Takes

Charitable foundations are the best PR tool for shielding coaches from social media scandals

If you are trying to get out of your Twitter problems, either have the foundation... and just tweet from that. ... Foundations have never done anything wrong.

The NFL books terrible pregame bands like OneRepublic on purpose to show power over the audience

I think the NFL does that on purpose. They always have the world's shittiest band opening up for the season... They do it on purpose just to say, like, fuck you, you're going to watch. We could wheel out Ozzy Osbourne while he's in a coma, and you would still tune in and watch.

Mike Greenberg's belief that ties are more satisfying than overtime is the worst opinion ever

Mike Greenberg's dumb rules... I dislike overtime and college football so much that I genuinely believe ending in a tie is not only more just, it is more satisfying too. That has to be the worst opinion of all time.

CBS firing Mike Carey because of internet meanness sets a terrible precedent

But what CBS has done here is it sets a terrible precedent. Yes. Because if you cave into the Internet once, oh, boy, that's a lot of power that you're giving... CBS basically said we can get anyone on their staff fired.

Dropping a 'trash' signature sneaker is the new version of a celebrity sex tape for staying relevant

Dropping a trash signature sneaker is like the new sex tape. That's how you get people talking about you.

Skip Bayless is better at insulting athletes than Stephen A. Smith

I'm just saying, like, if you needed somebody, if it came down to it, you needed one guy to hurl out one insult at an athlete, who are you going with? I'm going to Skip. ... I think he's better at it in general.

The internet needs to consolidate the excessive number of golf news websites

Just consolidate all these golf sites. We don't need 17 golf sites writing the same golf stories. ... consolidate all these golf sites.

Bob Costas is the alpha dog of NBC sports because he lifts in jeans

It was revealed that Costas walked into the weight room with jeans on and just did upper body. I saw it down here. I went to the gym and Bob Costas strolled in in jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, jeans, but he was just doing upper body. That's a savage move. That's a short man move. All chest, no legs.

Mike Tirico is the best sports announcer to listen to right now

Mike Tirico might be my favorite guy to listen to. It's probably Al Michaels still maybe has it because of who he is and what he's done. But Mike Tirico might be my favorite guy to listen to.

Bob Costas was a better Olympic broadcaster when he had pink eye.

My big thing is I miss pink eye Bob Costas. It's not the same with him with two functional eyeballs out there. I miss it. I miss it. He was so good when he was playing hurt. I actually think he was better when he only had one eye.

It is unavoidable for every high-volume media company to eventually have a scandal like the Hulk Hogan Gawker story.

It seems like it's unavoidable at certain points to have some story, because you're just churning out lots of content, to have some story go awry and go off the rails... I think that it's difficult, almost impossible to avoid.

Asking someone to come on your sports podcast is a huge dick move

Can you come on my podcast? So that's a huge – I hate it. I hate when people try to get you to go on, like, your sports podcast and, like, try to joke around with them. Big time dick move if anybody out there does that.

If you claim you were hacked after a scandal, you must lean into it with more fake hacks

If you are going to go the hacked route, you have to go farther down the rabbit hole of hacked. So you accidentally snap a picture of your penis, then you accidentally snap a picture of a swastika, then you accidentally snap a picture of like you throwing a rock at a pigeon and then you're like shit I got hacked.

Draymond Green should sue Snapchat for entrapment

If I'm Draymond, I would consider suing Snapchat. They made an app that makes it really easy to send dick pics that disappear afterwards. So it's like entrapment.

Women in sports media should know 'No' is a complete sentence

I always say like, here's my advice. No is a complete sentence. Like you don't have to justify to anybody why you're saying no to anything because I think young women sometimes feel like they have to.

Sports writers would cure cancer if they didn't spend all their time debating Hall of Fame rules

If we took all the brainpower that the sportswriters of America used up thinking about Hall of Fames and rules and who should be in and who shouldn't, we could have cured cancer. We'd be living on Mars... deciding who's valuable enough to be in some stupid museum that we created.

Media members and sports figures should physically fight to settle disputes

I think the media and sports figures should actually physically fight. That feels like something that would happen in maybe Argentina where a ref screws up and they're like, 'oh, we're going to kill you.' I'd like to see more accountability.

The Marlins Man Beef Is About Jealousy, Not The Troops

It's not about the troops, it's jealousy.

Stephen A. Smith would have successfully prosecuted O.J. Simpson

I actually don't disagree with Stephen A. Smith here... Because I actually do think he would have been able to put O.J. Simpson in jail. He is so exhausting as an arguer, as a person, that I think that the jury would have just said, 'you know what, just have Stephen A. Smith stop talking and we'll put [Simpson] in jail.'

NFL Blitz is a Mount Rushmore-tier video game

All right, first up, NFL Blitz. No, I played video games a lot more when I was really young, and that was my favorite one.

Madden is the greatest video game franchise ever

I have Madden, the franchise. Just going to take the whole franchise. Fuck it. Mount Rushmore, you get to make your own rules.

GoldenEye 007 and Oregon Trail are top-tier video games

GoldenEye is number one since you didn't take it... Number two, I have Oregon Trail.

I am ground zero for sports stars and the first sports celebrity who wasn't an athlete

I was actually told by a reporter from Sports Illustrated when he interviewed me, he said, you're the first sports star. I mean, what the hell is a sports star? Star for sports. You're the first one. You're the first guy to become a sports celebrity that wasn't an athlete. ... You are ground zero for sports stars.

My reception at Cubs games is comparable to when the Beatles showed up at Shea Stadium

I was in Chicago for the Dodgers-Cubs. They swarmed me. They overwhelmed me with kindness and love. They were chanting, 'Marlins Man, Marlins Man' between the innings... I go, are you kidding? Watch what's going to happen. It's going to be like when the Beatles showed up at Shea Stadium. And it happened.

Marlins Man was only complaining about not getting into the Fort Bragg game, not skipping it out of respect

I asked him, the first thing I asked him before the game was, hey, are you going to Fort Bragg? He said nothing about respecting the military. All he did was complain about how he couldn't get in and how he does so much to promote Sunday night baseball and Major League Baseball. But MLB and the Marlins are being mean and they won't let him in. ... So for him to now suddenly be bashing me for going is just quite frankly bizarre.

If you don't include Mount Rushmore on a 'Mount Rushmore' list, you are trying way too hard

If you guys don't put Mount Rushmore on the list, you're trying way too hard.

The NBA Draft is a huge letdown compared to the NFL Draft

The pageantry, the electricity and all the bells and whistles that go along with the NFL draft, there's absolutely none of it for the NBA. It's basically, here's the NBA draft... You sit on your couch, you drink one beer, and then you refresh Adrian Wojnowski's Twitter feed for three hours. And that's your entire NBA draft experience.

Skip Bayless is the greatest sports entertainer of the last hundred years

I'm questioning anybody's intelligence that's listening to us right now and not tuning in to First Take to see Skip Bayless' curtain call on that show. Possibly the greatest sports entertainer of the last hundred years.

The 2016 Rio Olympics are being saved by the terrible news stories surrounding them

This is though, as we've said many times, the only way the Olympics – people can be reminded that the Olympics are coming is for these stories to come out because no one actually cares about the actual Olympics.

People should be fired for being bad at Twitter

I hope that this happens more in the future. Just people get fired because they suck at Twitter, not because they say anything offensive or because they break a law or anything, just because they suck at the platform.

I want to see more professional athletes call into sports talk radio as anonymous fans to trash their own coaches

I would love to see more players call into Sports Talk Radio like as a fan and just be like, this coach sucks. He's a bum. Get him out of town.

Skip Bayless is at his best when LeBron James is failing in the Finals

Skip Bayless is on fire. I don't know if you've seen him... there's nothing that brings that out quite like LeBron choking in the finals.

The X Games have lost their fastball because they cancel events for rain

The X Games has lost their fastball... they canceled all the events yesterday because of rain, and these are the X Games, right? Why are you canceling events because of rain? If anything, it should be the Surge commercial where everybody is running up the hill.

The best way to handle a PR disaster is to claim it was satire and that people are too dumb to get it

Another thing you can do now here's, I've learned this from experience. If you say something that's just extremely offensive and rubs people the wrong way, it's satire. Dick Vitale could have said the fuck you thing was satire. And you guys all don't get it. You're all dumb.

Women's lacrosse is not a real sport because Northwestern is good at it

Also, Northwestern won a national title, and if Northwestern can win a national title in the sport we're talking about, that's not a real sport. So women's lacrosse, sorry, not a real sport.

Steve Weatherford is the 'Rosa Parks' of heavy breathing at Planet Fitness

He's now taking a stand about people shaming heavy breathers... This is the Martin Luther King of breathing heavy in Planet Fitness is Steve Weatherford. Really standing up for some civil rights here. [PFT]: I'd say it's more Rosa Parks.

Johnny Manziel should get fat to regain public sympathy

Fat Johnny Manziel is actually a good way to get some sympathy back... You can't... It's just different when you're fat. People won't call him a scumbag as much... You're lovable when you're fat.

Regular assault and battery laws could and should apply to baseball fights

Being on the field like that in a baseball game especially, I don't think in my mind that in a baseball game that this is something that you could say, well, they assume the risk. I think the regular rules of assaults and battery could and should apply in this situation.

The Undefeated website is racist against white people

I kind of see what they're saying that the Undefeated is racist... Listen, we've sat here long enough as white males being persecuted. When are we going to get our say in sports media?

The ESPN Undefeated website is essentially 'the KKK for black people'

[The Undefeated] becomes the KKK for black people. Yeah, basically.

Olympic cancellation rumors are just a PR stunt to remind people the Olympics are happening

I swear to God, they pretend it's canceled the Olympics every Olympics just to remind us the Olympics are coming... how else do you pump everyone up for the Olympics in the beginning of May?... Their whole PR 101 is they just remind you it's happening by scaring the fuck out of everyone.

Retired players should fake-tweet they are returning to the league just to get back into the news cycle

I think more players should start doing this where they just fake tweet that they're coming out of retirement. Just get people talking about him because I didn't even know Jason Campbell was retired... Jeff George should just tweet something racist tomorrow just to get the rush of being like a celebrity again.

I'm sick of eSports being pushed on regular people

i'm not into esports but i am into drone racing... Esports are for all the people who think the NFL is going away... Let's have a bunch of nerds play video games and we'll watch and we'll take over for all of our, you know, sports that we've loved for 100 years. Get the fuck out of here, man. I'm sick of the esports thing. I really am.

Bob Costas is passionate about every sport he covers except for Sunday Night Football, where he sucks

Everything that [Bob Costas] attends, that's the kind of passion that Bob puts, except for Sunday night football. He sucks at that. He's like, 'hey, America, knock it off with the guns.' And then everyone's like, 'oh, shit, we should probably get rid of our guns.'

Newspaper guys only use Twitter to complain at airlines

Newspaper guys also love to complain about airlines. That's actually, like, the only reason newspaper guys have Twitter accounts, so that they can tweet at the airlines. And also, all their Twitter accounts, it's their stock photo from the newspaper picture day in 1992.

I like 'White Randy Moss' more than the football-playing Randy Moss

Not to be racist, but I like white Randy Moss more than black Randy Moss. ... I'm a bigger Randy Moss fan, the [broadcaster], than I am of the football playing Randy Moss.

Jay Glazer is better than Adam Schefter because Schefter is a 'nerd'

Did you pick Jay instead of Schefter because Schefter's a nerd and everyone wants to give him a swirly? 100%. Glazer's the man... Jay has so many relationships. He is so dialed that anything big goes through Jay.

Not being verified on Twitter is a blessing because it provides a 'built-in Fifth Amendment' to deny saying things

Maybe us being not verified is a blessing in disguise, kind of like a built-in Fifth Amendment for ourselves that we can just say we didn't say things.

Laremy Tunsil is a sympathetic figure because his stepdad leaked the video to screw him over

The fact that he has a stepdad in this issue actually works to his favor because I think right away, PR 101, get a stepdad that could somehow screw you over and then be like, yo, my stepdad's a dick. Automatically a sympathetic figure. ... everyone is like, poor Laremy Tunsil, we feel so bad for this guy because of the stepdad factor.

Chris Berman's pun game proves he still has his fastball

The Giants selected Eli Apple, Chris Berman. Right on the ball. Good to see that Berman still got it. He gets a little shit every now and then. He had Eli the Big Apple instantly.