Takes

Streaming services should pay to show fans running on the field

Have there be a policy on your streaming service that you will always show any fan that runs on the field. You can pay extra for that. I would absolutely be like, alright, I'm going to watch this game on Peacock and not on NBC.

Tony Romo is no longer a top-tier announcer

That's probably if like in 20 years when they write the book about Pardon My Take, I think that like us being the first to say Tony Romo not that good. That'd be a big one.

Bally Sports has the worst on-screen presentation

The only thing I can say is fuck Bally Sports. They have the worst by far [on-screen presentation].

The traditional NFL broadcast is still better than the Manningcast for watching an entire game

My only thing is that it's good, but I feel like the regular broadcast is still better. Like when I'm watching the Manning broadcast, it just doesn't feel like a big game. It's casual and it's good, but watching an entire game, I keep switching back to the regular broadcast.

Peyton Manning would be a fantastic booth announcer if he committed to the travel

I do think Peyton Manning would be fantastic if he ever decided to actually commit to this and go into the booth.

I am going to partially ditch wearing my sunglasses on camera

I told him something that I've been thinking about for a while here, which is the sunglasses at, at some point can be a big hindrance to me... So I'm trying to think of ways to partially lose the glasses. And I'm also thinking that people are going to be pissed when they see my eyes, at least for a little bit. Not because they're like free guys. I think I'm a pretty normal looking guy.

Hard Knocks sucks this season

We have watch hard knocks and it sucks. And I don't know what we're doing, but we're here for the people, right? That is our dedication to you.

Coach Prime is objectively better than Hard Knocks

Coach prime. It's like a Barstool version of hard knocks. Deion Sanders, Jackson state. It's out now. It's better than hard knocks objectively. No bias.

Hard Knocks has taken a nosedive and is no longer essential viewing

hard knocks has taken a nosedive. It was a drone shot, which was cool. The drone shot was very cool. Very cool... but that is what hard knocks [is]. Like we're at a point now that was tonight's mojo moment. It was the mojo moment. We're watching the hard knocks because that's what we want to do. But there's also moments where we're like, why are we doing this?

Hard Knocks should be a two-hour special at the end of training camp instead of a weekly series

I think maybe if you, if you were to take the entire training camp and then distill it into two hours. Yeah, I think that would be good. We'll film a film. Yeah. Just like, guess have it, have it be two hours on HBO. Like the last week of the pre-season after the cuts, that way you get to meet everybody, you get to meet all the kids.

Skip Bayless officially won the breakup with Stephen A. Smith

Max Kellerman is out. So officially, like Stephen A. Smith, I think Skip officially has won this breakup because Stephen A. Smith is now moving on from the rebound. It was a five-year rebound or whatever.

Hard Knocks stinks

Hard Knocks stinks. There's nothing that can turn around a bad episode of Hard Knocks like watching it with a cool dog... The ending was, I had to like check myself because they had the dramatic rainstorm and Liev Schreiber was doing some unbelievable speech, and then I was like, wait, they lost in a preseason game to the Cardinals by three points. What are we doing here?

Usain Bolt is the greatest sprinter because he's the only one who didn't test positive for steroids

The fastest man, currently the Italian guy Lamont... basically of all the sprinters to break nine seconds, 9 out of the 10 have tested positive or been accused of using steroids except Usain Bolt. [He's] the greatest of all time.

A Manning will be on every American television screen for the next 40 years

Eli and [Peyton] are doing that thing on ESPN, the simulcast for Monday Night Football. I also think Cooper is going to get involved at some point. You're not going to be able to turn on a television in America and not have a Manning staring at you.

Ed Sheeran is 'not football' and shouldn't play the NFL Kickoff

Roger Goodell needs a guy that hangs out with him that's like, 'Hey, that's not football.' Ed Sheeran is not football. Not opening night football. Coldplay, not football. Imagine Dragons is way more football than Coldplay.

Trying to cancel Joe Rogan only promotes his show

It is the dumbest thing ever that they try to cancel Joe Rogan every other month. And then a bunch of people just tweet out Joe Rogan clips that probably just make new Joe Rogan fans. They're just doing his promotion for him.

I am officially opting out of all Simone Biles discourse

I'm opting out of all discussion about Simone Biles simply because there's like, it's one of those discussions where it is either all the way on this side or all the way on that side and there's literally no nuance or actual discussion being had. As soon as you see it happen and people start screaming at each other, no one's actually having a conversation. So I've opted out of all Simone Biles discussion because no one is actually trying to change each other's minds.

I have successfully beaten 'Old Takes Exposed' by blurring the lines of my seriousness

I think I've beaten old takes exposed. We've blurred the line enough where it's like, I don't know if this I'm going to get roasted for an old takes. If I try to old takes Big Cat on them. Right. He's, he, every single time, it's just like, oh, that's just Big Cat making a joke or trying to jinx one of his bets.

The IOC and NBC are idiots for not letting people share Olympic clips online

The IOC in their infinite wisdom... doesn't want anyone sharing any Olympic clips, pictures, anything, because God forbid anyone talks about the Olympics and these random sports that you stumble upon... I can't understand... why tweeting a 20-second clip of a random sport like handball... is something they want to stop.

3D sports broadcasts will be forced back into the mainstream within the next two years.

I do predict that it's about that time for them to start forcing 3D down our throats again. It's like every three years, like 3D sports is coming back and it always sucks. It's never been good, but they're going to try because they feel like they can make money off it now. So I predict in the next, like two years, they'll start forcing that on us.

Shark Week is being used by the media to maintain a state of fear after COVID-19

I think that we're overdue for some of the shark. The media hasn't really like had anything to like keep us in fear about after COVID has kind of started to become an afterthought. The media day are overdue for another summer. You weren't scared about the story of the shooting that was planned in Denver.

Influencers like Addison Rae can get better interview answers than professional journalists

I would actually argue that she [Addison Rae] probably can get more out of some of these guys. Then if you have like a guy standing in the suit, a frumpy guy standing in a suit who went to Medill with a mustard stain on his tie... you're probably get actually better answers when you have a, an attractive celebrity tick talker.

Olympic horses should receive medals instead of the human riders

Why are we giving the people who ride on the horses medals? Like, shouldn't these medals go to the horses? ... How come the horse doesn't get that medal?

The growth of legalized sports gambling is the best thing that will happen to sports broadcasting

I actually think that the growth of gambling and accessibility is going to be the best thing that happens to our business because nothing's going to be meaningless. There is no meaningless. It doesn't matter what the score is. It also doesn't matter what the game is. It matters what the handle is, where the juice is, where the action is.

Sports would be better if we got rid of replay entirely

What if we just got rid of replay in every sport? I feel like we've gone so far in the direction of getting it right to the point where we're getting it wrong... I enjoy sports more when we're not taking all these positives... What if we just stopped reviewing everything in the NFL?

Lacrosse should use the term 'power play' rather than 'man-up'

People keep coming at me being like, hey, dude, it's man-up. It's like, dude, they say power play. It's a fucking power play... because what you have then on the women's game is they're saying woman up. And it's become a gender thing... Nope. It's a power play. They're on the power.

I am retiring from professional lacrosse very soon

how long how much longer are you gonna play for real? Not much longer. Really? Yeah. I'm 35... I get checked now, and I have bruises that last for weeks. So it's actually going to... My hips crack in the morning, my knees crack.

Jay Williams' 'hacked' excuse is an all-time idiot move

Jay Williams, all time idiot, like dumb tweet. And then on top of all that, he deletes it and waits like three hours and says... I did not post that. And my passcode has now been changed. So just like every hacker usually sets up, they spend years at hacking school so that they can one day tweet from Jay Williams' account that the Celtics hired the first black head coach.

I will be doing the play-by-play for the PLL doubleheader on July 31st

It is happening. July 31st, a doubleheader. I'm Peacock. I will be doing the play-by-play. It would not be possible without all of you guys in here... July 31st, doubleheader.

Skip Bayless has an investigative team searching athletes' wives' Instagram followers

There's very clearly a person behind the scenes working for Skip Bayless that has Skip Bayless's brain and does all the things online. ... and he just feeds Skip Bayless crap all day, and it just ends up on TV. Like his little private investigator for him.

Robert Griffin III has found his future career as an analyst

So ESPN and Fox are in a bidding war for him as an analyst. Whoa. So it looks like he found his future career. ... The executives were, quote, blown away by his audition.

WCW failed because they gave creative control to wrestlers

I think some of the things that went wrong for WCW, in my opinion, were the creative control. They gave creative control to a lot of the wrestlers. And some of the storylines are asinine. ... Most wrestling companies that have been really successful over time have had, like, one supreme commander at the top who's, like, owned it, booked, like, done everything top to bottom.

I will move the Waterdogs if they go on a two-game losing streak

If we go on a two-game losing streak at any point, we're going to move the team. We're moving it... we'll fucking do anything. We'll stop paying the players if we have to make them play better.

The media will soon claim that sports were better without fans in the building

I'm going to level it up. I'm going to say by the time you're hearing my voice, if it's in the afternoon tomorrow... somebody will have already written the take that sports were better when there were no fans in the building.

It is better to interview bad athletes than great ones

It's honestly better interviewing players that were not very good at hockey than players that were great. And that goes for most sports too... Like, would you think about all the great athletes out there that have transitioned to being in the front office? They all stink at it.

Kevin Owens might not have had a WWE career without my success

I think I opened the door for unlikely builds to get a better look at WWE. You know, a guy like Kevin Owens may not have gotten that look had it not been for the success that I had.

Kwame Brown and Charles Barkley should have a show together

You could take Kwame Brown and Charles Barkley, put them in a truck... You could put him in comedian cars getting coffee, except it's Charles Barkley and Kwame Brown talking about how youngsters these days have it so easy in the NBA. Forget the TNT show, which is wonderful. I think we can all agree. There should at least be like 10 minutes a day of those two just going at it.

It is always better for a journalist to be right than to be first

The one thing you do teach you is you always, it's always better to be right than be first.

Sports broadcasting needs more emotional analysts who wear their hearts on their sleeves

Maybe this is what we need. We need a guy who just wears his heart on his sleeve and has like, you know, when his quarterback or quarterbacks screw up or want to trade, he gets emotional. I like that... We need people to care about stuff that much on our televisions.

Being the first Madden cover athlete is a more iconic accomplishment than winning the Heisman

I'd never thought of that as an accomplishment. But now that you mentioned it, you're absolutely correct. That is an iconic game... If you go back to that first game that I was on, I mean, everybody looks the exact same. Running backs look like linemen. Linemen look like corners... I'm one of one.

Writing an article about what is 'cheugy' is the most 'cheugy' thing you can do

I think the most cheugy thing you can do is to write an article about whether something is cheugy or not.

I am going to blog seven times a week

Probably like seven [blogs a week]. I'm not going to blog about anything unless I seriously have a good opinion on it, and that's something I'll promise you.

Kevin Durant is the new official Mayor of Twitter

I'm removing the mayor of Twitter handle title from Chrissy Teigen, giving it to Kevin Durant... Kevin Durant actually engages with everybody online. And he engages with every single Twitter development... He is the official mayor of Twitter, as far as I'm concerned.

Podcast rankings are misleading; people should check episode rankings for true listener stats

How come some podcasts randomly go higher than you guys in the podcast ranking sometimes? Does that mean they get more listeners? No, it does not. So if you start a new podcast, your podcast is always going to be... It just goes to number one. That's just how it works. The way to realize the success of shows is episodes. So if you go to the episode page, you can see where shows are ranked. Just look at the episodes, bitch.

24-hour news networks should be tried for treason for dividing the country

I am a firm believer that there should no longer be 24-hour news networks because just the sheer panic of having to fill up all that time. I just find that CNN and Fox News, they should be tried for treason. All they do is divide the locker room.

The cancelation of Barstool Van Talk saved their lives

We would all be super mega rich film stars or dead. Dead. That's my go-to answer when everyone, if anybody asks me a question like that, it's like, yeah, I would have died within six months. We did it for fucking seven days and I was pooping blood.

Aaron Rodgers is the perfect fit to host Jeopardy!

I do think that this is the perfect fit for Aaron Rodgers. I think it's everything that he loves. I watched Jeopardy a lot, and it features mustaches heavily, and it features the host who gets to know the answers to everything and feel smarter than everybody else, which is exactly in Aaron Rodgers' name.

WWE fans will initially complain about any major change

I'm of the opinion that no matter what you do, people are going to, in their initial take on it, their initial thought is to question or criticize... nothing is perfect in its first iteration. And there'll be a lot of changes that are made... i think this is going to be a great thing for people long term.

NXT has more passion than the main roster because they are still proving themselves

NXT has morphed into becoming sort of its own brand... it's sort of like college football where you're still playing for the love of the game. It hasn't become about just money yet or just position yet... I think in NXT that passion comes across harder. They're still trying to prove a point.

Skip Bayless's brain should be studied because he genuinely does not care that everyone hates him

Skip Bayless's brain should be studied just because he truly does not care that everyone hates him. And I think he might be the only person on it that actually feels that way.