The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
Thu, 19 Dec 2024
Today's Cast: Dan, John Amaechi, Chris, Tony, Mike, Amin. We are all struggling a bit today after last night's holiday party but luckily Johan Amaechi is here to lift all of our spirits. We begin by recapping the best moments of our holiday party, including a triumphant moment of celebration between Greg Cote and David Dwork. Then, the Florida Panthers dominated the Minnesota Wild last night and everybody is talking about the quintessential Matthew Tkachuk game that took place last night. Plus, Amin face planted and busted his lip up last night, but powers through to have a discussion with Meech about the concept of athletes being soft, including Joel Embiid after Stephen A. Smith's comments and the Tennessee Titans after their head coach, Brian Callahan, responded to the accusation that his team is not tough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Shadow show.
Shadow show. Shadow show. Shadow show. Shadow show.
Shadow show.
Shadow show. Shadowing it. Shadowing it. Is Amin here or did the holiday party get him?
What do you mean by here? I saw an IG from him where there was a turkey vulture on his balcony here at the Elser, and I don't think he made it. I think it was huge.
We have replaced him with John Amici, and we will see if we find Amin at some point. But I have a number of holiday party-related questions, because when I got there yesterday, Izzy immediately apologized.
me and said i'm so sorry i did not know that this was no plus ones now i'm standing next to my wife and it's the first time i'm learning that there are no plus ones at our party so i've broken the rule upon upon coming in i didn't even know the rule and then izzy's apologizing to me about the rule and i'm forced to consider for the first time the rule because i'm like Is it OK to do that?
Was anyone complaining about that at the party?
The rules kind of don't apply to you, though, Dan. Come on. No, no, no.
I wasn't asking whether I'm allowed to bring my wife. You're always allowed to bring your wife.
Thank you. Just in case you didn't know, I'm letting you know.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I wasn't asking for that part, but I did immediately feel self-conscious of, wait a minute. No one else is allowed to bring their plus one and I'm here with my plus one. It made me immediately feel self-conscious.
It's like when you guys got all mad that we were in Austin for South by Southwest and I was staying at the Four Seasons and everybody else was at a Days Inn.
What? We were at the Two Seasons.
Really? Well, this is before I got control or more control over my company. I tried to rectify that upon noticing it. But this, what do I do about this? Were there people complaining that they weren't allowed to bring their wives or husbands?
I wouldn't say people were complaining. I would say people noticed that some people brought. I wouldn't say it was you, but yeah. It was just kind of like, oh, I didn't know that was allowed. No, you're like grandfathered in, Dan.
Everyone knows the deal. You are a grandfather. You co-founded the company.
No, no, wait a minute. Again, this is not the part I'm asking about, and I will self-penalize here. It's not okay. for everyone else to not bring their spouse and me to bring my spouse.
But it's been that way since we've ever started having company parties. That's just always been the policy. Like, I walked into it, and I just assumed that there were no plus ones. And then I saw Izzy broke that rule, and I was like, oh, damn, this is going to be a fight. So it wasn't.
I haven't told people yet that John Amici is here in studio with us. We are thrilled to have John Amici. I will ask him, as somebody who knows about these things, in a second, I'm going to ask him for an official ruling declaration on this. But before we get started, I just want to tell everybody, this is a historic day in the history of sports media. In the history of maybe American media.
Never before has there been a greater disparity in the history of the spoken word and media between the words coming out of a single seat from one day to the other than Stugatz being replaced today in this seat by John Amici.
It's the holidays, a time for peace, for love, for presents. And do I have one for you. It's Poppy's Fifty Shades of Christmas. You're welcome.
I groan and run my fingernails across his neck, and he gasps a strangled moan. I stick down onto him, rattling in the fullness of my possession, rattling in his reaction, watching his unravel beneath me. I feel like a goddess. Anna, touch me, please. I lean forward and steady myself with my hands on his chest. Come on, baby. I need this. Give it to me.
And I explode, my body a slave to his, and wrap myself around him, clinging to him like a vine as he crowds out my name and climaxes with me.
Thank you, Papi. See, Greg? That's how it's done.
Then collapses his full weight, pressing me into the mattress.
This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stoogads.
i am here with what looks like a truly horrified john amici uh you don't understand what just happened there with my father and 50 shades of poppy right no that was madness it that was madness who thinks of this that's the part that's amazing to me who thinks of this and says that's what we'll do that combination of things and the visuals the exploding watermelon Yeah.
Okay. That is on the video product, the YouTube product. We will go out to our toy drive here in a little bit because after Tony and Roy competed against each other to be a better Santa Claus, we are now going to an even skinnier Santa Claus because Rose is going to be out there for us today at Dolphin Mall. We will check in with her in a second.
But I want to continue the conversation about the holiday party yesterday, which escalated quickly. Okay. And when I say it escalated quickly, I don't know about the rest of you, but at one point I looked up and a Greg Cody who had had too many beers and was now chasing it with shots of tequila,
was drinking a shot from a hockey stick with David Dwork, and both of them at the end of that thrust their arms up in the air together in the moment of greatest solidarity I have seen at Metal Lark Media. David Dwork and Greg Cody did shots of tequila, threw their arms up in the air, and it was a soulful connection.
I was not expecting the strangest buddy tandem since Roy and Dwork on the hockey show, and anyone I would associate Dwork with in general,
he's dork oh man that's great that's great thank you very much what dork is an unusual creature are we are we disagreeing on that not not necessarily no we're not disagreeing on that i wish i could have joined in on that shot but um where were you dry i'm dry right now oh nobody's more annoying nobody's more annoying than the guy who can't stop telling you he's dry yes
I mean, stop. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants to hear it. That's your choice.
I'm a vegan now. Do you think that was my choice? And Roy was one of the last ones there. I remember looking at him. It was like close to midnight. And I'm just like, I would not still be here right now if I was sober.
Roy had more shots than the Minnesota Wild had in the third period.
I do want to talk about what happened in that game last night because to go on the road and beat 6-1, a team that had lost seven times all season with Kachuk scoring two goals. Hey, there's a mean.
Dan, we were all talking before the show, and we all agreed. Last night was a quintessential Matthew Kachuk performance.
Absolutely.
Just two goals, you know, mixing it up, getting shoved and cross-checked immediately after scoring. What a special team this is. Because, as you mentioned, Minnesota, quite good. And that's not usually a spot where the Florida Panthers have a lot of success, Roy.
You remember that play where Ron Autist had where he was celebrating the basket and then he immediately elbowed James Harden? That's what Matthew Kachuk did to Marc-Andre Fleury after he scored.
I mean, beating Minnesota 6-1, going on the road, scoring like that in that game...
Holden Kirill the thrill to under one and a half points, an achievement in itself.
He had a goal taken away from him.
Yeah, yeah. That one hurt.
Also hurting is Amin Alhassan, but I don't want to exclude Amici in the most aggressive way possible by not just talking about hockey, but talking about Florida Panthers hockey. I've got a champion.
We can talk CFP. He's a little worried about the sayings.
I want to talk about all the sports things now that Amin has joined us, but I did want to ask. Amin, if you have any thoughts on the corporate, on the holiday party, I would like all of them. You seem to have had a good time. I want from Amici some analysis of whether we're doing the party correctly or not as a company.
On a Wednesday.
I would like constructive advice. Wednesday's not... Poor Chris Cody had to sleep at the Elser. He just got... He was all right, Dan. Hump day. It's a bad choice for the party to do it on a Wednesday?
It's a hugely bad choice. Thank you. What's wrong with Fridays? That's a great question. What's wrong with a Friday? I was wondering the same thing. I thought today was Friday until right now. Let's just do this knowing that the pain on... I mean, I've seen some colleagues in here. It is not a fun day for some people right now. Low energy.
Low energy and also just that face that says, I'm like a millimeter from vomiting in a bucket. That type of thing. That's fine for me.
I was dry.
See right through me. I'm a vegan now. Sorry, you were dry again? Yes. Okay, good. Good to know. This is one of those vegan things. I have to tell you. God damn it. Minor penalty, two minutes for boring.
I'm also very dry because she's extremely dehydrated.
Just nobody likes that person who's telling you all the time that he or she is dry. Amin is clearly not dry. Where do you stand as an advisor for... For an assortment of corporations as a psychologist, where do you stand as what it is that should be allowed at the company party? Because I felt a bit self-conscious not allowing everybody to have a plus one.
And I don't know what the right thing should be.
Or just people take it for granted that you can't bring a plus one.
No, when I got there with my wife, Izzy's immediately apologizing to me because he did not know it was no plus ones, which is the moment that I realized it was no plus ones. And so it was not my decision, as many things around here are my responsibility, but not my decision. And so I really don't know what's right here, though.
Well, what's right is having a decision that you make that everybody knows, right? So either everybody knows it's plus ones or everybody knows it's not plus ones. I think no plus ones. We just had our holiday party on a Friday, by the way. On a Friday. Novel.
Novel concept.
So that people can be pained on their own time. Right. Which I think is better.
Yeah, I don't know. Like I said, grandfathered in. I walked in with the expectation that there were no plus ones because ever since we've been a company, there have been no plus ones. So it wasn't even a topic of conversation.
Make the rule. Mike, is he doing it? We're fine with you doing it, Dan.
But it's Izzy's first holiday party, so he had no idea that this was the rule.
But it's my first holiday party, and I didn't know it was the rule because at the previous holiday parties, I had not noticed that that was something that was happening. It's just I wasn't paying attention to it, and I had noticed it no previous. I had not noticed it, and I probably wouldn't have even noticed it last night.
That just doesn't sound right. You co-founded this company. How is it your first holiday party? That is weird, by the way.
I don't think it was my first holiday party. I think it was my first holiday party where this was pointed out to me. I haven't noticed it at previous holiday parties. It wasn't something that I was conscious to. And the last one I went to, I didn't go with my wife.
Did you just think nobody could make it? Man, they all couldn't make it. Wow, what a coincidence. Nobody's partner could make it.
That does seem a bit convenient. Why don't you just make a rule about this? Well, there is a rule.
It's no plus one.
Except Dan. Totally fine with that.
Except for Dan.
Yeah, no. He's a co-founder of the company. He gets to bring his wife. We're good. Thank you for the bar.
I believe I deserve to bring someone as well. So what is your ruling on this? Because I haven't actually even talked to any of our executives about how it is.
No plus ones. No plus ones. It's the work family together. Chance to let your hair down. That's it. Hear that, Izzy?
Put it on the poll, please, at Levitard Show. I felt so bad. I felt so bad for Izzy because he immediately became self-conscious. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Should the company make holiday parties always plus one? Yes or no is the question that I want to put before you. I mean, how... How much are you hurting? How much fun did you have?
Were you one of the people taking shots off of a hockey stick?
I missed a hockey stick shot. I saw you imbibing that and indulging that. Yeah.
I saw your face after, too, Dan. I didn't like that.
Well, I'll tell you why. Because I've never done it off a hockey stick before, so I did not know what we were doing. So when they said, do you want a shot? I said yes, and I asked for a mezcal because I thought I would be sipping it. Once a mezcal becomes a shot and it's super smoky, you've made a mistake. You shouldn't drink that as a shot. You need to sip mezcal. Nobody does shots of mezcal.
That's not something you do.
I do. You're dry. You're dry. Yeah, well... Come on now, don't do this to me. Why would you walk into that? Minor penalty, two minutes for boring.
Double minor.
No, no.
Double minor.
I said if I wasn't dry, I would. But I never mentioned the word dry, and I said, I'll count. You said dry seven times in the last ten seconds.
You can appeal it to the commissioner if you want. You can argue on your way off the ice. You need to get out of here again because you're dry.
You know a great moment from last night? Because, yeah, some of you guys were doing the shotskis with tequila, which is insane. The pickleback is the greatest shot known to man because you take your shot of whiskey and then you immediately hydrate yourself with pickle juice. Now, Greg Cody, I happen to know, loves pickles and pickle juice. He had never had a pickleback in his entire life.
In his 215 years on this planet, he had never indulged in a pickleback. And I ordered him one. And as soon as he knocked back the pickle juice instantaneously, wow, where has this been my entire life? It was just an incredible moment.
What an honor to introduce Greg Cody to something alcoholic.
This episode of the Dan Levitard Show with Stu Gatz is sponsored by Liquid IV. The holidays are not a sprint, ladies and gentlemen. They are a marathon. It's a stressful, busy weekend, right? There's a lot of traveling, a lot of kissing babies, shaking hands, a lot of stuff. I'll see you next time. True to fruit flavors that keep you hydrated.
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Don Levitard. Our Panther group chat, we're confident against the Lightning. This is a different team. You're a Panther group chat, though. No, but dude, you're so wrong on that. We've been terrified of this team forever, and I think there's a different energy where the Panthers, they want the Lightning.
Stugatz. I want t-shirts made for this Panther run. What could be this Panther run? Our Panther group chat, we're not afraid of the Lightning.
That's a tagline for World Raw 3. This is the Don Levitas Show with the Stugats.
Did you have a turkey buzzard on your balcony and why is your lip swollen and it's one of your teeth? Do you have a bloody mouth?
No, it's yes. I have a split lip right here. I was running across the street last night and I face planted and it was a bloody mess and I don't mean it in the John Amici way. What happened? I just described what happened.
Yeah, you did. But were you drinking? High-sticking.
Were you drunk? Like, what happened? You're just clumsy? I was clumsy and also alcohol, man. Why were you running across the street?
To not get hit by a car.
The thing was going down nine, eight, seven. Yeah, a little jaywalk action.
I can beat him.
A little jaywalk action going. But, yes, there was... There was, earlier in the day, and this terrified me, and I learned a lot of things, by the way. I'm talking to my sister on the phone, and out of the corner of my eye, I see some movement on the balcony, and I'm like, oh, you know, usually birds are up there. And I take a look, and I'm like, that's a big bird.
And I looked at it, and it was like, that's a vulture. Like, I know that look. Dark feathers, naked neck and head, that's a vulture. And it just sat there. It was just kind of contemplating, and then it turned around and looked at me. It's like, why is your face bleeding? Well, this is before. It's early in the day.
The turkey buzzard is telling its friends, you're not going to believe this strange bloody thing with a big lip I just saw.
Except he did it with an accent so his friends didn't realize. Oh, so it's really terrible? No, it's a bloody mess. There it is on the screen right there. Dude, it's huge. And it just sat there. And by the way, that's like a 20 second recording. It was there for a strong 15 minutes.
I will tell you that you would be stunned by the size of the birds we have around here that you think are small because you're looking at them from a distance on the beach, and if they landed on your balcony, they'd take your cat. They would fly off with your cat. Your cat would be a meatloaf in the claws, in the talons of that bird.
It's funny when you go to the zoo and Romagill's like, wow, this bird has a six-foot wingspan. You're like, yeah, okay, buddy, all right, sure. And then they go like this and go, whew, and open it up, and it's literally the size of my wingspan.
I'm like, holy. All of a sudden they're the size of Shaq and you're like, I did not know that. Where'd all that come from?
So this is the crazy part. So I tagged the show and I tagged Ron McGill because I was like, oh, get Ron on this. I found out that Ron is out of town, right? Do you know how I found out? Because Ron's son responded to me. Yes, Sean McGill, which I thought he was lying to me. He was like, I'm Sean McGill.
No, no, that's it. My boy, Sean. His other son, Don McGill. Yeah, exactly.
And don't forget Juan. Juan McGill, Lon McGill.
So Sean McGill runs Only in Dade. I was like, wow. All these worlds are colliding while this buzzard is on me down.
He works for Only in Dade. He doesn't run Only in Dade. He runs some of the page stuff. To run Only in Dade is to be a mafia king. Yeah. So are you saying?
No, yes, I will say yes.
Because that must be Juan Miguel. That's not going to be Sean Miguel. That's not going to be Don Miguel.
That's the Don Miguel.
Dan, all I'm going to say is yes. I'm not going to say anything else. Thank you. I mean, are you OK? Because your face looks swollen. And I'm now imagining as you were rushing, you know, five, four, three, you want to get out in front of the car. Now the car is waiting for someone who's in the street on his face, bleeding in a puddle.
Yeah, I gathered myself quickly and did the, oh, you know, wave. Thank you, guys, for not hitting me. And then after I got on the sidewalk, that's when I really started to realize, oh, my God, I'm a tomato can.
How long were you out of commission? Like, that looked like it hurt. Oh, it hurts now. Yeah, so on the heels of yesterday's discussion, just know that that happens routinely in a hockey game, and they come right back, and they often score goals.
Well, I'm here working, so. Well, thank you for your service. I feel like I'm adding to the show. I did the whole bloody joke with Don and Nietzsche.
It was great. But if Joel Embiid had suffered your injury, he'd be out for three months.
Ouch.
Well, I want to ask. This allows me to play a couple of Stephen A. Smith sounds, and I want to get to what it is that Tyreek Hill did on Twitter. I'm not going to call it X. I'm going to refuse for the rest of time to call it X. But Stephen A. Smith had some commentary on both Miami and Joel Embiid.
And I want Amici's thoughts on this and I want Amin's thoughts on this because I so rarely question whether or not An athlete cares enough. I don't do that very much. But let's listen to Stephen A. Smith here hammer Joel Embiid, who has had an assortment of injuries in the last couple of days.
In fact, for the last few years, I've been a little bit bothered by the way that Mike Ryan goes with some form of this team's banged up or you have to play through that when all of us, have different pain thresholds, and I don't expect everyone to have the pain threshold of a hockey player. That's not my expectation. Or a podcaster.
But let's listen to Stephen A. Smith here just go after Joel Embiid as somebody, he cares very much about Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is just hammering Joel Embiid.
You're about a tad bit away from being compared to Ben Simmons. It's starting to look that bad. Now, let me tell you something right now. You bring up the injuries and all of that stuff. I look at the disinterest on his face, and that was before it got cracked, okay? I look at the disinterest, the lack of enthusiasm, whatever. Now, we can talk about his injuries, and fair enough, Perk, right?
But here's the problem. You injured last year. You only played 39 games. In the playoffs, obviously, you got bounced in the first round by the New York Knicks. You didn't look that way in the Olympics. Looked pretty damn happy. but pretty damn happy playing in the Olympics, okay? And then inexplicably, you ain't ready to go come this season, all right?
And I'm looking at that, and I got this list of injuries here just so y'all know. It's not a fracture. Foot, knee, health protocols, back, hand, face, ankle, shoulder, calf, hip, elbow, ribs, injury management. That is why I was against your assertion to sit him down because I'm going like this. He's always hurt. This brother will get hurt going to the bathroom.
I got to use him when I got to use him because I never know. Just because you don't play him don't mean he ain't going to show up hurt. Evidenced by him playing in the Olympics looking just fine. Two months later when the season starts, there's nothing. He's injured and it's like, what the hell happened?
I've got a disparity here. Mike Ryan is laughing. John Amici, a former professional basketball player, has just dropped his head into his hands. So who's right here?
I mean, it's not about who's right. Almost everything this man is talking about is the gaps in his knowledge. He's reading papers. He's not there in medical rooms with him. And I don't know whether... Joel is kind of phoning it in or not. I can't tell.
But when anybody utters a sentence, well, you know, we can talk about his injuries, but and then they want to talk about the way he holds his face as if that ameliorates whether he's actually injured or not. It's just ridiculous to me. Plus, the thing I just find distasteful about this man is the fact that he replaces reason with volume.
Any time he thinks his argument is lacking, he just gets louder. And to me, that is the sign of the belligerent drunk at the end of the bar, not a kind of seasoned reporter on this type of stuff. So you're saying he had a dry take? Okay, that's got to be one of those buzzers. It's got to be. What are you talking about? I wasn't even talking about alcohol. Instantly. Instantly, it's got to be.
I'm looking for it. It seems to have moved somewhere.
The penalty starts.
Let me find it for a second. Yeah, I'm sorry. Please. Oh, yeah, here.
There we go. Oh, come on. Good Lord. Minor penalty, two minutes for Boring.
How many of these minus do you get? Even A's tone was very good there. Excellent tone. Also Joel Embiid. But I was laughing a lot because, no, Joel Embiid's super soft. It's a fact. But every time I watch Stephen A. Smith, I just marvel at how good he is at this. He's incredible. He's incredible. He's got papers in front of him, but he's reading it better than anybody in the biz.
He read through like 18 injuries in a matter of three seconds. He's the man. Incredible.
He's a good broadcaster, I'll grant you that. He's the greatest. The GOAT. The GOAT. Okay, I wouldn't know what to compare him with. He's uncomparable. Yeah. Okay, good. No comparison. No comp. Again, he can be really good at something. Most of my Twitter feed at the moment is me arguing that people who are very good at what they do are also terrible people.
So you can be both things at the same time. And to me, I'm always amused by tiny people who like to say that seven-footers are soft, but only when the seven-footer is a continent away. He's in Philly, though. I'll tell John to be into his face. See, everybody says that until they're in the room. So it's interesting to me.
The closest we've got here is the gentleman here who wanted to challenge me to a basketball game and insisted I wouldn't be able to back him down. We've got the court upstairs, by the way. He still wants it. He still wants it.
I'd like to just... I'd like for people to see the size difference, if nothing else. If you're not going to give us... We do have a basketball court here in the hotel. Do we? We also have a rock climbing... Where? Oh, damn, your lip looks really bad, dude. Yeah, it looks bad. Oh, shit. We can do rock climbing, too.
We should make... Let's see, because we've got rock climbing, we've got basketball, we've got an assortment of things here. Let's see what we can do with John Amici. But, I mean... Can you tell me what you think of this Joel Embiid thing? Where do you land on all of this?
I am forever in the side of if someone's hurt, they're hurt, right? If someone's injured, they're injured. I'm not going to get mad at Grant Hill for not having the career I thought he should have had because he got hurt or Penny Hardaway or Brandon Roy or now Joel Embiid. Now, there are times where it's like you are making decisions in your life that are – linked to why you're hurt.
For example, Zion Williamson and his weight. We'll take people like that to task more, but Joel Embiid, this is his third facial injury. He's had orbital bone surgery twice, and now this is a sinus fracture. That's not his fault. He's getting hit in the face. It's just bad luck. Now, to what Stephen A. was saying about the Olympics, this is the interesting thing.
So Embiid gets hurt last year, and by all accounts, he should have just stayed hurt. but he was rushing to come back. And everyone was saying, why is he rushing to come back for a playoff run that's not gonna go anywhere? Because the real goal was to come back for the Olympics.
He wanted to play in the Olympics, win a gold medal, because that's a great resume builder for someone who wants to be a Hall of Famer one day, right? But he understood, if I come back for the Olympics, but not for the playoffs, Philadelphia will turn on me.
So I need to come back to show, hey guys, I tried, I gave it my all, which he did, but obviously, that did not help the situation, because he probably came back too early, and we saw with the Bell's palsy and all the other stuff, right? So then he goes to the Olympics, He did not look like himself. He had a couple of good games. He had a lot of stinkers because, again, not 100%.
So now he's come back from the Olympics. He should have been resting this whole time. He's not ready for the start of the season. And this is the part where I think the Sixers failed. Because rather than be up front and say, all right, came back from the Olympics. This dude is not right. We're going to shut him down and try and get him ready by Christmas or whatever.
They said everything's fine until day one of camp. And he's like, oh, yeah, he's out. And that's what kind of turned the ire of everybody. Okay, this guy's picking and choosing when he wants to play and when he doesn't.
That was as insightful a take on Joel Embiid that I've heard. And I'm not speaking for Sixers fans. I'm just speaking for myself here. I truly don't resent Joel Embiid for being hurt. He's dealt with a lot of legitimate injuries. I think where the resentment comes from the casual sports fan, the casual NBA follower is, I resent you for sitting out to avoid getting hurt. Because he does that a lot.
There's a huge chunk of this percentage where Joel Embiid is not on the court because it's a part of a maintenance plan. And I think Stephen A. kind of spoke to that in that, OK, but you sit out to avoid getting hurt, but you're just going to get hurt anyway. So just go out there.
So it's I'm sorry, John. No, no, you go. It's just because. Why was Joel Embiid hurt last year? Do we know why? Do you remember why? What happened? At the end, he's got the Bell's palsy. I'm not talking about the Bell's palsy. I'm talking about the injury that he recovered quickly to get back to give us Bell's palsy later. Was it the meniscus? It was the meniscus. Do you remember what happened?
So his meniscus... He dunks. You're not talking about dunking against the Knicks in the playoffs where he's got that giant dunk, lands, and his knee collapses.
I'm talking about the injury he recovered from in order to play against the Knicks in the playoffs. He got hurt. Because he was on a maintenance plan because his knee was not good. His meniscus was not good. And they're trying to say, hey, how can we get him out there but not jeopardize him? And then he missed the Nuggets game.
And even though he plays historically, every time he plays Jokic, he plays really well. Everyone said you're ducking Jokic. Everyone said that. So he comes back against Golden State when he shouldn't have played, and everyone's watching that game. And I know multiple people who were at that game. They were like, this guy doesn't look right. This guy doesn't look right.
And boom, that's where he ruptures his meniscus.
I also watch him play, and I know his proclivity to get injured, and I wonder aloud, then why are you flopping around throwing your huge frame on the floor? Why is this a part of your game? Because it is. It's an annoying part of Joel Embiid's game.
If you're so susceptible to injury, why haven't you eliminated that part from your game, where you embellish to get calls because you're a gigantic guy falling on the hardwood?
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Don Libetard. Again, started on the breakfast flan. Oh, man. I've been singing the song to myself all morning long. Breakfast flan. Stugatz. Have you never heard the breakfast flan song? No. Hit me with it. Okay. I wish I had some breakfast flan. Breakfast flan.
Where can I find a breakfast like that?
This is the Don Labrador Show with the Stugats.
I mean, I want to go to Amici here so that, and you know how the protocol works here, so we've got to respect the seat here. So we can't be interrupting Amici anymore. Amici, when he wishes to speak, he gets the floor from all of us. But I noticed that with your swollen lip, when you send maintenance plan, you seem to have a lot of difficulty with L's with your lip.
No, no, it's easy. Maintenance plan.
Say it again.
Maintenance plan.
There's a slight. There's a W. It seems like you're spelling it with. It's a speech impediment. It's temporary. It'll go away. Leave the poor man.
All right. What were you saying that he, the poor man with the bloody face, immediately interrupted you?
He didn't interrupt. It's just we're so cavalier about, you know, if you sit out to protect yourself and get injured, why don't you just get in and get injured? That's an incredibly cavalier approach to somebody whose entire career and life and livelihood depends on his ability to prolong this. No job should have a body count. No job should leave you unable to function in your old age.
And we've no idea what the impact of these repeated injuries will be on him. I pulled my back playing paddle the other day. It's six weeks ago. And even now, I'm on 2,000 milligrams of some ungodly anti-inflammatory just so I can walk and sit. MARK BLYTH, And you think you can back me down? MARK BLYTH, We've got Tony now. MARK BLYTH, There are difficult jobs, and then there are lightweights.
And you are in that latter category.
that's i mean good lord yeah i don't have to be able to move i could yeah anyway you got to be able to move is it fair to say that steven a who often represents the voice of sports fans it's why he's popular there's just such a joel and bead fatigue this it's the story with him and that's cool like he i i do consider him a brandon roy sometimes the body just begins up but this is this is a tireless exercise and also just i don't like how he plays i don't like his attitude
I don't like the Sixers.
It's just annoying. I agree with you. I am on the front end. I've never watched him. I haven't watched him play, frankly. Oh, you'd be so annoyed with him, dude. That thing about if he is flopping on the floor, then there's a legitimate target for the irritation that people have in that action and saying, why haven't you changed that?
But the targeting of the fragility or not of his body as if we can all understand what it is to carry the amount of weight. Have you noticed the number of big guys who just don't make it that long? The number of league players, people I played with who popped their clogs, far earlier than you can imagine. And so...
I'm not that cavalier about the health of people who I know already have shortened blood.
Put it on the poll, please, Juju. At Levitard Show, have you ever before heard the phrase popped their clogs? I don't even know what it means. It means you died.
Oh, I thought that was like a shoe. I thought it was like twerking.
Worse than I thought. I don't know what popped their clogs is. Perhaps you'll explain it to us. We will get to Diana Rossini here in a second.
So the thing when it comes to what John is talking about is, The human body is not meant to be that big, and also doing all these incredible things, like moving that fast, jumping that high, stopping.
A 300-pounder during a football game named Ledbetter did a backflip to celebrate something, and I'm like, how is that possible that that can do that?
It's possible with a massive cost. There's a price to that, and it happens not when we're watching. It happens years later, and there are so many people who, quite frankly, they've popped their quags, as John said. I mean, like Jason Collier. You could talk about Sean Rooks. These are guys that were... Sean Rooks is the one I always think about.
Sean Rooks, he played in the NBA, and then he was an assistant coach, I believe, with the Sixers. This is a guy who ate good, didn't smoke, didn't drink, worked out all the time. And then every year, as a member of the coaching staff, you get a full physical. That's part of what we do on opening day at camp. This guy dropped dead. Why?
Because the human heart was not meant to pump that much blood to that far of an extremity all the time, and his heart just gave out, even though he did everything right. So, yes, when guys are hurt, particularly big guys, allow them that grace.
And in closing, I think another thing that Joel Embiid falls victim to is, okay, you have this frame that's susceptible to injuries. A lot of the Philly frustration is, then why don't you take care of your body more? Because his conditioning is constantly under scrutiny because You're always unhealthy. Why don't we change up the conditioning plan? Why don't we do something different?
And he seemingly hasn't, to at least the casual sports observer. They have no evidence that he's doing anything about it.
I'm always hesitant to question some of the things that we're questioning. Somebody's mental frailties, somebody's physical conditioning. When he looks like Joel Embiid, you're going to tell me that that's out of shape. And maybe it is, but I don't know how he takes care of his body. I'm assuming a body doesn't look like that. With that body fat index, unless he's taking care of it, at least some.
I don't know whether he's taking care of it perfectly. But Diana Rossini joins us now. And I want to tie this to these Brian Callahan quotes where he's objecting as the Titans coach. He was asked. The question was put to him because, again, his season is awful. It's in Mason Plumlee. It's in Mason Rudolph land. Yeah, it's just in.
And so when he's asked whether his team, whether many believe that his team is fantastic. Soft physically and mentally playing that sport like that makes it just enrages me He says I mean you really want to get me going today. Yeah, I think to be honest with you I think that's complete and total bullshit if you want my honest opinion.
These guys are tough bleepers, man They go after it every day They play hard as hell and at no point have we ever put on tape at any point this season that this is a soft football team I can't even wrap my mind around how that would even be a conversation. I Just because we don't win games doesn't mean we're soft. These guys play their ass off. They play hard. They play physical.
You can ask any team that plays against us that when they come off the field, they know they played us. Well, that's not saying much. We just won by 40. Better is to beat the football team that knocked them so unconscious that they don't know who they just played.
It feels like a straw man. That's not one of those finesse teams. Everybody knows. Straw man. That's been Tennessee's identity for a long time. They may not be good, but they're going to be tough to play because they're a tough team.
Well, Diana, thank you. The host of Scoop City and the senior NFL insider for The Athletic. What do you make of this? And would you describe any team in the NFL as soft? The Dolphins get it more than anybody.
I don't know. I guess when I heard that, anytime a leader is trying to rally a losing locker room and really speak for his team, you have to give him credit for standing up there with such a bad record. But to me, my thought was, who's got to answer that long about something you aren't? That was a long answer about the toughness of a team that stinks. And
Mike, that's a great point you make about the Tennessee Titans' identity of toughness. Not this team. That's the Mike Vrabel Titans. This is a whole new roster of guys. The guys that were on the team over the last few seasons, the ones that played in the AFC Championship game, those guys were tough. And they didn't have a lot of stars, right? They just had Derrick Henry.
At one point they had A.J. Brown. We all know where A.J. Brown is now. In fact, I actually saw A.J. Brown on Sunday night at the link after the Eagles took care of business against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And we were talking so much about that Tennessee team that he was on when he was a rookie, you know, where he really took off. He obviously spent a few years there.
And he said that he's like because I was asking him to compare. The difference between the Tennessee Titans and the Philadelphia Eagles. He's like, well, we just have a lot more talent here. But the toughness is what that team was made of.
So, look, I know what Brian Callahan's doing, which is protecting his guys who are going out there every single day, sacrificing their bodies, doing all the things that we know football players do. I just think he doesn't really have a pulse on really what is happening with that team, which is...
they don't look like they have a lot of direction and they don't look like they know what they're doing most of the time. And that's why I think this offseason is going to be a really big one for this Tennessee Titans team. I think they're sticking with Callahan. He has a lot of respect in that building. Players around the league respect Brian Callahan. He's a smart guy.
I just think this was a tough first year for him and he's going to have to learn a lot.
But Diana, soft? Like, what are we doing? Look at what these human beings are doing. Like, yes, you can make the argument that one team is tougher than the next, but you will not be able to convince me. Like, you can make the argument. You won't be able to prove it to me. You will not be able to prove it to me.
Dan, if I may, isn't the implied gambit that we understand they're tough. They're playing football, a game of real estate acquisition. But by comparison to other teams, they are soft. And if that is indeed the gambit, then it's a fair accusation.
Yeah, Mike, I've talked to players all around the league that are on teams right now and they don't play hard. They'll admit that there's different levels of playing tough. Do they want to go out there and lose and get embarrassed? No. But there are certain teams where there isn't an accountability and expectation. that you're going to put everything on the line.
And there's different versions of it. So to just blanket it, Dan, as every person that plays in the NFL is playing tough at all times, I don't think that's accurate.
The part that I'm objecting to is this. If you want to make your assessments on this, you can make them, but you don't have the proper information to make the accusation. It's not wins and losses. I don't know how you're measuring – These things when you don't know the pain that someone is playing through. You're just looking in their eyes and you can tell me they're not tough?
I guess I've watched football long enough that I think I can tell which teams are tough and their identity is we are more physical. It's something that you know when you see.
And then you're making a good point. How can you tell without being inside and having that information? But I think what Mike is trying to impress upon you is that We're not comparing them to us. We're comparing them to their peer group. In the same way when I say such and such is a bad basketball player. I'm not saying compared to people on the street.
I'm saying compared to the best basketball players in the world.
All right, so let me ask you this question. John Amici is here with us, okay? His feet were a little bit heavy in defensive postures. He was not much of a rebounder. Was your toughness question yes or no? Because I happen to think I know what this man's toughness is. I happen to know what his professionalism is and what it is that he would play through.
But did you get a reputation for somebody who wasn't tough enough? And how offensive would that be to you?
You're asking a European big from the turn of the century in the NBA if he was considered soft?
I was definitely considered soft, but it was for all the wrong reasons, right? It was because of the way I talked. The only reason I have a goatee is because my team said, if I'm going to talk this way, I need to have something that at least shows something. I agree. This is part of the problem with, I mean, I'm listening to this and I don't understand the context, right?
I don't watch very much of football, of your football, or my football, actually. But it's just, the language, it seems like it's being chosen because it's purposefully denigrating of the masculinity of the people on the teams. When you could just, if what you mean is,
you think their effort level is lower than it should be for someone who is not injured and paid that much, then let's target that because I think that's really legitimate. The idea that you would have people who are paying a disproportionate amount of their salary to either pay to watch ridiculously priced cable or to be in a stand and watch you and you're not giving everything, no, unacceptable.
But to me, the idea that soft is the language we use for when we mean something different, say what we mean, and then you can actually get to the heart of the problem.
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