on that Celtics game. But you realize, no,
but even before Celtics, even before I lost the money
(47:01):
on the Celtics, I said that the Lakers were not
going to make the playoffs. And I said that that
game was fool's gold because it was not representative overall.
And by the way, the Celtics gave up an even
bigger lead to the Clippers over the week after Kyrie
went down with a knee injury. They were up twenty eight.
I think in that game or whatever the heck it was,
(47:21):
I think the Lakers will come back and they'll be
So let's let's stop right there. You predicted also that
the Celtics were gonna win the East, So is that
changing now now Kyrie is okay? I still think the
Celtics are the best team in the East. They're more
dysfunctional than the Lakers. Well, they're also better, they're more dysfunctional. No,
no one is more dysfunctional than the Lakers. You go
(47:42):
back and forth. Na, I never thought that you would
pull up Ben Mallard when it came to the NBA.
But now you're turning into an official, legit Laker hater. No,
I'm not a hater. I'm just a realistic person. Lebron
almost had a triple double and didn't even play that
any minutes he was on the bench. Yeah, they lost.
(48:02):
I understand. Once he's engaged and he's into the game
the way he wasn't that Celtics game, you realize that
he can single handedly get a team into that eighth spot. Right.
First of all, I hope the Lakers make the playoff
and get into that eight spot because I want that's
gonna happen, to beat him by fifty in every game
and humiliate the Lakers humiliated the Warriors in Oakland without Lebron. Well,
(48:27):
Lebron hurt his groin in that game, right, but they
finished that game by blowing out the Warriors. So if
you've already proven that they could beat the Warriors, if
you think that the Warriors in the regular season is
anything like the Warriors in the postseason, we could make
that same argument for Lebron. Lebron in the postseason is
a completely different player than he is on cruise Control
(48:49):
in the regular when he gets to play against the
Eastern Conference teams. Laker fans just listen to me right now.
Don't get your hopes. They're not getting them. America. You
got your ass kicked by the seventies sixers, and you
should have gotten your ass kicked by the Celtics too.
Whenever you go up against good teams, Lebron's gonna leave
(49:09):
the court crying. There you go, that's that's losing money
on another NBA bet. No, I I will talk got
some NBA bets coming up on walking in later today
Lakers Dead, I love all of you. My name is
Clay Travis. Download the podcast will be live tomorrow. This
is Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six
(49:31):
am Eastern three am Pacific
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