yeah but before we go to that let me remind you again that to get buckets with your first bet on FanDuel America's number one sports book because right now new customers get $150 and bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that's 150 bucks if your bet wins bet on all your favorite NBA players and teams with quick bets live same game parlays exclusive props and more just visit fanduel.com youss and shoot your shot FanDuel official Sports with partner of the NBA so before we do the black history moment
uh kind of seen as elsewhere wanted to have the conversation with you all and I think this is going to get spirited the great late Jim Brown uh yesterday's black history moment was about Jackie Robinson and we talked about how Jackie Robinson Jersey is retired across Major League Baseball should the same thing be the case for Jim Brown so um just for some background there is the NFL is the only sport of the big four that does not have a number retired across the league obviously baseball has Ja
ckie Robinson 42 hockey has Wayne Gretzky 99 and the and basketball has Bill Russell which just recently happened I think it was last was this year no last year last year this year last year number six the NFL does not have that number uh I'll start with you Mike should they retire Jim Brown's number so when Earl sent the question yeah I had never really thought of this before never thought NFL jersey retirements I think are cool but the big picture I haven't really ever put thought to it so you
go back and you know Jim Brown is a football player obviously one of if not the greatest running backs to ever live an all-time great player on the field did things that no one else at that era was doing yeah his bio his stats speak for themselves but to be in the class to have your jersey retired across the league I think and I want to phrase this correctly I think you have to have a pristine overall resume and there can't be black marks of any kind to have someone be like that guy shouldn't b
e represented across the entire league and when you look at Jim Brown's personal history he has quite a few Runnings with the law and I know some of the charges were dropped dismissed but he certainly has a checkered past and at the end of the day I was going through some of the Char is that he was charged with not all convicted but he was charged with murder at least once and maybe twice depending on how you perceive a certain charge in 1885 you8 1987 sorry or 1978 excuse I have all I have all
these written down yeah I just think with his Checker pass I don't think he could be a guy the entire league honors to the same capacity Bill Russell Jackie Robinson and Wayne grar it's not because of the player it's because of his off the- field Runnings with the I I just don't think you could have I think it's right how the Browns would have his jum retired yeah but League wide I just don't think you could be have that kind of past off the field and have it be something that the entire league
honors yeah moving forward go ahead I thinkir not I that's just how I think um like like many um there's there's a checker pass right now I always go to this and I always give people that the way you perceive things right people talk about Michael Jordan being a great leader MH um and then you go back and you look at it and be like well was how good it was the leader he had let Dennis robman go to Vegas and told Phil Jackson he was going to do it he didn't back Scotty Pippen who was the second b
est player on the contract dispute he like he was Notorious for fighting with Steve Kerr like and Steve Kerr was the nicest dude in the world like he talking about his like he was flawed too yeah he so he's a flawed guy like but m George's impact on the game it it will but his number is not retired it's not retired I think eventually it will get there I think that's a that's a thing that'll happen yeah um just like I you know I can look at uh you know George Washington right and I can say well G
eorge Washington owned slaves but George Washington was the father of this country he helped put in a declaration of independence he helped it with the Constitution his impact can't be Quantified based on just one or two things you got to take the totality so to say like if I say all right well we got to get rid of George Washington people say well you really can't do that you can't tell the history of America without George Washington I don't think you could take you can't listen and and say th
e story of the NFL without Jim Brown yes he had to check your pass but he also did some very good things and was one of the first people to to be with Bill Russell in and Muhammad Ali in the Civil Rights and pushing for the poor people and and and his air I can program and and developing and redeveloping um some of you know the black men and the young neighborhoods that they don't get into some of the same things that he did right so I think you know if you say NFL is synonymous with a couple pe
ople and that's why I you know love love football pride in in Ohio you got Mary Motley you got Paul Brown you got Jim Brown you can't you can't tell the story of the NFL without those guys so so yes I do think they should retire his jersey um but I also think that they should bring to light some of his mistakes as well as some of his great things that he's done I think it's everyone everyone has a past and I I think it's all about how you share and the lesson you get from it by the way speaking
of former presidents uh no I'm not talking about Trump uh Believe It or Not uh there's a clip from a few years ago of Chris madog Russo who now is on my nerves most of the time and Chris chrisy who I'm not a giant fan of but at least he's keeping it real now of the two of them debating the top 10 presidents of all time from a few years ago it's hilarious they're talking about it like they're players like their baseball players yeah right it's really funny number two on presidents my one of my al
l-time favorite presidents who gets no recognition is John Adams the second President of the United States and he did not have any slaves right he did not believe in slavery he was anti-slavery and in fact John Adams wanted language in the Constitution to abolish slavery and because there were so many Southerners they they weren't going to be able to get the Constitution passed if it was in there but he was really wanted but anyway just some information on John Adams he Al by the way did you kno
w that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson the third president of the US both died the exact same day did not know that exact same day now to an to to Circle back now to Jim Brown Jim Brown is a complicated question yeah it's very complicated he is the ultimate mixed bag okay so the there's a lot of good with Jim Brown and there's some bad with Jim Brown now he was the facts are he was never convicted of a serious crime he was never convicted of a felony that's a fact was he accused was was he arres
ted yes was he uh you know arrested with you know while being with women that like did it happen it's not like all these things he got arrested you know months later or whatever it was in the so I it's too many years ago for me to know what really happened then you know we weren't doing sports talk when Jim Brown was getting arrested so I don't know so that that is a part of the picture and that makes me hesitant a little little bit my first reaction though actually was no at first and not even
because of that even though that fact in a little it was because my first reaction because I didn't remember that Bill Russell and Wayne Gretzky had had their numbers retired and my my initial reaction was that Jackie Robinson was the only player in sports that had his number retired I didn't remember the other two I knew and to me I didn't know Gretzky at yeah I I didn't either and but I looked it up once I saw that text from Earl and to me Jackie Robinson is in a in a group not a group he's in
a he's by himself he's the Patrick Mahomes of QB tiers one of one right he's one of one because the color barrier was broken in baseball before it was broken in football and basketball and hockey and while Larry Dolby broke the color barrier of the American League and should get more recognition it it was he still had the lead in from Jackie Robinson what all the players in the 50 uh in in the 40s and eventually the 50s what all the black players had to go through in those days was awful but it
was all for all of that I shouldn't say this I don't know this definitively but the fact that Jackie Robinson went through it first at least gave those other guys somewhat of a Playbook he was the first yeah the first is always the hardest and so in my mind Jackie's numbers retired that should be the only number retired in sports but Wayne Gretzky was his number was retired because he's the greatest hockey player of all time Bill Russell's number was retired partly because he was one of the gre
atest basketball players of all time and also because he was a major civil rights Advocate and while he was not obviously not the first black player in basketball he was the first Super Famous yeah black player in BAS basketball what he had to endure as a player was awful and what he was as both a human being and a person was as and as a player was fantastic and so when I look at Jim Brown I'm like well Jim Brown is is the is kind of the in a way the Bill Russell of football he wasn't the first
black player in the NFL but he's the most famous first black player in the NFL and the one of the first black players to speak openly you could watch you could talk he he he debated the governor I believe of of was either Georgia Mississippi Alabama debated him on live television and I went back and I was astounded at how intelligent he was and showed so much Poise right even when this guy was sitting up here saying the craziest racist in world but he was highly intelligent acting so in the end
I would say yes not that he's without flaws listen Martin Luther King is considered the greatest civil rights leader in the history history of the world or certainly the history of America I don't you know they'll know the world as well and he wasn't without flaws there's a lot of great people in this history of this country that did some not great things but sometimes I want to say Overlook sometimes you got to say hey I'm gonna honor this guy and love everything about him but I'm going to hono
r this guy so in the end I'm a yes on Jim on retiring 32 for Jim Brown uh go ahead Earl uh so just a couple things I want to make sure that I'm careful with what I say and how we have this conversation I do think this is a great spirited conversation but I want to give proper credit to Creative Juice because he had a comment that that's about to spark what I'm about to say we're talking about some of the allegations against Jim Brown right now I'm not saying if all of them are true or not but we
do know that this man played a significant role in The Civil Rights movement right he was a civil rights activist Bo you're a fan of the show Godfather Harlem and I remember a couple seasons ago when Malcolm X's uh wife Betty got the letter about Malcolm sleeping with Elise and he says they sometimes they will tell lies on me just to discredit me is there any chance that some of these things that he had alleged to be done can be in the same light because he was so vocal at that time 100% true I
mean listen I'm not the authority of course on the black experience of the 1940s and 1950s I'm not the authority on the black experience of 2024 but it's obvious that in those times black Americans especially those who were vocal for civil rights were railroaded now does that mean Jim Brown is completely innocent no I have no idea it's so long ago I don't think any of us know which is why I ultimately and in the end with a racist clearly at that time a racist court system Jim Brown still was ne
ver convicted of a serious crime of a violent crime so I'm going to go with that and say I don't know what happened so I'm retiring the I think sometimes the you know this is why I have a a very uh I have a passion for history I think some people um that's why when people say get rid of this book and get rid of this book I kind of shudder because I'm like if if I'm a black person and I can understand that yes uh you know uh you know Washington and Jefferson had slaves um some of them fathered mu
ltiple children uh in the case of Jefferson if I can understand that yes that was a I think a crime against humanity I also can can say without those people I would be sitting where I am today so you you kind of have to you know you have to look at certain things and then I always look at it this way too they if you do some things in in your your past how have you changed as a man right I'm sure Jim Brown in his in his conversations with the youth he tells them like look I I did some things that
hey I'm not very proud of but it's all about turning in a leaf and being about what you are today and I think in America that's the best thing about America is like you can have Redemption like there's no such thing like Michael Vic had Redemption there's people in our country that that have gone to jail paid their debt to society came out and did great things so I think I think that's one of the situations that what you just said I'm speaking directly to you right you a spiritual brother that'
s called like being a disciple right that's what he was because like my grandmother used to teach me all the time like all of God's disciples was gangsters it was not in the church meaning you got to go through some stuff you actually got to be out here in the trenches making mistakes trial and error in order to go back and teach and educate if you've never done anything wrong if you've never been in no hard spot how in the hell can you go to somebody else and try to tell them hey this is what y
ou shouldn't do if X Y and Z occur I think a lot of times and when I'm on a set you know I speak to this point all the time we forget that athletes are humans and it pisses me off when somebody puts this unrealistic expectation that they are Role Models 99% of the people don't know these people personally and I just feel like we all got flawed you get pissed off that people are Role Models they call them Role Models yeah because well they are role models that doesn't mean they're perfect role mo
d you know everybody's but here's why let me tell you why and I talked about this on my first effort every episode we all got our own opinion we all grew up different ways I was raised on how can somebody be your a role model that you've never met oneon-one that you've never had a personal conversation with that never taught you anything I tell people all the time my father was my role model I don't need Brett Favre Steve McNair Deion Sanders to be my role model I just think that often man we fo
rget we are all humans all of us are flawed all of us has made mistakes and I get it the perception public perception is is different and it all depend like some of us are spiritual some of us are not right right and so depends on how you was raised and how you was brought up will always determine how you go about these things the things that he was accused of like depending on what you believe there's no there is no difference between him being accused of assault than me and you going into a co
rner store and stealing some candy because once you get to the higher Powers door we going to be judged the same way well I I don't I'm not a religious person that's why I said some of us are and some of us not so this conversation is I mean robbing a grocery store and beating up a woman if if that's what happened is not the same thing I don't look at I think G know where I was going with I don't think most people look at it that way but I think it I kind of even look at it and I try to look at
it from a standpoint of even what MC McNugget said like I think when you signal people out and when you you say that's the example of what you got to do to get like your number retired I think you you know some people are a little uh at arms length because of the fact of you know you don't want when you when you do that you promoting every you want M Rush more you promoting everything they was about the whole the whole book everything you're there forever too you're there forever so it's not lik
e they can take it off or take it back so people are like okay well let me really think about this and I think there's a reason why the NFL thinks about things like that like sure the NFL came out and made a stance about Kyler kaeper back in the day and then they had to come back and retract it after George Floyd happened and was like you know what that was we kind of we should have probably thought about this a little better and I think the NFL more than any other group of people um the NFL is
the most popular League um the MLB has made different different political moves or moves with steroids or keeping people out the Hall of Fame I just think the NFL is like all right well if we ain't got to step in it we ain't going to step in it yeah they like to avoid that they would like to avoid that at the end of the day real quick I think B kind of said it he Jim Brown might be in all sports not just football like the ultimate mixed bag of what you want to pick and choose to to highlight bec
ause he has the highest of highs on the field as a civil rights activist the summit here in Cleveland I mean the iconic picture with Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali like right down the street mhm for and none of us know the truth about the off the field we don't know what's real what's true what's not you and you could read and I was reading an article this morning when I was looking this up and for 1 to 12 different reasons charges were dropped jurries acquitted him he wasn't like you said ever conv
icted but then you read some of the police reports and it's like right that that's open but then he wasn't convicted so but but so who the hell knows it doesn't mean this is the case but I could argue that a police officer certainly in in 1950 whatever or 1960 how do I know he was being honest I have no clue I don't know he's not being honest but I don't know that he is either I have no clue what to believe but I will say this one more thing on this if you don't look to anybody famous as a role
model that's fine Earl I get and that's cool if your dad's your only role model I got no beef with that but I don't think it's fair to say nobody should look at at at famous people as a role model because a lot of people do and a lot of kids look up to athletes and I don't think there's anything wrong with that I I think if you ex if you as an adult expect an athlete to live to a higher standard than yourself that's unfair but I don't think there's anything wrong with like when I was a kid I loo
ked up to guys in the radio business as sports radio was just starting when I was like a teenager because I wanted to do what they did my dad didn't do that and so I looked up to them so they were a role model I didn't have higher standards for them as a human being so I think you could separate that you know like I just I think I think it's it's it's a it it's it's a thing that it just comes with the territory like it like when you are a public figure there are going to be people who don't have
an infrastructure who don't have a solid Family Foundation and they will emulate the things you do and want to do things that you want to do I think that's just a un it's just part of the game like it just comes with being a public figure now like you said it's different if you're a grown person now as you get grown and you get older and you figure things out like you you you should you should be like hey it's okay you tell your son hey you can admire his skills on the floor right but there are
certain things that I he you shouldn't do when you become older that that he did and we saw an Allstar Weekend like Sabrina yancu shooting against Steph Curry and Caitlyn Clark doing what she's doing they're they're role models for million thousands of little girls acoss by the way that was that Steph Curry the best part of Allstar Weekend and I think Kenny Smith is totally wrong saying she should have shot from the women's line I love that she shot from the men's line talked about that she los
t by one shot it's she finished tied with Dame Lillard and Cat with the second highest score in the entire cont it wasn't like if he had crushed her then I can understand him maybe saying that Kenny Smith to steal one of your terms yeah out of pocket yeah he was and he say I don't think he had bad intent I think people are accusing him of being like sexist I don't think he was being sexist I just think he's wrong yeah she wanted to beat him playing the same rules I get that yeah like look got a
problem with that yeah I got a problem when he heru in the women's basketball like you know what I mean did she use the women's basketball she used the women's basketball but because she doesn't practice with it we we don't have to get back but that's true but I have no problem with her uh going further back it was even cooler the fact she got a 26 from the men's line crazy even more impressive is impressive all right good stuff what do we got next Earl all right
Comments