Bryan Curtis on Tony Romo's Broadcasting Future, Aaron Rodgers's Latest Rant, & More

All right.

Joining me now is our media podcast regular.

Always love when he comes on from the ringer, from the Press Box podcast, Brian Curtis.

Brian, how are you?

Happy summer, Jimmy.

How are you?

I'm well.

Happy summer indeed as we now enter August, which means football is on the horizon.

That's all that matters.

It's, it's been a long run, um.

Thankfully, none of the, uh, you know, network sports divisions lost their number one analyst right as training camp was beginning.

And we'll get right into it.

Speaking of football, um, obviously biggest story is the Tony Romo saga.

I will admit this, I had never heard of OWI until this story.

Am I an idiot?

No, I had not either.

That was a new one for me.

Yeah, me too, um.

So, there are so many layers to this, um.

I'll start almost sort of at the end though.

I do feel like.

After speaking to people in the business, speaking to people I know, reading people I respect, I don't think you're gonna see Jim Nance and Tony Romo call a game again together.

That's my take on Thursday, August 6th when this comes out.

And the two ways that could be the case is that Tony Romo is never coming back to the number one team at CBS or that Tony Romo ain't coming back to CBS at all.

Yeah, I listen, I think.

The, the only way this can, the only way I think where Tony returns with Jim Nance as the number one team is if there is a toxicology report that shows he wasn't drinking and then on the, Hearing on September 21st, he's cleared.

If those two things happen, then CBS really.

I don't know how they part ways with him without some sort of lawsuit.

Because obviously there's a moral clause involved here.

Um, I wrote this For SI.

com and I'll, I'll say it here.

When, when the statement came out that he was on leave, I was not surprised in any way, shape or form.

But when they followed that up immediately with a statement that Watt would be working with Nance.

That's the first time I thought, oh, there's a chance he could be either done or maybe not coming back at all.

What was your take when they released those two statements, CBS?

I had the same reaction.

And, you know, one thing that's worth saying is that this should all be considered in light of the fact that CBS Sports is and has always been the safest of the network sports divisions.

Sometimes, especially under previous management, I think that came off as not only safe, but a little bit plotting and a little bit unimaginative, small c conservative.

But this is not the network of all the networks that wants to have not only an arrest, but that video of their number one guy out in the world .

I mean, that was my first reaction.

I was like, what must this be like at CBS?

You hit the nail on the head.

I was gonna, I was actually gonna touch on that, like, You know, this is not the first major broadcaster to get in trouble.

Um, I know I had said earlier, OWI but just for the sake of discussion here, he wouldn't be the first with a DUI.

We've seen that in the past with broadcasters, number one broadcasters.

The timing here is bad.

So close to the season.

The video being all over social media, as you pointed out, does not help.

And like you said, you know, I think if this is an ESPN person, ESPN is, they, it seems like they deal with controversy every minute and they sort of know how to navigate it.

Fox wouldn't even care probably.

CBS.

This is not the network where you want to have that blemish, we'll call it at this point.

So, not a good, uh, Compilation of things there for Tony Romo.

Isn't it interesting the difference between a mug shot and a body cam video in this case?

Yeah, because just imagine the exact same thing playing out.

I'm not saying CBS would have been happy with it or would have dismissed it.

I'm not even saying that the endgame here would be all that different because I'm not sure it would.

But just in terms of public perception in PR, how different is it that you see Tony Romo sitting there in the car and then out of the car being asked if he's never had a head injury and that whole thing and then seeing that video memed into oblivion versus if we've just seen one single mug shot of Tony Romo.

And I'm always of the belief when something like this happens, you ride it out for two days and then it goes away.

But this didn't seem to go away.

At least from my perspective, I know, and, and that's the second part of it, right?

It's a combination of CBS.

Dissatisfaction with Tony Romo's performance and public dissatisfaction with Tony Romo's performance.

He was uniquely a guy who was, you know, people were willing to think about in a different way or think about negatively, or just, you know, have do memes with, right?

Like he, because of his announcing, which does not have the straight connection to what happened in Wisconsin or allegedly happened in Wisconsin, people were willing to go there with him.

They just were.

Yeah, that, and when I said at the top, there's a lot of layers to this, then that becomes another layer is, now, I don't think.

I, I know there are, there are some people out there who think Tony's awful at broadcasting now and the regression is so severe.

I don't think that.

I think obviously, there's been a regression from his first, you know, 123 years in the booth when he was tremendous.

But I don't sit there on Sundays at 4:25 and, and rip my hair out and think this guy's terrible.

But, I do think there are valid criticism criticisms of him.

I also think though, a lot of it is the Twitter pilelo snowball effect.

And I think people who don't even hate Tony Romo like to say they hate Tony Romo.

I think there's a lot of that.

100% .

We saw that with Joe Buck.

We saw that with everybody.

There are a lot of people that either kind of half pay attention or don't pay attention.

And when they're like, oh, Twitter hates this guy, you just start going, I hate this guy too, I wanna be part of your club.

He's the worst announcer ever, and my, my take on Romo is, I've always been really critical of him.

I've always thought he had huge holes in his game, but I thought he was not a bad announcer, he was a very flawed announcer and a flawed number one announcer, right?

Would I rather watch Aikman call a game?

Yes, Collinsworth call a game, yes.

Brady probably now call a game, yeah, I think so.

And so he, he's down the list for me, but he was still a plausible number one broadcaster in terms of quality, absolutely.

And I, and then, so that public perception of him then doesn't help as well on top of everything else that's going on .

And then, of course, you have the contract that everyone has known about since he signed that deal.

I think it was back in 2020.

Um, which, you know, there's a couple of layers to that too, because I, I, I guess the figure is 17 million a year that's been reported.

Back then when he signed that deal, it was an eye-opener.

I don't think 17 million now for a lead analyst is as crazy as everyone thinks it is for Tony Romo.

I mean, Aikman's contract is up after this year.

He's gonna get that kind of money.

And there's just no doubt about it.

Um.

And, uh, you know, I wrote this as well.

CBS is paying, I, I want, I think it's 2.1 billion or 1.2. I have it just, I think it's 2.1 billion.

That's what CBS is paying for the NFL every year.

17 million is not gonna make or break the sports department there.

Now, there, there's this, again, layers, layers.

There's this merger that's supposed to happen with Paramount and WBD and now it's on hold.

So, Like I said, this is just a complete perfect storm of things here.

I mean, it is not just a, a cut and dry black and white type of deal here with Tony Romo.

There's a lot, and if you go back to, if you go back to 2020, 1 thing that was suggested at the time is that CBS needed to renew the NFL rights and keeping Tony Romo, keeping him away from ESPN because they were the other bidder at the time, was gonna help them.

And I'm like, man, if, if it helped them even on the margins, I'm not sure it did, but let's say it just helped somehow in, in helping them re-sign the NFL.

Isn't that worth flushing $72 million down the toilet?

Wouldn't that be a small price to pay in this day and age at renewing the NFL?

And, and I understand too, like, he, he got that huge deal, it reset the market, it helped Tony Romo, or excuse me, uh, Aikman get paid more, it helped Joe Buck get paid more.

It certainly helped Tom Brady.

get paid a lot more when his , uh, when Fox signed him.

But I think you could also argue that those guys were a little bit underpaid before, given the importance that the NFL has right now in our world of content, not just in television, but in everything.

That, that is, that was bound to be the new going rate sooner or later.

And I'm like, I'm not mad that CBS had to overpay for Tony Romo.

Like that doesn't, that doesn't afflict me in any, in any possible way.

They can afford it.

And 100%, and, you know, the other thing here, Jimmy, is like, we talk about public reception , you talk to people inside the industry just like I do.

There is an industry-wide discontent with Tony Romo that extends to other networks, and the way he called the game, and the way, I don't even know if I would say regressing from, from his early seasons, I would say not progressing from his early seasons.

It certainly didn't feel like he was really locked in on the job, and one thing about sports television is.

It is an absolute 100% all in high, high, high effort job.

It might look easy if you're sitting at home, but these people that work on it are traveling constantly, they're working constantly, they are all workaholics, the people in front of the camera and people behind the camera.

And if they perceive that someone else might not be a workaholic, that does not go over well.

And I've seen plenty of examples of that in my, in my time covering this business.

People do not like that perception if they get that perception about somebody that they're not making that kind of, yeah, especially making that kind of money.

And then on top of that, quick aside, I did look, CBS pays 2.1 billion every year for the NFL.

So every 17 million every year, exactly.

And then I think what, what also hurt Tony is you had a few things also happen where one, I think when Troy Aikman got to ESPN.

Troy went to another level, and I've said this before, I don't think it's close with Troy being the #1 analyst in the sport.

Whoever's #2, and I know a lot of people out there are gonna scream about Greg Olson.

Troy is far and away #1, so that hurts Romo.

Then you have Greg Olson becoming everyone's favorite, this huge media darling, this huge fan darling.

That hurts Romo.

Then Brady in year 2 was so much better than Brady in year 1.

That hurts Romo.

Whereas everyone kept looking at Tony as going backwards.

Those 3 cases all happening at the same time.

And then JJ Watt comes on the scene and, you know, let, let's do this real quick.

Because I, I, I shouldn't get worked up about the average fan who's just a casual fan and watching and not in the sports media business.

But the people who think CBS is just gonna kick Jim Nance out the door and move up Iron Eagle and JJ Watt.

Jim Nance has been at CBS Sports for 5 billion years.

He's the face of CBS Sports.

I'm not saying they're never going to demote him.

But the people are just like, get rid of Nancy Romo and make IN and JJ the number one team, it's, that is good.

Do you know how hard it would be for CBS, I mean you do, for CBS to quote unquote demote Jim Nance.

Like, that's not happening right now.

No.

And the, the idea that CBS would be like Jim Nance is the problem with CBS Sports is an unthinkable thing for them to say, unthinkable.

And the flip side of that though is I do, and I, I wrote this as well.

I don't love that they're splitting up the I and JJ team because I do think that team was great last year.

And I think a lot of the reason JJ was great, not to take anything away from him, but a lot of the reason JJ is great, and I mean, maybe not a lot, some of the reason JJ was great is because he's working with Ian.

And Ian can make any analyst good.

And Ian has chemistry with every , I mean, we've seen it with Raftery.

Mike Friello, you go down the line, he, and he had it with JJ Watt.

So I was very surprised they would split that team up, which also then added to my.

Oh, Tony, Tony's in big trouble here when that statement came out.

Mhm.

Oh yeah, I think so too.

I mean, like you said, the fact that they followed one after another, that CBS was even thinking about that, it wasn't like, oh, we'll figure it out.

It's like actually JJ Watts, the #1 guy.

And by the way, I, I give CBS a lot of credit for having JJ Watt ready to go as the #2 guy.

Let's not ignore that part either, because You know, one thing I remember, I remember I had this conversation back in 2020 when Romo signed that big contract.

I went to an executive who's not at CPS and I said, what was the takeaway from all this?

This just seemed like completely crazy, the money is so big.

What was the takeaway?

And the executive said the takeaway was, you have to have a backup plan.

You have to have a number two quarterback, essentially, even if he's a former defensive end, ready to go, so you don't get held over the barrel by these guys.

And he was talking contractually, but this is also being, I mean, imagine if they just didn't have a number 2 ready to put in that booth.

They'd be sitting here waiting and hoping and praying that Tony Romo's legal case got cleared up and that they could get him back in the booth as quickly as possible.

That's not the case here, right?

They have a button to push somebody who is arguably better, and I think actually better last year than Tony Romo was as a color analyst.

And, you know, it, it's also too, it shows you, you know, this is a business where they don't love to sort of, Give people a number 1 job right away.

Tony, uh, JJ only was, did, did games for 1 year, and now here he is in that #1 spot.

It tells you how good JJ was.

But remember, Tony got a number 1 job right away.

And by the way, that's the other thing about this.

When we're looking at the career of Tony Romo, if this is in fact some inflection point or even it for him, again, we're, we're, we're a little ahead of ourselves here, but let's say that that's the case.

That dude came in as a, as a rookie broadcaster on the #1 team and did quite well off the bat.

Again, whatever we say about him, and I have said plenty of things, he was a plausible number one guy from the jump street, which is very, very difficult in the NFL.

I, I would even say better than that because I, I, you know, I guess because of this whole mess, I one of the past day or two when I was scrolling through TikTok, a video came up of Tony in his early days doing the predictions.

It was amazing.

It was off the great magic trick off the charts.

It really was, and it, and it, you know, it was one of those things that bamboozled everybody else in the industry for a while because they were like, wait a second, this dude has this, this shtick, this thing he can do.

What's my thing?

You know, what's, what's, I mean, I heard, I heard that grumbling across the networks when Tony came in.

And the This, the offshoot of putting JJ Watt with Jim Nance is now Iron Eagle needs a partner, and there's, so it's a whole ripple effect of, of moving JJ there.

And then, OK, so maybe, OK, you move up Trent Green, you move up Adam Marchelet, and now Kevin Harlan needs a partner.

It, it's, it's a big mess, and I think that doesn't help Tony that it's become such a big mess.

Absolutely.

And I'm fascinated.

Like, let's say he stays at CBS.

Should we talk through the possibilities here?

So he could either be, so you could put him with Ian and he would do great.

I mean, Ian would, I would figure out how to work with Tony Romo.

It's a little weird that he would be the most expensive number 2 announcer in in.

Well, you just hit on what would be the thing there.

Do you want to have a $17 million number 2 announcer?

And I actually think he'd be actually really good with Ion because of their senses of humor.

Um, I just, let me just give the listeners, tell the listeners where we're at, then we can piggyback off of this, so.

Tony's on leave.

They say, CBS says JJ Watt's gonna fill in.

His hearing, Tony Romo's hearing is September 21st , I believe.

So, That means just by common sense, he's definitely missing week 2, week one and week two, for sure.

The hearing is the 21st and then the next CBS game, or is the hearing the 20th?

I bet, let me double-check it.

But I know that there's 2 games before his hearing.

And then that third game that comes after the hearing is a big, big deal for CBS because it's the Cowboys and Ravens from, Brazil.

So that, again, layers.

Another layer to this is, you, you know, they, that, I couldn't care less, but the NFL and the networks just, you know, Can't seem they get just so hot and bothered over international games.

So, and usually they're buried on the NFL Network.

Here's CBS now with a 4:25 Brazil game in week three.

So that's a huge matchup.

It's the Cowboys, right?

Like that's, that's, that'll be a big game.

Yep, absolutely.

So his hearing is the 21st, uh, which is a Monday, the 27th is the Brazil game, uh, in week three.

So.

I didn't mean to cut you off there, but whatever you want to say on that.

No, it's hard to imagine, like, I mean, again, we don't understand, we don't totally understand what the, you know, what's gonna happen on that hearing, but it's hard to imagine him coming back that quickly, at least to the number one team.

I don't know if I would, I would want to slot that in, you know.

Right.

So that means that, so that, then I'm thinking if they have Nance and JJ Watt calling week 1, week 2, week 3 in Brazil, Cowboys and Ravens, I, I think it's gonna be very difficult for them to then slide Tony.

Again, this is if, if, if Tony comes back from the hearing and everything's dropped and the toxicology report says, No drinking, then everything is moot.

But I'm going on the premise that something happened there that night.

I don't, I don't know.

I, I don't know.

After 4 games, then maybe you slide him back with Jim Nance.

I, I, I don't.

Uh, would I be shocked?

No.

Do I think that's gonna happen?

I don't think so.

I just don't know.

I mean, in a way, it's the easiest thing to happen, even though he would be an object of more ridicule and everything when he came back and more tweets and everything else, in a way, because you're just not changing anything, right?

Even if you have X number of weeks that what calls the number one game, you slide him back in, and then you maybe say, hey, we'll figure this out at the end of the season, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna figure, we gotta get through the season.

The NFL is happening.

This is our most important thing that we're showing on CBS right now.

So we gotta get through this, and we don't have the Super Bowl this year, so I don't have to worry about that.

That's, that's ESPN.

So let's get through the season and then we'll figure out what we're gonna do with Tony Romo.

And that.

Beautifully goes into the next point I wanted to make here.

In his Puck newsletter on Tuesday, John Oran had a line in there that said, Greg Olson's contract with Fox is up after this coming season.

So if you're CBS, You know, you can get Greg Olson because he reportedly has the clause that if he's offered a number one job, he can leave Fox, no problem .

It is the easiest slide-in in history.

You can get rid of Tony, you can bring in Greg Olson, put him with Jim Nance, and you have a number one team, you have a number.

Now , that would block JJ but I don't know.

Where CBS stands on, like, do they want to split up Ian and JJ permanently?

I, you know, I don't know about that.

But I think the Greg Olson thing is a big factor in all this as well.

It's interesting to me, but if I'm CBS.

Are we sure that Greg Olson is going to be a better announcer than JJ Watt?

I mean, today, probably so, because he's called the Super Bowl.

He has a lot of reps.

He's a really good announcer, and I say this as somebody who's a fan of, of Olsen's television work.

Don't you think JJ Watts is more, more famous than Greg Olson?

Like, isn't that, and isn't that something that factors into a lot of this stuff?

Doesn't he have a higher upside is not a, as, let's announce it, let's say we're not totally sure yet because it's a pretty small body of work for JJ inside the booth.

But don't you think just as like a famous giant human being in pop culture, the JJ ceiling is higher than Greg Olson's?

I don't know in terms of.

The in terms of broadcasting, I don't know if JJ ceiling is higher.

I think Greg Olson is, is pretty high.

I see what you're saying in terms of pop culture revel reverevolency, and he's in more commercials.

He's a, he's a guy, right, in a way that Greg Olson is not a guy, and he was just a more famous football player than Greg Olson.

That does factor into.

There's a reason that Tom Brady is calling number one games instead of Greg Olson on Fox right now, right?

Because Fox was like, if we can get Tom Brady, we will do that, even though Greg Olson's an excellent announcer.

But it's also like you said earlier , you do need a backup plan.

I think having two guys who could be number 1 guys in Olsson and Watt.

It isn't a bad thing for CBS.

It's not a bad thing, but why would you go over there as why would Olsson go over there unless he's gonna be the number one guy, right?

He has to be the number one guy, right?

That's what, that's what I'm saying.

But I'm saying if you're CBS, if you have Nanson Olsson 1, Ion Eagle and JJ Watt, 2, that's terrific.

But to me, I'm, here's the thing, in the scenario you describe, Watt's getting like 3 or 4 showcase games.

As the number one analyst.

Let's say he's really good or good enough that you see the path for him to him becoming one of the best analysts in the game, plus he has, as I said, that kind of pop culture fame upside that somebody like Olsen wouldn't.

When you just.

Keep promote JJ Watt and say, hey, let's go find a #2 announcer, or say it's even easier.

We already have the guy.

His name is Tony Romo.

Let's make him the #2 announcer.

And then we got Watt and Romo, and that's pretty strong.

You could do that.

I, I, I, I'd be interested if Tony would be fine becoming a permanent 2.

I mean, he's making 17, so why, why would he care?

Um, but I think, The, the one counter I would say to what you're saying, which is totally fair and makes a lot of sense.

I do think if you're CBS you have to see though what the chemistry is with Nance and Watt and how that's what I'm saying you're gonna have 3 or 4 weeks to do that, right, right, and if it's not there.

Then that becomes a really difficult decision because then maybe you're looking at a scenario where maybe they do want to move Ion up, but I don't, I don't know how, and that's gonna be a very delicate thing if CBS wants to make Ion and JJ Watt the number one booth.

Very delicate.

The Olsen thing is fascinating to me because it feels like everybody in our profession has been trying to find a number one job for him.

There was a whole like, well, what if he goes to NBC and it's like, you know who NBC loves?

Cris Collinsworth.

You know who's still great?

Cris Collinsworth.

That was a non-starter.

Uh, Amazon, I think could have come and gotten Greg Olson when they started up Thursday Night Football, but they wanted Troy Aikman and they wanted Sean McVeigh.

And they wanted, you know, who, who, who was the other guy, what was it, what's his name, uh, from the Forty-Niners, they wanted him and they wanted Herbie, right?

They, they had a whole line of people that they wanted, and Greg Olson didn't come up.

You know, I think, I think Fox was, was very surprised that Greg Olson didn't get taken away from them before this.

So the idea that now CBS is going to come along and say, uh, actually, it's you, we want you as our number one guy, as opposed to this person that we've hired and, you know, worked with in-house.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Well, to follow up on that, the other note in Oran's puck column was that this is also the last year I knew this of Herbreit's contract.

With Amazon and Thursday night, which I sort of think, you know, they brought Al back for another year.

Al's on sort of a year to year thing.

I would, If I were a betting man, and most people listening to this know I am, I would, I made a heavy, heavy investment that you will not see Alan Kirk on Thursday Night Football after this year.

I have a, um, I, I would be shocked if Amazon didn't go after Greg Olson after this year because, like I said, his contract's up and I know you laid out they could have had him, but I think, That was a different, I think they wanted that, you know, Herb Street being part of ESPN I think was attractive to Amazon.

They wanted to have a legitimate booth.

He was already the lead college football announcer.

So I get where Amazon went there.

And you have to remember, Ian, you know, if Ian doesn't get a sense that CBS is ever gonna, Give him that number one spot.

He's already at Amazon calling NBA.

Does Amazon make, you know, I am a full-time guy there, give him, now, I don't know how that works too because the NBA season coincides with NFL, so he'd probably miss some NBA games.

But obviously, you're gonna, if you're Amazon, you're taking care of the NFL way before the NBA.

But I, because I just, I want to avoid someone writing in saying to me, oh, you forgot he did, you know, it's the Mike Tirico.

It's the Mike Tirico schedule.

How many NBA games is Tirico doing before the Super Bowl?

Not that many.

And then you come in and you come in the spring and you're ready for the playoffs.

So I could see an eye in Greg Olson Thursday Night Football thing happening next year as well.

Yeah, I, the Ion thing it's felt like destiny for Thursday Night Football for a long time.

Absolutely.

And yeah, you're right.

Now maybe they come and get Olson this time.

By the way, the name I forgot, John Lynch, the other name of him, John Lynch, right, right.

Well, I know , I mean, no one, I don't think there's anyone who's never called the game who has more buzz for broadcasting than Sean McVeigh.

Everyone's like Sean McVeigh.

Oh my God, Sean McVeigh, except Mike Tomlin, but now we, we're actually gonna get a look at it.

Mike Tomlin is gonna look at, is gonna be on TV, which again, I mean, I, I.

I can't get into the guy who does television when you know he's gonna be gone in 1 year.

Like, you know, he's gonna go back to coaching in 1 year or 2.

Like this is every coach, you know, like this is the problem with hiring coaches.

By the way, the other suggestion I saw for Romo was the pregame show .

That they would essentially Phil Sims Romo because that's what happened to Sims when they hired Romo in the first place.

That is just not Tony's strong suit at all.

Like, when he does the little stand-up before the game with Nance, I find that so painful to watch.

He looks like he is just alarmed to be on television, and the idea that you would put him in there on camera for an, for an hour, I don't see it.

I would say 0% chance he'd do a pregame show.

I mean, I don't know how much of a factor in this is like, what does Tony want to do because obviously, he's in trouble, so he may not be able to dictate, but I can't see him wanting to sit there in the studio.

That's just, He's got too much energy for that, it seems like.

I just don't think it's the right job for him.

I think his best, again, even if he is flawed, and maybe, maybe fatally flawed at some level, even, even so, his best work is in the booth, absolutely, reacting to plays, calling games, getting excited, like that's, that's Tony Romo in his best to me.

So if you had to predict to sort of wrap this up, what do you think?

Do you think Tony comes back with Jim Nance?

Do you think he comes back with Iron Eagle?

Do you think he doesn't come back at all?

What do you think?

Well, let's think through the CBS part of it too, right?

This is again, a sports division and a network that has always acted fairly conservatively.

When it comes to things like this, a network that is not wacky.

The wackiest thing they ever did was put Phil Simms, take Phil Sims out of the booth and put in Tony Romo.

That was, that was the single wackiest moment in CBS Sports history, at least in, in recent years.

So, I guess if I had to guess, and I am just guessing here, I would say you will look at, you look at why for 3 or 4 weeks.

If Romo's case gets cleared up, and this is the other thing is we don't totally understand what's gonna happen legally here, but if somehow that were to be adjudicated in a way CBS was happy with and they slide Tony Romo back into the number one booth.

Put Watt back with Iron Eagle, and then figure things out after the season.

That's just the simplest thing to me.

Now, if Watt's great, and, you know, they're like, hey, this is our #1 guy and we're going to try to get out of the Tony Romo business, which I think is also could be something, again, it goes back to that conservatism we talked about.

CBS is like, this is just not a long-term thing for us.

We we're past that point now.

We were already a little bit.

You know, kind of rolling our eyes at some of the performance on air.

Now we have this, this news story out there that we need to get away from.

I could also see them saying, hey, let's just, let's just go to JJ Watt and put Tony Romo at number 2, and then figure out what to do with Romo.

I don't know.

So I don't know.

That's a, that's a, that's a terribly unsatisfying answer.

But no, no, no, no, it's fair because like, listen, it's impossible to give a prediction when we don't know what's gonna happen at that hearing.

I mean, that, that is, we, we need that to happen.

I, I will say I do think.

And, and this could really be the case no matter what happens in that hearing.

Uh, you're so right about CBS and being conservative about all this stuff.

I, I do think there's a scenario that could play out where they don't, and, and again, this is if Watt meshes with Nance.

CBS is, they don't wanna deal with maybe.

Putting Tony back in the #1 booth in week 4, week 5, whatever it is, and then dealing with.

The cri the criticism, if this didn't happen, has to annoy CBS on a weekly basis that Tony gets.

And I know a lot of these networks will say they don't pay attention to Twitter.

They all pay attention to Twitter.

And if I were CBS I would, I, I would, every Sunday, I would be like, I don't understand what's going on here with Tony Romo on Twitter.

You put them back in and no matter what, The, the outcome of the case is.

It's just gonna be constant.

I wish JJ Watt was calling this game .

JJ Watt is so much better.

What, what, I can't listen.

And if you don't want to deal with that, you put him in the 2 booth with I and I think that's a strong possibility as well.

Yeah, and then the thing is, if you do that, you're basically saying he's never coming back to the #1, right, right.

This, this particular era of sports television has come to a close.

It's fascinating.

I, you know, I have this weird fascination with like the 2 guys at these places because they're important in that they call a playoff game.

They do a decent game most weeks.

Some weeks they have a shit game, but And then it's like, like the Olsen thing is fascinating.

Like everyone thinks he's a #1.

He can never be a #1 if Brady's there.

He has to leave to become a #1.

You know, everyone loves Ian.

People think Ian's better than Nance.

Some people, but he's stuck in that.

Like the #2 role is a fascinating role from the psychological aspect of it.

Absolutely.

I mean, it always reminds me of backup quarterbacks where you're the most popular person on the roster.

Because we're mad at whoever the number one guy is, especially with Romo, you know, like, you're, you're so pissed off, they, oh, what about that JJ Watt, uh, you know, now, you know, and again, I watched him last year, I enjoyed him last year, but he's, right now, he's gonna be more amazing in theory than perhaps he ever will be in reality.

That's just like with backup quarterbacks.

Yeah, you're right.

And it also, as you know, it goes, there are a lot of things that go into picking who's number one, you know, management has their favorites.

But also just like, I think again, fame, you know, that's just like you can't understand.

Tony Romo was a really, really famous football player, even if he's not a Hall of Famer.

He's a hugely famous football player.

Tom Brady, same thing, Troy Aikman, obviously.

You know, Collinsworth is one of the rare guys, and he replaced John Madden.

He's one of the rare guys who got to that point who was not like that level of crazy huge star.

It just didn't happen all that much .

And it's, and it's, and it's not just an NFL thing, you know, I think of college football.

I think McDonough is the best college football play by play guy by far.

He's a #2.

I think Gus Johnson has regressed so much that there's no way Gus Johnson is a #1 play by play guy anymore, but there's where you talk about the fame part of it.

He's there because he's famous more than anything these days.

Um, the, the post Gus Johnson Fox number one booth is also fascinating to me.

Yeah.

Well, They I mean Joel Klat seems like a guy who'll be there forever.

Oh yeah, he's really good, but I don't know where they would go for another play by play person.

I don't either, because the, the number 2 guy just walked off to do baseball at NBC.

I was like, what are you gonna, you know, that, that would have been a great booth.

That would have been a really, really interesting booth.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, they could pelfer someone from ESPN if there are plenty.

There, there are a lot of people out in the world, but a lot of people out there.

All right, um, speaking of ESPN, the Rumbo's story carried us for several days.

And then we have Aaron Rodgers on McAfee.

And I just want to sort of, what I find fascinating is, you know, Aaron Rodgers, who famously does not want attention, goes on the biggest sports show we have.

And definitely does not want attention by going on.

Do not, do not write about me.

Do not cover me.

Let me go on the biggest sports show we have in America today.

And Attacks ESPN for not covering the Diana Rossini situation with Mike Vrabel.

But I have no, I did a search.

I couldn't find one thing where the Pat McAfee show covered the Rossini Vrabel thing.

And in fact, on the Pat McAfee Reddit message board, they said Pat hasn't covered this in his crew.

So, Now, that's really inside media and the people who are Aaron Rodgers fans and anti-ESPN and hate ESPN are gonna cheer for Aaron that he did that.

But it's like, well, So Pat's exempt from the criticism.

And I would like to know too, like, did he want Mike Greenberg to break down the Diana Rossini-Mike Vrabel affair on GetUp?

Did he want Scott Van Pelt to do a segment on it on midnight on like, I don't understand what the blanket, ESPN didn't cover this story.

Meanwhile, the biggest show on ESPN is McAfee.

So I, I, I don't understand any of it, to be honest with you.

Well, it's a classic Aaron Rodgers like, oh, I'm gonna say something really dangerous.

All, all this, I'll see, but don't give me attention.

All I'm gonna say is I'm really dangerous and you're all gonna react.

You're all gonna react.

I mean, that's just, that's, that's what that was.

You can always tell when he has those, usually in a McAfee appearance, right?

I just, again, you would think of all shows who would be into covering.

Rossini Vrabel, it would be the McAfee show.

Well, and Pat speculating about someone else's private life, that has not been a particularly productive avenue for the McAfee show.

Like, like that has turned out quite badly.

I also, I've said this before, and I don't know, I get a little bit of blowback when I say it, but I don't know.

I, I.

I don't know what else there is to say about the Diana Rossini, Mike Rabel situation.

Like, it seems pretty straightforward to me.

They had some relationship.

She got fired.

He didn't get fired because he's the coach.

She's the journalist.

She's not supposed to have a relationship with the coach.

I don't know what , what else is there to say.

Like, I guess, you know, Aaron Rodgers made the point, he's all hot and bothered about like Coach of the Year.

I, I, I, it would be impossible for me to care less about who the NFL Coach of the Year is.

So like for me, it's not an issue.

I get he's a player, so maybe for him, it's an issue.

But, I, I, I can't get all worked up and want a grilling of Diana Rossini because of the Coach of the Year at the NFL award.

Like I, yeah, and that, I mean, of things being adjudicated at this point about that whole story, it's her voting for postseason honors and then the whole athletic part of it, which I guess we'll learn at some point when the New York Times finishes its investigation.

Right.

But again, what I, again, they're investigating something that I think seems pretty straightforward.

But yeah, there's a whole, the time, the Times loves to, to do these, you know, to investigate itself, which I think is admirable because most media organizations would be like, uh, never, never mind.

Yeah, that's, let's never talk about that again.

And so I think it just as a student of the press, I mentioned that that whole thing went down and how there was the initial defense.

Yeah.

You know, I, I'll never forget when I don't know the guy's name, but whenever who, whoever runs the athletic, when he put out that statement, yeah, like an hour after those photos came out.

I remember texting people in the business being like, like, how do you do this?

Like, that's the person who should be investigated, not to hand a receipt.

That guy, because that statement was so absurd.

The time, like you don't wait, you just be like, uh, and then to defend her like without any, that's the person who should be investigated, not to receive.

And then it has the imperimeter of the New York Times because it's, you know, because it's part of the New York Times.

Like that just, it changes everything and that, that I think we will eventually or hope we eventually learn some more about that.

Um, the only thing I sort of wanted to touch on is.

That call ravaged situation was so bizarre and I, I defended ESPN.

Um, I had O ran on a couple of weeks ago and I defended ESPN on the Ryan Clark situation, which I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have, but I've just felt like, I, I made the point they should have, they shouldn't have put Ryan Clark on the air that Monday.

But once they made that decision, I'm trying to hold in a sneeze and a cough here, um.

I understand why they had to tell him during the show because they didn't want him on a commercial break scrolling through Twitter and seeing that he has been let go.

So, my point on that one was like, once they knew it was coming out, what were they supposed to do?

Horrible situation.

Nobody should ever be let go that way.

You know, I feel for Ryan Clark because that, you're on TV you're doing a live thing from your house and you get told during a commercial, you're no longer part of the company.

But the flip side of that is it would have been a commercial and he would have saw it on his phone, on Twitter.

So, I, I defended ESPN in, in that specific instance of what were they supposed to do once they knew it was gonna be leaked.

There are reports all over the internet that Karl Ravech has been laid off.

He found out from a reporter, and then a week later, he's there in the booth and no one from ES there's no statement, no one addresses anything.

Like, I understand you want to put the ball in Karl Ravech's court because he's been laid off, but I'm sorry, you have to say something like, you know, Unfortunately, we've parted ways with Karl Ravech after 33 years.

He's still gonna call a few games here through the month of August.

To, to have reports all over that he was laid off and supposedly found out from Marchand.

And then on Monday you put on ESPN and there he is with Eduardo Perez acting like nothing happened.

It was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in sports media.

It's really strange.

It's really strange.

And I think there's like actually a way that that's a feel-good, right?

If everybody is sad that he's leaving, like, actually he's gonna be a few more games and we're, we're always happy to have him because the, the issue was not.

That we didn't want to Karl Ravech issues, whatever, whatever it is, I mean, there's probably a way that that's, I mean, the whole, the whole thing is, the whole thing has been very, very strange, and I, and I, on the Ryan Clark thing, my whole point on that was, like, as soon as you knew that the information was out there, and specifically, as soon as you knew that Outkick had the information, I'm not an HR expert, but I would have put the whole thing into warp speed right then.

I would have been like, we cannot wait till tomorrow morning.

Because, and I understand they want to do this with dignity and have somebody call, but like, guys, it's not working.

Whatever, whatever, whatever, you know, the project was to keep all this information in-house until it didn't work.

So at that point, you just have to, like, again, I don't know about Human Resources on how this all this works, but like , we gotta do this right freaking now.

Like, this is, this is not gonna last until tomorrow morning.

And as it turned out, it didn't last.

And it, and it turned out to be in the, you know, they were laid off in the most undignified way possible, whatever ESPN's intentions were.

Right.

And as someone who's been through layoffs many, many times over the years here, like, I, there is a HR process.

They're very strict about the HR process of it .

Um, because it's a big legal situation.

But again, like you said, Let's start it right now .

Yes, like, let's, whatever we have to do, but let's do it now.

And like you said with the ravageg thing, like you could have turned it into a nice kind of, you know, we gave Carl the choice to call some more games and he was happy to do it.

We'd love to have him calling these next, you know, 4 or 5 weeks, blah, blah, blah.

Nothing.

And then just speculation.

And then again, I understand you can't go by complete lunatics on Twitter, but.

When I had tweeted out that Ravich was in the booth and like, what's going on?

Then there were people like, typical ESPN firing the guy and then making him work still.

Like, well, that's not what happened.

They gave Karl the choice.

Carl chose to do more games.

Why would you not say that in a statement?

Why on Monday afternoon would you not say Karl Ravech is calling the game tonight?

And, you know, like, I, but that to me, I, everyone was so worked up about Ryan Clark.

Karl Ravech was 50 times weirder and worse to me than the Ryan Clark.

Because a very simple statement could have cleared it all up.

And maybe it goes to HR, maybe it's part of something I don't understand about the human resources part of the whole thing and talking about an employee like that.

I don't know.

By the way, speaking of Iran, what did you make of the whole ESPN pivot away from debate and toward authenticity?

You know, it's funny you said that cause I had someone at ESPN tell me recently that They've been big lately on wanting people who are like authentic.

So, it must be coming from inside Bristol, or relatability, like stuff like that.

You know, they want, you know, um, which may have factored into the Ryan Clark decision because I just thought he would always be so serious about football.

You gotta, you know, it's not, was it, was it ever the, was the complaint with Ryan Clark ever that he was inauthentic, quote unquote?

Well, that's true.

That's fair.

That's fair.

I think relatability was, is the word, not in, not authentic, but relatability.

Um, but in terms of embraced debate.

That is just one of those statements that Has clearly got spun into something that's not really a thing.

Like, it's embraced debate on First Take, but outside of that, I don't really consider.

Anything else on there, embrace debate.

I, I agree, and my theory has always been that Stephen A.

got so big.

That everyone, including some people that actually perhaps even, you know, watch ESPN a lot, became convinced that everything on ESPN was debate.

Right.

And in fact, almost nothing on ESPN is debate.

Nothing like you can literally go through it like McAfee is not debate.

Scott Van Pelt is not debate.

Pardon the interruption is not debate.

GetUp.

Maybe GetUp has a little debate.

I don't know.

I don't.

They have, they have elements, I guess you could say like NFL Live and in fact, a bunch of the shows you just named are actually specifically built to be anti-debate.

Like, like, SVP SportsCenter is, if anything, designed not to be a debate show.

Like that is, that's like, it's, it is designed to be very much something else.

So it was, it's, it's always been funny to me that because Stephen A.

was so gigantic, people just assumed that there was a Stephen A.

like figure on ESPN at every hour of the day.

And in fact, you know, going back 15 years, maybe ESPN would have wanted to do that at some point in its history, but Stephen A.

turns out to be hard to replicate.

And it's, if anything, it's, it's sort of a weird compliment to him that they couldn't find 15 viable Stephen A's.

But ESPN doesn't, is not full of debate.

And when I'm reading those articles and they're like, well, they canceled Around the Horn, I was like, guys, that was not a quote unquote debate show either.

Nothing Eric Rideholm makes is a debate show in that sense of embrace debate, Jamie Horowitz, you know, style confrontation.

There's sort of like people think if you debate, if, if you discuss a topic, it's automatically a debate.

Like it, it, it's.

People have a weird thing with words and phrases like, If you give or take, like it's embraced debate.

No, you're just giving.

And also, I mean, what's always frustrated me too is You can give an opinion on something, and people scream at you about giving a take.

Like if I say, for instance, I don't like ketchup.

That's not a take It's not a take on any level.

I just don't like ketchup.

If I said like I think ketchup should be banned, that would be a take.

Yeah, see, the first one was authenticity.

That was authenticity.

I don't like ketchup.

I'm being authentic.

I don't know how relatable it is because everyone likes ketchup, but There's a difference between a take, a debate, but people, you know, just you, you know, I know there's just phrases people use that they don't use it properly.

They don't think about it.

It's just like a knee-jerk.

You know, I love too when, um, I, I'll say, oh, we should do X, Y, Z, and someone's like, oh, that's a slippery slope.

That's just something you say when you don't agree with the point.

It's not a real thing, a slippery slope.

So, I don't get as worked up about people talking about ESPN would embrace debate, but I, I, I don't, it can't be laid out anymore.

McAfee is not debate.

Van Pelt's not debate.

Around the Horn is not the, part of my interrupt pardon the interruption is not debate.

Get Up elements maybe.

I think, here's what I think too, and I probably would be someone who falls into this trap.

Whenever you have a show with a panel of like 6 people like Get Up, you think it's a debate show.

Because you don't need that many people on the show, but, and I think more people you have, the more people think it's a debate show, I think.

And, and in, in that show in particular, I feel that they are happy to tee up is America's team going back to the Super Bowl.

Like they are happy, and then there's kind of an argument about their like.

Debate more or less about that.

But to me, that's not like the problem isn't the debate.

It's just that like that topic sucks.

Like that's just, that's something that everybody's going to forget about, even the people who participated in the segment 9 seconds after it's over.

It's just, it's just boring.

It doesn't like we're we're done.

Like, I don't, and to the Mike Foss is the executive who was who's Aaron was referencing said this.

Like if the point is, there's this thing called old television, where you could succeed by being a man or woman on TV talking in a particular way.

And now we're moving to a world that's more podcasts, that's more of an intimate connection with people, and you have to talk to people differently, and we need to make sure we're not doing old television, we're doing whatever the new media is.

Like, I take that point.

I think when you talk about authenticity, like, you know, who's authentic?

SVP Mina, like all these people that are already at ESPN.

It's like, and, and if this is a weird way to smuggle bussing with the boys into ESPN and be like, well, they're authentic .

Well, OK, but, you know, some other people there that are probably authentic.

I just, at that word, it just.

I used the wrong, the word I think I used the wrong word.

It was relatability, I think was the word.

your that your word is right, but I'm saying that was the word that was quoted, authenticity.

And I'm just like, how, I'm sorry.

I'm, I, I think Stephen A.

is authentically being Stephen A.

I just think like.

That just means things to different people, and it also becomes, to me, it's a, it's a very easy way to say, you want, we want you on our air because you're authentic, sir or madam, and I'm like, I'm sorry, there are plenty of people on ESPN right now that seem like they are authentic and they are being that way in their work.

Like I used to work with Ben Solak.

Trust me, that is authent authentically Ben Solak.

Like he's, that, that's him, Kevin Clark.

That's authentically Kevin Clark.

That's the guy I know.

And no matter where you stand on him, the biggest person at ESPN, Pat McAfee, is authentic.

I mean, I think that is authentically Pat.

I really do, 100%.

And I understand like you do want to connect with people because we're showing people are, the world's showing you that you can.

Connect with personalities on TV that's maybe again in a different way than old TV than a like a kind of more stilted TV environment.

I don't know, but that the A word just somewhere that sets me off or something.

Yeah.

I also think too on the brace debate.

It It automatically conjures up a negative connotation, but there are good debates out there worth having in the sports world.

Like, listen, would I rather get hit by a moving train than listen to someone discuss LeBron and Jordan?

100%.

But I've heard some really good debates this week about whether the Dodgers trading for school ball is good or bad.

You know, people can make the argument about the Dodgers going for it.

That's what you want from owners.

This is bad because They have a billion dollars payroll.

So I can get into that.

So I think the debate is fine.

It's the topics that are the issue that are just beyond stupid sometimes.

And I think like, you know, sometimes like the morning after, after a football game, like there are segments that like that's what I want to hear.

Like let's have it out about whose fault this is or.

Did Sean McDermott screw up?

Did Sean McDermott deserve to be fired?

Like they're, you know, a Brandon Beane, right?

Like that, you hit those moments and done well, they can be done well.

And I think that's also just how sports fans think.

That's how the issue is the first take every day does will the Cowboys, you know, make the playoffs.

Then everyone who wants to shit on embrace debate has an opening to do that.

Yeah, totally.

And there's, like I said, and it's not just first take either.

There are a lot of, there are a lot of bad sports segments in the world.

You just see the chyron or the question, you're like, I don't care.

Like I just, or at least I'm like, I don't want to, to, uh, uh, consume this.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

We had good debate about Tony Romo.

We embraced it.

Yes, we embraced it and we, we got into it.

So I appreciate you, uh, giving me the time today.

I know everyone wanted to hear about Tony Romo today, so we gave the people what they wanted.

We embraced the debate.

We were authentic, and what more could you ask for?

Brian Curtis the ringer.

Yes, hopefully.

Brian Curtis from the Ringer, the Press Box podcast.

Always a blessing.

It comes on.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Jimmy.

Take care.