Takes

The Washington Capitals will finally win the Stanley Cup this year

The Washington Capitals, it's their year. I think this is the year they finally win the Stanley Cup. They certainly have all the pieces. They have all the pieces.

It is dumb that the Montreal Canadiens will only hire coaches who speak French

Part of it goes into this foolish, I don't even know what to call it, that the Canadiens will only hire—you have to speak French to coach the Canadiens, which is so dumb. If you're going to win a Stanley Cup, I don't know why you have to—it doesn't matter what you speak.

The Maple Leafs and Islanders will take the final two playoff spots in the East

I like the Leafs and the Islanders out of that [group]. The Leafs are really exciting. I think they'll get in. They got a great coach... and then the Islanders have just kind of turned things around with Doug Weight as their coach.

The Chicago Blackhawks will win the Western Conference this year

No, I actually think [the Blackhawks] are going to win the West. I love their team this year. I think that they're really deep. Kane and Toews will be there when it matters. I love their team. They've got a lot of young guys that are playing really well.

The Chicago Blackhawks will win at least one Stanley Cup in the next three years

I love their team. They'll be right there. I wouldn't be worried at all. They're right in the midst of that window to win a couple more. I think they at least get one in the next three years.

Gustav Nyquist should get five to seven years in prison for his high-sticking incident

I think you should get five to seven years in prison for that. [on Gustav Nyquist hitting a guy in the face with a stick].

Lawrence, Kansas is a great everything-else town, but college sports is on the back burner

I don't think that necessarily [Lawrence is] a bad sports town. I just think that they're a great everything else town. And, you know, they keep it in the right perspective, and college sports is on the back burner.

Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor are stuck in Zeno's Paradox and will never actually fight

If I shot an arrow at you, it would never actually hit you because in order for the arrow to get to you, it would have to travel half the distance to you, and then it would have to travel half that distance... That's what's happening with McGregor and Mayweather. They're just getting closer and closer and closer and closer until they just get old and die.

Paul Tagliabue is the smartest person in the world for making Roger Goodell his concussion scapegoat

Paul Tagliabue basically said, I've known about concussions forever, but I kind of don't want to be asked about this anymore. So here, Roger Goodell, you look stupid enough to take this job and have everyone come at you and hate you. And that's exactly what happened. So he's actually the smartest person in the world.

I actually thought the boos for Kevin Durant's return to Oklahoma City weren't loud enough

I actually thought the boos [for Kevin Durant's return to Oklahoma City] weren't loud enough. [Durant] said, 'I thought that they'd be louder.' Kind of a little twist in the knife there.

Kevin Durant is the most coddled star in the NBA and has received significantly less backlash than LeBron James did

[Kevin Durant]'s been the most coddled star out there. I mean, LeBron got killed for not winning a title in Cleveland the first go-around, and basically killed for going to Miami and all that stuff. Kevin Durant got a little bit of backlash, but for the most part, he's supposed to be one of the top three players in the league, and he hasn't won a title.

Russell Westbrook would 100% win a fight against Kevin Durant because he would just bite him to death

[In a fight between Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, I'd take] Westbrook, 100%. Just purely because of his anger. He's just angry. I think he would just use his teeth. He would just bite Kevin Durant to death.

Since 2014, Tiger Woods has had more back surgeries than top ten finishes

A little sabermetrics for you on Tiger Woods. I saw this stat running around. Since 2014, he's had more back surgeries, three, than top ten finishes, one.

Short, tighter shorts are making a major comeback in college basketball

The bagginess has gotten way too far. It's getting in the way of the dribbles. These guys like to go between their legs a lot, you know, with these new players out there. So they're bringing back short, tighter shorts. A couple guys in Indiana are doing it. I've seen it across the Big East, too, I think. So we're going to see a major swing here. Get out in front of this. If you're a college basketball player, tighten those things up.

'Smooth' by Matchbox 20 and Santana deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award

Can we get a Lifetime Achievement Award for Matchbox 20 and Rob Thomas doing 'Smooth' with Carlos Santana? You never hear about Lifetime Achievement Awards for a song. But if there is one, it should absolutely go to 'Smooth'. That song took over a whole summer. Every single time that there's a national sporting event on TV, you can count on 'Smooth' to be one of the transition songs.

Tom Crean will be hired by another team specifically because he has a 'contentable' face

Tom Crean, he will get fired by Indiana sooner rather than later. But someone will hire him simply because of his face. He's got a brand. Crean has a contentable face. He has an exceptionally stupid-looking face. And that in itself, that's a brand that people will be like, oh, wow, where is Tom Crean coaching? He can go coach the Missouri Valley, and people will now be watching Missouri Valley games because of his name and his face.

Brian Kelly knows he is on the hot seat at Notre Dame

Brian Kelly knows that he's on the hot seat. I mean, the people in the facility, the players and the coaches know that if they don't improve, things are going to change. So going into this year, Brian Kelly knows that he has to improve, and hopefully they can.

The NFL is still king and ratings aren't in real trouble despite the 2016 dip

I don't think the league's in trouble at all. I don't. I mean, it's still king. Even though when their ratings were down, any other sport would still take the ratings. And I think one of the things you look at is it was also an election year that hurts ratings. I think after the election was over, some of the ratings started to go back up.

The Houston Texans are definitely not better off without J.J. Watt

How could you be better without [J.J. Watt]? You know, no matter what people think about him off the field, on the field, he's a pretty darn good player. Now you put him with Mercilus and Clowney, it'll be interesting what happens. So to say the Texans would be better with him off the football field, I don't think is—that's just [the PMT] hot take.

I would beat Mike Greenberg in tennis if my life was on the line

If my life was depending on it, I would practice enough and do enough to beat him because I knew my life was on it. [Greeny] can't even play his one little nerd sport better than [me]. He's probably better than me at all, but in that given situation, not only would I try and beat him, the best way to do it would be try and somehow hurt him during the match so he couldn't finish.

Vin Scully will die once baseball season starts or sometime in the middle of summer

He's going to die once baseball season starts. Well, he's going to—he has to do at least like one Vin Scully's back in the booth moment where it's like, oh, we have a special guest. Probably opening night. Then he's going to die.

Joel Embiid will stop being funny on Twitter when he starts playing poorly or getting hurt more

I predicted like a month ago how Joel would not be so funny on Twitter when he starts fucking up. So this is the first one. He's injured like every other day. He's got a lot of time to go back and forth. Take away his umlaut over the Joel. You're just Joel now.

Rajon Rondo passes up easy layups specifically to hunt for assists

You know what Rondo does that's so fucking annoying? Everything, but he also loves, loves, loves to pass up super easy layups just to get assists. He's the worst with that. He did that today when the Bulls got smoked by the Wolves. He was ready to go for a layup, and then he passed it for a three-pointer. Dude, just fucking shoot the layup. Stop trying to get assists.

The UConn women's basketball winning streak is bad for the sport

Is UConn women's basketball bad for the sport? Because they're about to get 100 wins in a row. Love it. So we're getting that conversation back. Can they beat Alabama? Going right back into the swing of things in sports.

CeeLo Green's gold robot costume at the Grammys was a PR stunt to make people forget his legal allegations

CeeLo Green showed up dressed as one of those gold robots... a little PR 101. Get everyone to forget that you may allegedly have date raped some people by dressing up like a robot.

Duke will make a deep tournament run and possibly win the national title

This is a classic. Duke is going to make a run and then maybe win the national title. I'm going to hate everything.

Grayson Allen will be a first-round NBA draft pick

Were we saying before that Grayson Allen's going to be a top 10 pick? Top first round pick? No. He's going to be first round pick. Maybe very, very late.

James Dolan planted security to get Charles Oakley banned from MSG

I think it's James Dolan continues to disrespect the Garden by putting out awful teams and not caring. And I think, stay woke, that was all a plant to get him [Oakley] banned from the Garden forever because if you noticed, it was security guards all around him. He got mad because I think that's just Charles Oakley's resting heartbeat.

Disrespecting Madison Square Garden should be a hate crime

If you disrespect the Garden, it should be a hate crime. There are certain places that, as an American, it's like Madison Square Garden, Lambeau Field, the gym where they filmed Hoosiers. If you disrespect those places, it's a hate crime.

Kevin Garnett is a fake tough guy

Kevin Garnett always struck me as a semi-fake tough guy. His routine was head-butting himself to get pumped up. That's a fake tough guy move. Like punching walls and stuff, that's a fake tough guy move.

Bill Laimbeer would absolutely beat up Kevin Garnett

You think Bill Laimbeer would beat up Kevin Garnett? Yes, absolutely. ... Kevin Garnett, though, isn't really human. So I don't know if he counts in this because he's an alien that was put on Earth to fire people up.

The 2016 New England Patriots are the toughest team of all time

Honestly, not to be too serious for a second, but I really do think I just played on the toughest team of all time. The guys in that locker room literally didn't flinch. I knew I was like I'm a human being, I'll admit it, I was like golly, I got some doubts right now... but guys were like walking in going we're about to make the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Bill Belichick is the greatest coach of all time

I do think he's the greatest coach of all time. And, you know, any curve ball you get on Super Bowl Sunday, you might think it's, the hill's too steep, but, you know, guys were just conditioned to be able to go out there, hit the curve ball, keep rolling.

Chris Long is not retiring after his first Super Bowl win

I'm not retiring, but I don't know what I'm doing. ... If I retire, you probably won't even know. ... Breaking news. I'm not retiring.

Tom Brady has definitely heard the Pardon My Take podcast

Tom's definitely heard you guys. Statistically, I mean, statistically speaking, there's not that many people who haven't. So Hank, if you're listening, [Tom] knows exactly who you are.

MLB's extra innings rule changes are a David Stern-style publicity stunt

David Stern used to do this all the time in the middle of the summer when the NBA wasn't getting any headlines. ... I think MLB is trying to do something. Super Bowl just ended. They're trying to get everyone back into baseball season, get some people talking about baseball. So let's just throw a stupid rule out there that's never going to work.

The NFL's concussion rate dropped because Peyton Manning retired

It's funny how the NFL, they dropped their concussion numbers after Peyton Manning left the league. Peyton Manning, he who would always lead Austin Collie and Tony Gonzalez into traffic, and Wes Welker. He was single-handedly jacking up the league's concussion rate.

The United States would not exist if it weren't for autograph seekers like the Founding Fathers

I have a soft spot for autograph seekers. I want to tell them a little story about 56 men who were autograph seekers. ... They met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and their names were John Hancock and a bunch of other guys. They were just being guys, and they were autograph seekers. They collected 56 of those suckers, and they sent them to the king. And without that, we would not have a country.

Mike Tirico replacing Bob Costas is a win for white media members

NBC announced that Bob Costas is handing over Olympic duty to Mike Tirico. And if you remember, Mike Tirico is a white guy, as he said. ... As a white guy, I'm happy that Bob Costas is passing off the Olympic coverage to another white guy. It's good to see the white guys keep their jobs in the media business.

The CFL is the perfect place for Johnny Manziel to start a comeback

Johnny Manziel is back. He has reportedly had a tryout with the CFL, which the CFL is exactly where Johnny Manziel needs to start his comeback.

The Green Bay Packers are idiots for charging their shareholders for new certificate artwork every year

The team I bought [a shareholder certificate] from, they keep producing new artwork every year and charging me more money every single year even though my shares don't actually mean anything. It's actually the Packers. Packers are doing that to their shareholders. They're fucking stupid idiots.

The Falcons choked the Super Bowl away to the Patriots

I think the Falcons choked it away pretty hard. I didn't realize how bad the choke was until I saw the Patriots should have lost in four different wins.

The Falcons lost the Super Bowl because Kyle Shanahan got 'too smart' and stopped running the ball

I don't know why they stopped running. Kyle Shanahan... Got a little too smart. You know what would have been funny is if they had just pulled his offer [to coach the 49ers]. Actually, you know what? The 49ers would probably kill half their homeless population just to get to a Super Bowl.

Tom Brady will win one more Super Bowl to finish with six

I think that Brady's going to win one more Super Bowl. I think we'll get two. I think he'll win six.

Tom Brady will win two more Super Bowls to finish with seven

I think he'll get two [more]. I think he'll win six—actually, I think he'll win seven.

The Bears are going to be good next year because John Fox has been preparing since Week 3

John Fox has actually been able to prepare since week three. Yeah. So the Bears are going to be looking good.

Chip Kelly will try to steal someone's job as a behind-the-scenes villain at Alabama

If there's somebody who's able to undermine and sneak around and steal somebody's job, it's definitely Chip. Chip is a behind-the-scenes Shakespearean villain. He's going to be doing everything that he can to make sure he gets that job.

Alabama could win 10 games with my dick as offensive coordinator

At the very least, Chip's going to win 10 games at Alabama because Alabama could win 10 games with my dick at offensive coordinator.

Phil Jackson is only at the Knicks because James Dolan is a sucker

I respect [Phil Jackson] for spotting the sucker in the room and basically saying, oh, James Dolan wants me to come and work for him, and I don't have to move, and I don't have to do anything, and he's going to pay me millions of dollars. What's the worst going to happen?

The Washington Capitals are too good to never win a Stanley Cup

They're too good to never win one. But, I mean, they were the Presidents' Cup trophy winners last year... They have the most points in the league.