Takes

Diana Russini likely leaked the Sedona hotel photos herself to publicly announce her hatred for the New York Jets.

I also kind of think she leaked this article. Like who gives a fuck about Mike Vrabel going out in the middle of the desert? Who leaks that? And then what better way to announce your hate for the Jets than being like, I'm hanging out with Mike Vrabel pants on a rooftop.

Jay Bilis is being disingenuous with his criticism of the transfer portal

Jay Bilis is being disingenuous... what I don't understand about Jay Bilis is like, so what if people complain about the transfer portal and the NIL... this is a tweet from 20 years ago. Everyone's saying Will Wade's a dickhead.

I'm glad I missed Peyton Manning's birthday because he has enough people sucking his dick

I'm glad I missed Peyton Manning's birthday by the way. Fuck, fuck that guy. He's got enough people to suck his dick and wish him a happy birthday. Awful announcing quote that. I hope I do it again next year.

Pardon My Take has likely had a negative sociological effect on the intelligence of sports fans over the last 10 years

Our final boss should be some detailed researched article that is like the effective, Pardon My Take on sports fans. Like a negative thing. ... they can trace it back to all these kids that were listening when they were 12 and now they're fucking idiots as grown adults and they're going to games.

I hope Pardon My Take is the only job I have for the rest of my life.

It's the best job ever. I always tell people that if I had told like a guidance counselor when I was in college or high school what I wanted to do when I grow up, I would've said something very similar to what this job is right now. Longest job I've ever had, by far. And I honestly want this to be the only job that I have for the rest of my life.

The Olympics should allow more highlights to be shared so people actually want to watch the events

The Olympics sucks and they just don't give any highlights for anything. It's so stupid. Why do they do that? Why not make it something that people wanna watch and go, 'oh, I saw that event, let me go check it out.'

Winter Olympic viewership would skyrocket if downhill skiing was head-to-head instead of a time trial

The Winter Olympics suck because the, there are very few head-to-head sports. Everything is a time trial... If you had downhill skiing with eight people lined up, it would be one of the top events. Similarly, if you had sprinting or swimming in the summer as time trials instead of head-to-head, no one would watch.

This Dungeons and Dragons episode is the best one the show has ever done

It is Dungeons and Dragons Day, the best one we've ever done... I honestly think it's the best one we've ever done.

Tony Romo is the worst broadcaster in football

He's been the worst, you guys. ... We've never been more right about anything. ... People are calling us haters. ... He's so bad.

The NBA is an absolute disgrace and sports fans should stop watching it in favor of the NHL

I think it's an absolute disgrace, the entire league... you guys are the biggest podcast in sports and truly get people away from the NBA and more into the NHL. ESPN won't do it, nobody else will do it, and you guys could do it and you refuse to do it.

Al Michaels' broadcasting mood is determined by the length of his flight to the stadium

My theory too on Al is that it just depends on how long of a flight he had to take. So when he's like at a Charger's vi the Charger's playing the Vikings, which was a blowout, he was pretty happy tonight... If he has to call next week Jets, patriots, we're gonna get a surly surly al Michaels 'cause he is gotta go cross country. He's gonna be pissed off.

NFL games should be free for everyone to watch

Sports should be free. That's my take. When I'm elected president free sports for everybody... It keeps people happy. It's also just the right thing to do.

ESPN and Disney are screwing over sports fans in their feud with YouTube TV

ESPN is fucking everyone because ESPN's got a new app... they're screwing over everyone who has cut the cord... and it's just fucked up. It's fucked up. They're just screwing over the consumer. The people who just wanna watch sports. ... stop with this bullshit where everyone is trying to squeeze each other out for an extra dollar.

TV networks should force in-house umpires to wear full gear during broadcasts

I have a dumb sports rule for you guys... our friends of Fox were going to the in-house umpire Mark Carlson. He was wearing a suit and tie. I think the in-house umpire should have to wear a full chest protector and mask because baseball's the one sport where managers wear full uniforms. Why aren't we doing that?

I am done with acting in Hollywood movies and will focus only on stand-up and podcasting

I'm out dude. I have no business in the business. I'm out. Stand up and podcasting. I'm 42 in a month and I've had a great, I love doing Dave... but the business has changed and I have more fun doing stand-up and podcasting by far than I ever did doing that other stuff.

Ryan Clark is a 'piece of shit' for berating Peter Schrager

My who's back of the week is our guy Peter Schrager... Ryan Clark's a piece of shit. I'll just say that... he just like berated Peter Schrager for having a take on a take show because he didn't play the game... Ryan Clark, come on, man.

Corner camping is a legitimate and awesome strategy in Call of Duty

I think that's awesome. Yeah, it's great. You find a good spot where you kill... corner camping. I ended up winning. It was great.

The NBA's plan to push West Coast games to 11 PM Eastern is a bad move compared to MLB's regional focus

The NBA is actually doing the reverse. You see that they're doing a like, coast to coast where they're gonna push back the West Coast games to 11:00 PM Eastern time... I don't know and maybe the Mets and Yankees would be in the same division [in MLB], which that, that would, I feel like that would be a mistake.

Battlefield 6 is bringing realism back to first-person shooters

The Battlefield six beta has brought realism back into first person shooter games. They peaked with 520,000 concurrent players only on Steam. Battlefield six, none of [the skins]. We're riding tanks. We're blowing up buildings.

Hard Knocks is just a 45-minute commercial for whatever team they are profiling

Hard Knocks is just gonna be like a 45 minute commercial for whatever team they happen to be profiling because otherwise no teams would ever do it and the NFL wouldn't allow it.

Inside the NBA and NFL RedZone are the two most beloved products in sports media

Inside the NBA and RedZone are, I would say, two of the highest approval rating things that exist in the sports world. We don't like when you change a score bug by like one pixel.

No one should ever listen to Steven Che's sports advice again after his poor fantasy takes

No one should listen to Steven Che ever again. That's facts. In all seriousness, I think sometimes you see guys up there and they have to say stuff that's going to get clickbait.

Darren Rovell makes every celebrity death about himself

I do think our eSports correspondent Darren Rovell is starting to maybe learn from his mistakes because Hulk Hogan passed and he actually had a couple funny, fun tidbits on his Twitter. Unlike when Ozzy Osborne passed... everyone was like, so you just made his death about you. I think he deleted it. Hulk Hogan... you know, he has a lot of Hulk Hogan memorabilia.

It is crazy that Time Magazine left Joe Rogan off their list of the 100 most influential podcasts

Joe Rogan not on the List, kind of crazy. Like Joe Rogan is the biggest podcast in the world. And he's like, he's in the news all the time... think about how many careers he started. It's fucking nuts.

The 'AWL's are the best podcast listeners of all time

If you were to make a list of the 100 best podcast listeners of all time, the AWL is number one easy.

Pardon My Take listeners (AWLs) are mean to the hosts online but are always polite and friendly in person

Love you guys love seeing you guys out there supportive, you know, say mean stuff online, but they're always nice in person. I've never had a bad interaction with an AWL in person. And that is all that matters.

Announcing you are writing a book is the funnest part of writing a book

Announcing that you're writing a book is the funnest part of writing a book. Oh yeah. Now we gotta write a book. We've ended up canceling the books at the last minute several times, which always feels great to do.

Our 10th anniversary book will be the dumbest book ever created

It's gonna be the dumbest book ever created. And it's not gonna be... like, I don't wanna, we're not gonna write like a a tell all that's like super serious. It's gonna be stupid. ... We want it to be dumb. We wanna be stupid.

Keith Olbermann was an unbelievable partner with a great news sense on SportsCenter

I was with Keith Olbermann, and we said, we want the first 15 minutes to be about Mickey Mantle... Keith would always fight the, he had a great news sense. He was, he was unbelievable as a partner. Unbelievable.

Adam Schefter uses specific character limits to bait clicks in notifications

I saw his post about a trade. It said Jalen Ramsey has been traded from the Miami Dolphins to, and then it was the...dot dot dot. It cut off right there. I think that Schefter knows exactly how many characters to use to make people actually click through and look at his tweet instead of just looking at the notification. I think that he's that good.

Jack Doherty is a '1-1' pick for people who need to be punched in the face

Jack Doherty's our pick. That guy needs to get punched so fucking bad. I several times I consume his work, I just see him on Twitter and I hate him. He goes around with his bodyguards fucking with people... as far as internet people go, he's 1-1.

Joe Burrow's terrible first pitch was a staged viral marketing stunt by Fanatics

I think that whole fucking fanatics thing was just like, they basically listed like, alright, what's gonna go viral? Let's make a fake viral thing here... And they were like, Joe Burrow, we're gonna pay you like $2 million suck at throwing baseballs. That's the only way I can stomach it.

Removing referees and umpires from sports would eliminate 50% of the conversations fans have with each other

If you took away all refs and umps from all sports, you're basically eliminating like 50% of conversations guys can have with each other. Like if your team loses, you have to be able to blame a human being.

The NBA Finals don't feel special because there is no 'Finals' script on the court anymore

How do you not have just like a script NBA finals? How do you not have anything, maybe even on the baseline there? It's the same argument I make with the throwback jerseys... When I watch a highlight of this game 10 years from now, I wanna know it was the NBA finals and there's nothing on the fucking court except YouTube TV.

The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals should be scheduled to happen at the same time

What I'm rooting for is for the Stanley Cup and the NBA finals to happen at the same time. Yeah, I, well, around the same time. I don't know how the schedules work out with like how they're set. But I would just prefer to not have one series be over while the other sport is still going on.

We have reached the point where AI-generated videos are officially indistinguishable from reality.

AI is back. 'cause I think half the pod, not just Hank this time, got got fooled with a fake man on the street video that's done using all AI. And we've reached the point where now we can't tell we, we officially can't. Sometimes we should be able to tell, but now I feel like it's just, it's, we're we're fucked.

The ESPN announcing booth of Richard Jefferson and Doris Burke lacks aura and does not suit big playoff games

The booth, the Richard Jefferson, Doris Burke that there's not a lot of Aura. I'm sorry. ... I'm smashing the Aura button on everything now but I'm smashing it there. It don't, we like RJ, I like Doris Burke as a team. It just doesn't feel big game ish. It just, I don't know. It's like, but let Mike Breen just do it himself. It just didn't feel something was off.

Ryan Clark is a psycho for his social media attack on Robert Griffin III

Ryan Clark is kind of a psycho and just went like nuclear on a take about a foul in the WNBA. ... It basically comes down to RG3 had a misdemeanor of being corny online and, and Ryan Clark put him in front of a firing squad.

WNBA players should stay off social media to avoid the toxic discourse

I would imagine that most of the really, really bad shit that you deal with is from people that are DMing you from anonymous accounts... I would just log off, have somebody else run your social media, do your ad deals, do all that shit for you. But don't, I, I would stay off.

Remote sports broadcasting for playoff games should be abolished

Abolishing in studio broadcasters. Celtics had it tonight. The two guys were not in the garden... It sounded like a dead arena... that just needs to not be a thing. I dunno how much money it saves. It's good for golf. It's bad for real sports.

Seth Davis's 'refereeing is art' take is the dumbest argument ever

Seth Davis though tweeted this about the refs... 'Reffing is more art than science.' I'm gonna disagree with that. I think that's, that makes me want robot s. That's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. If the refs don't call physical play or something that happens in the first half and then all of a sudden they decide that they're gonna call that a foul, that's very confusing for the players.

Skip Bayless is the biggest loser of the LeBron interview on Pat McAfee

All this to say Skip Bayless was not mentioned once and all Skip Bayless wants to do is get mentioned by LeBron. He's the big loser in all of this.

LeBron's swearing in the McAfee interview made him more relatable

The part that I liked the most was the swearing. It makes him relatable. It was the best swear.

Shohei Ohtani's two-way dominance is more impressive than Travis Hunter's

Shohei Ohtani [is more impressive] because he has done it at the big league level... Ohtani being elite at both levels at the highest level of baseball. If Travis Hunter can be an all pro cornerback and an all pro wide receiver in the same season, get back to me.

LeBron James is one of the best and most gracious interview subjects

I'd say him [LeBron], I appreciate the times that we talk where I think he gives you more than just the, the garden variety. When they [LeBron, Tiger, Jeter] seem like they're invested and actually present in a way that they're—I don't wanna say into it, but that it isn't a chore. That's the best you can hope for.

TV networks must fix scoreboard spoilers that show scores ahead of the live broadcast

I don't understand how it's still an issue... if you're watching four games at once, half the time you see the scoreboard on one game and it will be ahead of the actual game you're watching... figure it out. Don't let it spoil us.

The NHL's Four Nations tournament completely outclassed the NBA All-Star weekend

The NHL absolutely bodied the NBA in terms of getting it right and what they did, what they've done with the Four Nations Tournament instead of the All-Star game versus everything that's been going on for the NBA All-Star game. It's not even close.

The NFL cued the NBA during All-Star week by holding the Super Bowl immediately before it

The NBA cued the NFL during Super Bowl week and the NHL cued the NBA during Allstar week. NHL is king.

The new Fox score bug for Super Bowl 59 was a war crime and shouldn't have been introduced during the championship game.

Fox bringing out that new score bug for the Super Bowl was a war crime. It was disgusting. It was just insane. Why do networks do that for the Super Bowl? This is something that you need like at least a full year to workshop... I don't know who came up with that, but that guy should be—I don't wanna say fired, but he should be because that was so bad.

The Meta Quest 3 is significantly better than the Apple Vision Pro

I got the Apple Vision Pro like seven months ago. What a waste of fucking money that was. That was probably the the biggest waste of money I've ever had in my entire life... picked up the Meta Quest 3. That thing rocks... this kicks the shit out of the Apple Vision Pro.