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Aug. 19, 2024 - Doug Collins Podcast
47:36
Is $6 Gazillion Enough
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
This house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hi folks, welcome to Friday's Fun.
It is August 16th.
We are on the verge of commencing the Democratic National Convention.
It will gabble in on Monday.
We will talk about that.
We will talk about Changes this week within the Trump campaign.
We'll talk about Trump's press conference yesterday at his property in Bedminster.
And then since it's Friday's finest, we won't do all politics.
We'll talk a little bit of breakdancing, a little bit of NFL action.
We'll talk J.J. McCarthy injury.
And we will talk about ESPN making moves this week, firing Samantha Ponder.
And Robert Griffin III right before football season begins.
So we've got a lot to talk about.
Stick with us.
We'll be right back after the break and we'll get started on Friday's Finest.
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All right, folks.
Thanks for being with us.
We want to welcome to the show, as usual on Friday's Finest, our illustrious Friday co-hosts.
James is with us on Pacific Time.
James, how are things in Pacific Northwest?
Oh, just beautiful, man.
You wake up every morning, it's like 65 degrees at most.
You can breathe here because there's just trees everywhere.
It's fantastic.
We don't have that yet.
We don't have breathable weather yet in the southeastern part of the United States.
I think today is going to be in the mid-90s with high humidity.
We feel like we've just gotten used to that now.
It is weird because my brain just...
Tell me if you do this because you guys have winter as well.
When it's summertime, you don't even think about it.
You just have shorts, your flip-flops, t-shirt.
You don't check the weather.
You just go outside.
But in the winter, I'll check every five minutes to make sure that I cannot put on a jacket or whatever, right?
I think it's a really weird thing.
I don't know why I do that.
I know it's going to be cold.
I know it's going to be freezing, especially when I was on the East Coast.
Just put a jacket on when you leave the house.
But in my brain, I'm like, no, no, no.
I want to be able to go out in jeans and a t-shirt.
Whereas in the summer, my brain is already set.
It could be raining.
It could be five degrees randomly one day.
I'm still shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops.
I don't know why that is.
That's exactly right.
I wish we were transitioning into that time of year already.
What's fall like in Georgia?
70s, 80s, beautiful, 60s?
Oh, you wake up, you get crisp mornings, and then it warms up in the afternoons, and it's just awesome.
Yeah, I missed the fall.
I feel like I haven't had a fall in many years.
I mean, you know when NFL teams start playing preseason games, you know you are lugging closer to fall weather.
We will definitely get into the NFL stuff later today because I have some actual questions.
I want to ask some questions because I feel like there's some fun stuff.
But first, we have to get to the really important stuff.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
Something about some weird presidential election coming up that we have to do.
Yeah!
And it just keeps on getting...
Keeps on getting stranger.
And it will continue.
I mean, as if this election cycle, the entire election cycle, hasn't been strange already.
The Trump campaign announced some changes this week with their internal operation at the...
At the kind of the top of the pecking order for this entire campaign are campaign operatives Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavita, who have kind of, who are both very talented, but very different, very different styles, very different backgrounds, very different skill sets.
I have worked in a campaign with Susie.
I know how talented and good she is.
I've not worked directly with Chris, but I've seen his work, and he's very good as well.
And they've been leading this campaign since day one, and I think they've been doing a really good job.
And then this week, actually just yesterday, there was an announcement I believe that Alex Eisenstadt at Politico broke the news that Corey Lewandowski, who was the first campaign manager for Donald Trump in 2016, and then he was removed and then he came back.
I mean, once you get removed from Trump world, you, you know, If you don't go scorched earth, you can come back, right?
Many times.
I mean, Corey's kind of come back two or three times.
And, you know, Corey's a street fighter from New Hampshire.
He is, let me just say, a different style than a Susie Wiles and even a Chris Lasavita, who's a street fighter as well.
I'm very curious to see how this ends up working out.
I don't know if yesterday's press conference that we saw, James, has anything to do with maybe a new tactical shift that the Trump campaign is doing.
I mean, I was in the car yesterday for a couple hours driving back to Atlanta from Birmingham, which is about a two hour and 15 minute drive.
And Trump started his press conference at 4 o'clock or 4.05 Eastern Time.
And I was, you know, curious to see how it was going to go.
So I just kind of listened to it on satellite radio on Fox News.
And by 5.15, he was still talking and he hadn't asked any questions yet.
And, you know, I know that frustrates campaign staff.
And I would be, you know, because you always want your candidate to get to the message really quickly and stay on message.
And when you talk for an hour and 15 minutes, You know, the press is going to decide what's news if you don't give them the news to cover, right?
I mean, a well-executed press conference is where you sit down and you say, okay, what do we want the news of this press conference to be?
And then you determine a way that you can make news in the press conference and kind of force the press to report on it.
But when you talk for an hour and 15 minutes, all bets are off.
This is the second kind of wide-ranging press conference that the president has given in two weeks.
And I think it is a byproduct of the fact that Kamala Harris is getting a lot of press coverage, which is not all that surprising.
The mainstream media, we shouldn't be surprised at all that the mainstream media is...
is helping her, you know, helping her deliver her message a lot more than Donald Trump is on his.
And, you know, Trump believes, and I think he's right, that, you know, he's the best messenger for himself, and he can defend himself better than anybody can.
And yeah, look, All of us, I think, believe that when we get in a situation where we need defending, that I feel like I can probably defend myself better than anybody can defend me.
And that's what Trump feels as well.
I think we've got 83 days left in this election cycle.
I think we are going to start, unfortunately, as a Republican, I think we're going to start reading about...
Internal strife within the campaign, which we really haven't read a lot about lately.
I mean, there's always internal strife on campaigns.
You have people working long hours that are under a tremendous amount of stress.
And there's always strong personalities that are in there.
I have a strong personality.
Campaigns I've been on, you know, you surround yourself with strong personalities.
It's the nature of the beast.
And you're going to have clashes.
You're going to have personality conflicts.
But I tell you, man, these are some strong, strong, talented personalities.
And I hope they can make it work.
Because I don't want to see Kamala Harris and Tim Walz get elected.
I want to see Donald Trump get elected.
But it's going to be...
It will be a fascinating 83 days to watch.
And it just seems like Trump, who always...
Does a really good job of staying in the news and making news.
Feels like, for the first time in his at least political career, that he's having trouble being part of the headlines.
And that concerns me a little bit, James, because if he feels like he needs to press to make headlines, That was what I was going to ask.
Yeah, I mean, what's he going to end up saying over the next 83 days that could possibly get him in trouble?
I love some of it, too.
I got to admit, though, as much as political operative, it drives me crazy.
I do enjoy the fact that when he was talking about his energy policy, And how he was going to unleash America's potential for all the reserves we have.
I mean, we are the largest industrialized, developed country in the world that doesn't use all of its God-given energy resources, right?
We have just as much, if not more, than Saudi Arabia and Russia, and he mentioned it, but then in the same sentence, He transitions to talk about birds and windmills.
While I'm on that note, you know it's illegal to kill a bald eagle.
You spend time in jail, you build a bald eagle, but these windmills all around.
There's windmills everywhere.
And the turban, they go this way.
No president's had more ADHD than Donald Trump in his speeches.
And if you go by the turbanes, there's nothing but dead birds at the base of the turbanes.
They're killing the birds.
They're killing the birds.
I love that.
I do love that.
But anyway, James, your thoughts?
Well, no, I was going to ask you because you've been on...
It's illegal to kill a bald eagle.
It's illegal to kill a bald eagle, which it should be.
I mean, it's America's coolest bird next to, you know, I don't know.
I don't even know what else we have.
I can't stand birds.
But the reason I was going to ask, and you sort of answered it, was...
Donald Trump has never, like you said, ever had a problem staying in the headlines.
And not that he's out of the headlines, because that's not the right way to put it.
He's just not getting the same attention as Kamala is.
Which makes sense.
I mean, she literally just became a presidential candidate.
We're gonna talk about that.
That's just how the world works.
But I am curious if he's...
You've been on many campaigns.
So, like, when you see, you know, let's say you're running a campaign and then, you know, I know you've done a lot of local stuff.
Like, they bring in some other local big dogs, you know, like, oh, shoot, we might be in trouble.
Is that something, like, that comes to mind?
Well, yeah, I mean, look, you...
Nobody ever likes being layered, and this feels like a layering for Susie and Chris, especially when you've been there since day one.
Of course, Corey probably feels like he's been there really since day one.
He literally has been there since day one, since they never had a job.
He hasn't been on this campaign cycle, which has.
So, yeah, I mean, look, it's what I call...
I mean, campaigns are a lot like financial markets.
You have market corrections.
And I almost feel, James, like looking at it as objectively as I possibly can because I'm a numbers guy.
And I look at the RealClearPolitics polling average every morning, not necessarily to see exactly what the averages are per state, but I like to see the trends over time, right?
I like to see where polls are moving over a defined period of time.
Where was Trump two weeks ago?
Yeah, and this, look, I feel almost like many of Trump's supporters, as well as the president, too, I mean, yes, Kamala Harris has had a good three weeks.
Yes, he's going to have momentum.
Next week because of the convention, because that always happens.
But just this morning, I mean, you know, August 16th, I pull up the RealClearPolitics voting averages.
Harris is only up one in Wisconsin.
Trump's up.4 points in Pennsylvania.
Trump's up.8 points in Arizona.
Harris is up two points in Michigan.
Nevada trumps up three and a half.
North Carolina trumps up two and a half.
Georgia trumps up 0.5.
So this race is a toss up.
I mean, this race is a cone flip even today.
And, you know, I feel like- That won't change.
I don't think that's going to change.
Remember when, now again, this was my first year.
Joining a political news station was January 2016. So I got into it immediately.
Oh, you sure did.
And I got in at one of the weirdest elections in American history, you could argue, because Donald Trump was running and he had no chance.
And everyone was...
It was a weird time.
It really was.
It felt weird.
And Hillary was running, so we were going to have Donald Trump or we were going to have the first female president.
And people just couldn't...
And again, this is putting your politics aside.
A lot of people just couldn't grasp, hey, how the hell are we going to vote for Donald Trump?
He's a nutjob.
And the other side was, how are you going to vote for Hillary?
Because she's just a complete liar and everything she says out of her mouth feels false and she feels fake and she feels like...
And I remember it was getting really, really crazy.
And this is...
I was 25 at the time, I guess.
And I was trying to wrap my head around this whole thing.
And I wasn't even 20. I would think I was 23. Jesus, I don't even want to talk about how old I was.
It feels like it's been short on that.
But the point I'm trying to make here is that...
That race was won in everyone's mind.
There was no shot Donald Trump was going to win that election.
As crazy as it was, it wasn't a close race in people's minds.
It was, Hillary has this in the bag.
All she has to do is not fumble it.
And of course, what?
Three weeks before the election, the email thing scandal happens or whatever.
And totally just ruined everything for her.
And people were like, yeah, but we'll still vote for her.
But people didn't come out and vote because they had that mindset of they'll still vote for her.
Right?
And then she loses and the world goes nuts.
And then the world came back to itself and was like, okay, this is what we're dealing with now.
We have Donald Trump as our president.
Let's move on.
And then, of course, we have the Biden election, blah, blah, blah.
People thought it was stolen.
I think that's a little crazy, but I'm not going to get into that either.
Now, we are at a point, for the first time I can remember in a while, where I feel like this is a complete dead-even heat.
Because for Biden's election, people came out to the poll.
They were like, no, we are not letting Trump win.
There's no world where we let them win.
We are going to vote.
I remember hearing that every day.
This is going to be the first election probably in my lifetime where it is a literal toss-up outside of the Al Gore Bush one, but I was seven, so that doesn't count.
I can't remember one that was this tight.
I think it will be until the day of we'll be having this conversation.
Yeah, I mean, I honestly believe, yeah, election day, we probably won't know.
And probably election night, too, because...
It'll be like a day or two later, I think we'll know.
For the first time, usually we know that night.
I don't think we'll know.
I think we'll know this time, too, because a lot of the absentee ballots, too, some states say the ballots have to be received by Election Day.
Other states will accept absentee ballots if they are postmarked by Election Day.
So, yes, we could end up in a similar position than what we were like.
Because I have to send in an absentee ballot because I'm not in Jersey.
Yes, you do.
Yes, you do.
I have to vote like that, and that really annoys the shit out of me.
I feel like I should be able to just...
Sorry, I can't curse on this show.
I'll mark that off at 1720. It annoys me that I should be able to just go...
Again, I'm not going to get into this part of it, but to me...
Just because I'm injured doesn't mean, if I have a legal, if I have a birth certificate that says, I mean, if I have a documentation that says I'm from America, I live here, this is where I was born, blah, blah, blah.
Wherever I am, I should be allowed to vote.
Now, I know that's probably a very tricky situation, but in my head, I'm just like, do I really have to fill out information that I don't want to fill out and then send it in the mail?
Oh, yeah.
I don't even send postcards in the mail to people I care about.
I send them text messages because I know it's going to get there.
That's my problem.
Yeah, immediately, instantaneously.
But anyway, you don't send money in the mail and you shouldn't be sending your vote in the mail.
No, you're exactly right.
Last thing, we won't talk about it a whole lot because we're going to talk about it a lot next week.
And that is after a four-week kind of in-between between the Republican National Convention and Milwaukee.
I think we call that the Olympics.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's right.
We start the Democrat.
The Democrat National Convention starts on Monday, and we'll talk about that next week.
It starts from Chicago, which was an interesting choice.
Normally, political parties like to choose a city and a venue and a swing state.
Illinois is not a swing state, so that'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
So we'll talk about that a little next week.
Let's pivot and talk about what everybody's talking about this week, and that is the college football and NFL football is among us.
College football doesn't have preseason games.
And week zero, because they're annoying.
And there are a lot of head coaches.
Around college football, when they saw what happened to J.J. McCarthy last week, they are thankful that they don't have preseason games because we've given you a lot of grief over in the offseason, really since the draft and before the draft, about the situation with the Minnesota Vikings.
Wow, I didn't think this was going to happen, but Unbelievable, James.
I mean, I will say this, and then I will let you speak on J.J. McCarthy and his injury.
First of all, I think, I don't want to say devastating, because I don't think anybody really thought that J.J. McCarthy would come in this year and take the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl.
But holy cow.
I mean, you know, Let me just talk about what a tough kid the guy is.
He tore his meniscus.
Tore his meniscus.
In the game, kind of hid the injury from everybody.
Thinking, ah, I just tweaked my knee.
And then when the swelling didn't go down, a day and a half later on Monday, he shows up to the facility and said, I mean, my knee...
Might need to look at it a little bit.
And then they decided, and then I guess they scanned it, and they saw they had to get in to do the surgery to determine that it was a complete tear of the meniscus.
But, man, that is a painful injury.
And what a tough kid to kind of bounce his way through it.
But I just remember on Monday, you know, when the story broke that J.J. McCarthy was going to have...
I thought it was camp.
That was my first thought, but it was too early.
Yeah.
Okay, what's he going to have surgery on?
Surgery on his knee.
And I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Surgery on his knee?
You don't do surgeries on knees unless you're repairing a ligament or a meniscus.
And that means that they're no longer together, like they're torn.
And they're like, well, we'll know later how long he'll be out.
And I'm like, how long he'll be out?
He'll be out the whole year.
Anyway, James, any thoughts on the Minnesota Vikings and J.J. McCarkey?
I will say it's very funny watching...
Would Auburn be the team that you can compare yourself to with my Vikings?
So then you can understand this a little bit.
Because I'm always curious if people truly care the way I like.
It'll ruin my afternoon.
It'll ruin my day, really.
It's funny to watch all the people that I have in my group chats of Vikings fans and stuff like that.
The emotional rollercoaster we all went through because a couple days before when it was the USA game final and Doug was texting me about, hey, the Vikings are playing the Raiders.
I was like, yeah, I'll be watching it.
I put it on my phone.
I'm watching the USA final over there.
And J.J. McCarthy has an okay first few.
He was handed off, handed off, and then he threw that silly pick.
But he was in a tough situation and he was moving around.
He threw the pick and I was like, damn, let's see how he bounces back from this.
So sure enough, kid goes 11 for 18, 188 yards, two tutties.
It was beautiful.
And I was like, oh, I know that's the third, second team, whatever, but he also doesn't have the first team with him.
So there's that part of it.
But I don't judge too much all preseason, but my head was like, oh, he was fine after that pick.
And that was really cool to see.
And I was like, all right, there's hope.
And Sam Donald has been throwing a lot of interceptions during camp.
There may actually be a chance this kid's going to start at some point this season.
Yeah.
And then two days later, like you said, all of a sudden he sees a meniscus tear.
And I was like, no, it doesn't make sense.
No, I don't want to hear that.
That's nonsense.
He goes down.
We got to have surgery.
It's going to be the year out.
I'm like, okay.
All right.
You knew this was going to happen.
You knew that he wasn't going to start anyway.
Just move on.
And then the reality of it set in where I was like, he's not going to get to practice all year.
All he's going to do is sit on the sideline, but I just kept saying Patrick Mahomes sat on the sideline, Jordan Love sat on the sideline, Aaron Rodgers.
I'm literally just repeating that to myself.
Obviously, it's not going to happen.
Then, Jordan Addison goes down towards the end of the day, and they say Jordan Addison taking off on a stretcher.
Yeah.
Right.
Now, luckily, Jordan Addison is fine.
It's just a tweak.
But just that it all came crashing down into one.
I was like, so we're going to lose our number two wide receiver, who's a number one on a lot of teams.
And we're going to lose J.J. McCarthy.
And now we're stuck with Sam Darnold.
And then I hear the rumors, and the craziest rumors of all time, that the Vikings have inquired about Derek Carr.
And I just pulled over to a gas station and I just sat there and I was like, okay, let's hear what idiotic nonsense.
It must have went on for an hour, them talking about who they could pick up, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, we already have them.
We're not moving on from Sam Darnold right now.
Guys, what delusion...
The delusional world I watched all these people start to live in.
We can grab Ryan Tannehill.
What do you mean what a perfect...
He's garbage.
But you do have to determine, though, James, is that...
I mean, Sam Darnold...
I mean, the quarterback position is...
This is not just a knock on Sam Darnold, but since we're talking about Sam Darnold...
The quarterback position is not a position in which most teams...
It's not a position that stays healthy very often.
No, it's fair.
That's fair.
And Sam Darnold has shown the propensity to get nicked up, like most guys in that position.
Nick Mullins for the season, baby.
Nick Mullins and Jaron Hall.
No, in all seriousness, though, Chip, this is one of those things where I already thought to myself, like, hey, maybe we could end up with the number one pick next year.
That's how my brain is working right now, because...
I can't comprehend.
Justin Jefferson didn't sign on for this, but he did know that this season wasn't going to be a winning season, and he still signed.
He knew that.
Because there's no way they pitched to him, don't worry, we're going to make this season count.
No, it's not.
It wasn't going to count when we drafted McCarthy and it wasn't going to count when we were starting Sam Donald over him.
And now that he's not here, it still doesn't count.
We at most this season, we're going to win eight games on the back of a miracle.
So that would be a miracle.
So I'm assuming we're going to win four or five games this year at most.
And that still feels like a stretch.
I'm not overthinking it.
I will say that I am kind of excited about this new crop of quarterbacks altogether in the sense that this is the first...
Tell me if you remember a weekend where all the quarterbacks didn't struggle that were coming in as rookies.
JJ played well.
Bo Nix played really well.
Jaden Daniels was a stud.
Caleb looked unbelievable.
And if I'm missing anyone, and Penix looked good.
It was a weird weekend.
That usually doesn't happen.
No, it doesn't.
Drake May had a good game yesterday, or whatever day it was.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's a good crop.
I mean, there's no...
There's no can't-miss quarterback from that, but there are three or four quarterbacks that could have long, good careers in the NFL. Jaden Daniels is the one that I think people are going to...
If I was putting money down right now, and we don't bet on this podcast, but if we were to bet...
No, we would.
We would never, but if we were to bet, I'd put my money on him for Rookie of the Year.
There you go.
That's not a bad bet.
I don't know if that is in Vegas, but I got to think he's top two, if not top three.
I mean, we can just look that up right now.
That's the whole point of this.
Exactly right.
But let's see.
NFL Rookie of the Year odds.
Here we go.
So right now, this is Vegas Insider.
So yeah, Jaden Daniels is going off at plus 550, plus 500, plus 600. 5-6 to 1 for your money.
That's good.
Yeah, Caleb's at plus 135 right now.
What is that?
Caleb's at plus 135. And Marvin Harrison Jr. looks like on FanDuel.
I'm just going to give you all the FanDuel ones.
He's around 650. That's crazy.
That's good value.
Daniels is $550.
Yeah, plus $135 on Caleb Williams isn't real good value for your money, even if he does end up being...
Yeah, but if you parlay, like, this is me going into parlays, but if you were to parlay, like, a Jaden Daniels into maybe pick a defensive player of the year, too, like a Dallas Turner, who's going to get all the run time possible.
Oh, yeah.
He's going to be on defense a lot.
The Atlanta Falcons had an opportunity to draft.
Yes, and they chose the future of the quarterback.
However, as we talked about, the quarterback position being the one that is most fluid with folks going down with injuries, Kirk Cousins isn't getting any younger, and he's coming off a major injury, too.
Are you coming around to the idea of Michael Penix at this point?
I think I have to.
I don't think I have a choice.
Hey, you guys got Matt Judon, so you made the Dallas Turner decision.
And look, I will, as we talked about when the Falcons drafted him, it wasn't about, it wasn't, it was not a knock on Michael Pennick, so I think it's a good, and I think he could be a good quarterback.
It was just what the Falcons did, and if Dallas Turner becomes Rookie of the Year, You know, because that dude's a stud and he will do really, really well.
Let's talk a little bit of news coming out of ESPN this week.
ESPN this year has put a lot of money, James, in Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, and Scott Van Pelt.
And there's not a lot of money left for other folks.
And this week they cut ties with Samantha Ponder and Robert Griffin III. You and I were talking about this before the show.
I was a little surprised by the Sam Ponder cut, but you had another take on it, which I think is interesting.
And then Robert Griffin III, I just didn't think was all that good as color.
Yeah, I didn't care either way because I didn't really watch him much.
But give us your thoughts on the Sam Ponder fire.
Well, just real quick on the RG3 thing.
There was a bidding war for RG3 to get him between him and Fox.
They were talking about him being a superstar, which is very funny to me because I feel like I don't remember that at all, but apparently that's what was happening when I was reading about it.
The Sam Ponder thing...
I'm not saying this is exactly it, but I always think about this.
I wonder if they've just hated her ever since they lost Barstool.
Because she was basically like, I can't believe you guys would hire someone like Dave Portnoy.
Now, Dave Portnoy has his...
His drawbacks.
As a CEO, he doesn't because he's a genius, but as a personality, he has his drawbacks.
But if you have your own network, you can do whatever you want.
But if you're joining ESPN, this prestigious group of Elite, which they felt like.
They feel like Augusta sometimes.
You know what I'm saying?
It does feel a little elitist.
It really does.
They were struggling a little bit at that point, but then they brought on part of my take and they were going to do band talk and that ended up going away.
Basically what happened is Samantha Ponder complained and then a couple others complained and basically they got rid of them.
Barstool is overtaking ESPN by a trillion.
I don't know what the numbers are.
I just know that Barstool took over the sports world and everything it involves because ESPN doesn't get those interviews.
They get guys for 10 minutes because that's their thing, but they don't get what Barstool gets.
I mean, every week you have somebody that you love to hear and want to hear talked about, and they get all the inside scoops, and they get all the NFL players.
They have anyone they want at any time.
ESPN doesn't have that anymore.
The only thing keeping them relevant right now, in my opinion, is Stephen A. and Pat McAfee, which, like you said, they poured money into that.
Oh, lots of money.
There was a real conversation about Pat McAfee not being on College Game Day.
The fact that there was a real conversation says all you need to know about that company.
Yeah.
And listen, I know that there's a lot of older people that are like, I don't like the way he's doing this.
What happened to this, that, and the other thing.
Get off my lawn, blah, blah, blah.
I get it.
But this is the future.
You shouldn't care about old people at this point if you're trying to run a company.
I know that sounds horrible and harsh, but they don't even have to care about me.
They gotta care about the people even under me a little bit.
But I tell you though, ESPN, it would have been, even without Sam Ponder playing that role with Barstool.
Barstool is Barstool because Dave Portnoy does not have handcuffs on.
Correct.
And he has the ability to do what he does, which is be Dave, right?
And at ESPN, He'd have handcuffs on, and ESPN would not, they would have suffocated Barstool, in my opinion, and thwarted the growth, because it's very hard in an ESPN culture, which is a progressive left woke culture.
It's not a secret.
ESPN embraces that.
I don't think you would argue with that.
He's offensive.
He's bombastic.
He's awesome.
He's everything you want.
If you're a guy's guy and you want to watch football on Sunday, Dave is up your alley.
And he's a hell of a lot of fun to follow on Twitter.
I love him because he calls first-rate people religiously like I do.
And he bets outrageous sums of money on races.
And then he loses, and he's like...
So the life of a millionaire on a yacht.
On a three-horse trifecta, which is hard to hit anyway.
And he's like, well, so be it.
Let's go to the next race.
I would never go to another horse race if I lost $100,000.
But in any event, I do love this time of year from a sports perspective.
I mean, there's just crazy storylines coming out of nowhere with college football and NFL football.
There were two things that I saw this morning that I had before.
A guy named Monty Harrison, you probably hadn't heard of him.
I hadn't heard of him until now.
He's a journeyman baseball player.
Oh, yeah!
Did you see this guy?
I saw about this yesterday.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, a journeyman baseball player.
Played 10 years, and he bounced around between AAA and major leagues.
I think he did two full years in the majors.
Well, he played three full years.
Three full years in the majors, okay.
He played seven years in the minor leagues, but he retired from baseball.
And what is he going to do at 29 years old?
He's a walk-on, wide receiver for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
What a great story.
That's what sports is about.
Yeah, man.
29-year-old dude said, you know what?
I think I'm good enough to be a walk-on on a college football team.
And where is he at?
I'm sorry.
He's in Arkansas, Arkansas Razorbacks.
And the irony is, Auburn, I go to all the Auburn games, I bleed orange and blue.
We play Arkansas in our first SEC home game this year.
Monty Harrison looks like he's made the team.
I don't know.
That's so crazy.
It's awesome, isn't it?
I don't know how much time he's going to give, but what a great story.
I mean, the dude's 29 and he's playing football with a bunch of 18 to 21. He's a walk-on, which means he's paying for his own education because he's probably going back to school, which means he's got eligibility, so he's going back to school.
That's right.
So that's part of it, too, which is kind of cool.
In the era of NIL, I would think he'd be able to put some...
Oh, he's got money.
That's the thing.
If you play three years in the majors, you have money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stash aside.
But if he could be the 30-year-old college student, that's hilarious.
And it's going to be a lot of fun to watch.
And he's got four years of eligibility.
Four?
So he came straight out of high school?
Straight out of high school.
He got drafted straight out of high school.
And he signed a major league deal straight out.
Harrison committed to play football at Nebraska.
This was in 2014. Overcompeting offers from schools like Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky.
He had all these Power 5 offers and decided to play baseball.
They probably threw a crazy amount of money at him.
Yeah, and look, he was a second round pick, so you know he did.
It's not like he decided to go in the later rounds and take a chance.
I mean, your second round pick, even in the Major League Baseball draft, they're going to throw money at you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
We'll be rooting for Monty Harrison on the podcast throughout the year.
You want a guy like that to succeed.
Another thing, too, is if, speaking of the state of Alabama, I didn't realize, James, and you might know this, but I didn't realize this, but Well, I didn't know.
Anybody can file a federal lawsuit, right?
Anybody can file a federal lawsuit.
I like how that starts.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know.
If you don't have a lawyer to file a lawsuit, you can still file a lawsuit.
You have to fill out a seven-page form, federal form, and a lady by the name of Amanda Ann Keller.
Amanda Ann Keller.
Very special young lady.
Very special young lady.
Yesterday she filed a six gazillion, that's what she's seeking in damages, not four gazillion, not three gazillion, not 1.5 gazillion.
She filed a 6.5 gazillion lawsuit against Donald Trump Jr. J.D. Vance, Ivanka Trump, and the fourth defendant in her lawsuit is Lane Kiffin.
I mean, you can't make this up.
And so I just saw this before the podcast started.
I have not had an opportunity to read her lawsuit, but I can tell you...
That it is handwritten.
Oh, she's a...
She's a handwritten lawsuit, James.
So her name's Amanda Ann Keller?
Amanda Ann Keller.
It says, is this...
And when did she fill this out?
She filed it yesterday.
Keller vs.
Griffin, 13 hours ago.
Hold on.
And I saw a three-year letterman, who is a very active Twitter account, retweet it.
He hopes that justice is served.
This is the greatest thing ever.
Only in Alabama can a lady named Amanda Ann Keller file a lawsuit against the son of the president, the son and daughter of the presidential candidate, the vice presidential candidate, and throw the Ole Miss head football coach in the lawsuit.
You know what?
That was somebody just like, man, that loss at USC 26 years ago.
You know what?
I'm not having it.
Throw him in there too.
Does it say what it's for?
Well, her penmanship is not very legible.
Of course.
And so I tried to read what it was for.
It's not looking.
It's actually hard to find, ironically.
Yeah, it was very hard to read.
But when it said, please explain the damages you are seeking, she made that very clear.
And it was six gazillion.
I mean, a very reasonable number to ask for in this decade.
I think she would have had more credibility had she stopped at 3.75 gazillion.
Yes, of course.
Too much.
But once you pass that gazillion threshold of 3.75, everything, all your credibility is out the window.
I do know when this podcast ends.
I am going to get to the bottom of this lawsuit.
I am going to find out.
I am going to find out what the Genesis is behind it and what Lane Kiffin did to be thrown in.
Whatever you find, your findings have to come directly to our group chat because I need to know everything about this because if anyone is suing for anywhere near the gazillions, Knowing full well that they have just wrote...
Writing the word gazillion on a piece of paper must have, at some point, must have felt a little weird.
Which was impressive.
Of course.
The official spelling of gazillion.
I've never written it before, but it looks like it sounds good.
Never doubt how incredible America is, and this is why.
And you know what?
We joke about her wanting six gazillion in damages, but the reality is it could be a brilliant legal strategy that we're just not party to right now.
It leaves her legal team, I think, with room for a settlement.
Yeah, hey, we're not going to be able to reach that gazillion, but how about 100k?
Yeah, that sounds all right.
Yeah, that's right.
James, our time has flown by on Friday's finest, and we will catch everybody next week.
Next week, as I said, the Democrat National Committee starts their convention.
Man, that'll be a humdinger.
We'll talk about that.
We'll talk about their speakers, what everybody says, the production, all of that.
But hopefully, between now and next Friday, there won't be any other meniscus tears from first-round pick quarterbacks of the NFL. Look, that's got to scare some head coaches to death.
We might see third and fourth string players.
We might not see Caleb Williams until midway through this season.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's just...
You gotta put kids out there to get some playing time.
But, you know, this is the argument against preseason, and I completely get it.
But, James, I'll give you the last word.
Last word is Nicholas Cage has been cast.
We don't have to get into this because we have time.
I don't know if people know about this about me, but I am a Nicholas Cage superfan.
I think he's a psychopath and a genius.
He is going to be playing the great, late John Madden.
I don't know how he got the role.
I don't know why he got the role.
I don't know if he's going to gain weight for the role.
And if he does, I'm all in on that.
Either way, I'm super pumped.
I think it's going to be amazing and weird and beautiful all at the same time.
It will be.
I can't wait for that.
It's going to be fun to watch.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
It's going to be gold.
That's exactly right.
Well, thanks everybody for listening.
This week on the Doug Collins Podcast, we will catch everybody on the other end of the weekend.
We'll catch you Monday.
We'll see you then.
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