Dak Prescott Is Being Set Up To Fail
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Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 120. This, as always, is the un-undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the two and a half hour debate show that is undisputed.

Today, I will tell you why I'm starting to feel like Jerry Jones is sabotaging Dak Prescott. And I love it. Today, I will tell you why LeBron James is obviously trying to cherry pick a cheap gold medal to one-up Michael Jordan. And why winning a championship this coming year with this Lakers circus would be LeBron's greatest achievement ever by far. And why...

You know, I would consider writing a book about LeBron bleepin' James. And today I will tell you why I have not eaten barbecue since I was 18 years of age, by choice. And today I will tell you why I did miss only one and one half quarters of a Dallas Cowboy game since 1978, and that was also by choice.

And finally today, I will share with you an ode to my all-time favorite comedy movie and rank my top five. And finally today, I will share with you my ultimate workout secret. It will apply to any of you at any age, trust me. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped.

Okay, we're still two weeks away from Dallas Cowboy Camp opening, and I am already dacked out every day. It's dack this and dack that and dack in a walking boot and dack says it doesn't matter at all. I'm completely okay and I don't care. Dack, dack, yackety, yack, dack, yackety, dack. I'm dacked out. I've already had enough.

So, every morning now, I wake up at 2 a.m. out here in Los Angeles to get ready for Undisputed. And the first thing I do is I roll out of bed. I actually leap out of bed. And I open up my laptop in fear of seeing this headline. Jerry Jones caves in and gives Dak four more years and $300 million. All of it guaranteed. That is my worst waking nightmare.

No, Jerry, please. No, no. I'll say it again. I have seen enough of Dak Prescott, the quarterback. I like him personally. This is not personal. Seems like a great guy. Was the NFL man of the year. Got no problem with that. But I do have a problem with Dak as my quarterback. Been a lifelong Dallas Cowboy fan since I was 10 years of age.

Dak Prescott is just good enough to lift my hopes every single season pretty high, hopes that he ultimately shatters on a very regular basis. He's two and five in playoff games as Dak Prescott, including those two stinkers against San Francisco home and away, and that ultimate stinker last year at home against the youngest team in the NFL playoffs, the Green Bay Packers.

I can't say it better than CeeDee Lamb's mom posted social media, "Dak ain't it." He ain't. Look, maybe I'm spoiled. I got to know Roger Staubach really well. I got to watch him operate up close and personal. I got to watch him win two Super Bowls. I got to know Troy Aikman pretty well. I got to observe him very closely.

I got to watch him win three Super Bowls. I know what those Super Bowls felt like, smelled like, tasted like. Dak ain't Roger. Dak ain't Troy. Dak is more of a Danny White, if you remember Danny following Roger Staubach for your longtime Cowboy Faithful. Danny White got that team to three straight NFC Championship games, but he just wasn't Roger. He couldn't get them over the hump into another Super Bowl.

Heck, I'm not even sure Dak is Danny White. I am hoping against hope that Jerry Jones is prepared to let Dak play it out this season, the final year, of course, of his contract. So what? Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that Dak goes on this year and lifts and carries the Dallas Cowboys to a Super Bowl championship their first in 30 years. That's fine. Let him walk, because I don't think he would walk.

There's no state tax in Texas. If you're the Cowboy quarterback, you got it made in the shade when it comes to national TV commercials, postgame announcer chairs, thrones, see Troy, see Tony. No, I don't think Dak would walk after Super Bowl. Jerry would have to pay him. Kings ransomly. But that's okay.

I'd take him if he went and won a Super Bowl. Obviously, I would embrace him. I would cherish him. I would love him. But you know and I know that ain't going to happen with Dakota Rain Prescott. Rain is not spelled R-E-I-G-N for his middle name. That's actually his first name, Rain Dakota Prescott. It's spelled more R-A-I-N than R-E-I-G-N. In fact, the more I've thought about it,

It almost feels like all-in Jerry Jones has actually been all-out on this upcoming season and on his quarterback. It feels like Jerry Jones is making it impossibly hard on Dak Prescott. Like he's actually, Jerry, rigging this season to implode around Dak. It actually is starting to feel like Jerry Jones is sabotaging Dak.

Whatever chance Dak would have to be very successful this year in hopes that the Cowboys would fall record-wise into maybe a top 10 draft position within striking distance of Shadur Sanders, which could also mean Deion Sanders as my next Dallas Cowboy head coach, in place of that bump on a log Mike McCarthy. It just feels like sabotage-y football.

On ESPN.com the other day, they did a very interesting analysis breakdown ratings of the top 25 NFL running backs, according to lots of NFL insiders. A top 10, followed by honorable mention, followed by also receiving votes. 25 straight running backs I went through without finding one name of one Dallas Cowboy running back. And I'm sitting back thinking to myself,

The mighty franchise that gave us Calvin Hill, Dwayne Thomas, Walt Garrison, Tony Dorsett, Emmett Smith, and even young Zeke now features only old Zeke? Last leg Zeke? Wait, Zeke is now the bell cow back for the Dallas freaking Cowboys? The bell cow back looks more like the old gray mare to me. And that's going to be...

Dak's running game to take some pressure off Dak. I can smell that from here. Then the other day on Pro Football Focus, I noticed that they had ranked the Dallas Cowboy offensive line 10th. And I'm thinking, okay, top 10 still? And I'm thinking harder, wait, they're projecting the first round pick Tyler Guyton to be the new left tackle? Really?

And the third round pick, Connor Beebe, to be the new starting center, really. So in place of Tyron Smith, we have a very raw 6'8 rookie out of Oklahoma. I know his game well. He's two years away. And I like Connor Beebe. I actually like him a lot. But Tyler Biotish was really good. So you're going to stick two rookies in at left tackle and center, the two most important positions in the entire offensive line.

And Terrence Steele was no bargain last year for the money that they paid him. He did not grade all that well. So I give you Tyler Smith at left guard, future Hall of Famer, and I give you Zach Martin at right guard, obvious first ballot Hall of Famer, who's already talking about this could be his last year because he's ready to retire. And I'm thinking, this offensive line is going to make a success out of Dak Prescott? Seriously? Seriously?

Top 10? I'm sorry, I don't see that. And now the clock ticks. The meter runs. No contract for CeeDee Lamb? Seriously? Well, if we got this close to camp, is it possible he would hold out throughout camp? Highly possible. Is it highly possible that CeeDee Lamb won't be a Dallas Cowboy with the new deal until game number one? The first game that counts? Rusty?

Out of sync, out of rhythm with Dak. Seriously? Man, I don't love it. Is Micah going to become more of a headache than a force on the football field because he didn't get paid if CD gets paid? It's starting to feel like Dak Prescott is being set up to fail. Like this whole season is going to be a get it over with wash. And the more I think about it, I'm serious. I've suffered so much. I'm actually okay with this.

if it means a Super Bowl plunge by Jerry Jones. And I'm going to give you two quick star-spangled examples of recent NFL history in which two genius coaches took Super Bowl plunges. Let's start with Andy Reid in Kansas City. I'm just going to remind you what was going on with him to Kansas City. Andy Reid took Alex Smith, former first pick in the draft.

Never quite measured up to it, but Alex Smith was pretty good. I can make a case that Alex Smith was a little better than Dak Prescott. The numbers say so. Alex Smith, under Andy Reid, made three Pro Bowls in five seasons. They made the playoffs four of five seasons with Alex Smith at the controls. But Alex Smith went one and four in the postseason.

He won one playoff game at Houston against the other starting quarterback, Brian Hoyer. It was 30-0 Kansas City. And then Alex Smith and company went up to New England. I know the game well. I was rooting for Tom Brady and the Patriots, and it was reasonably close. It wound up 27-20 with Kansas City onside kicking at the end of the game. Maybe New England sweated a bit, but I know what Andy Reid thought when he got on the bus to head to the airport.

my quarterback's just not good enough. He's not that guy. He's very good. He's just not that good. So in 2016, second to last year of Alex Smith, I'm looking at the record. Kansas City went 12-4. That's pretty great. They had a bye. They had a home game against Pittsburgh. Remember that? The Antonio Brown infamous live on IG live after the game. Remember that from the locker room?

Pittsburgh went in there in the cold and upset Kansas City and Alex Smith because Alex Smith just wasn't quite good enough. 12-4 became 0-1 in that postseason, and that was all that mattered, obviously, in the end to Andy Reid. Then Alex Smith comes back the next year. This is after they drafted you-know-who.

who was then a rookie, and Alex Smith's last year of starting in Kansas City, he led the NFL in quarterback rating. Think about that. He led the NFL in quarterback rating, 26 touchdowns to only five interceptions. But guess what Andy Reid had already done in that previous May's draft?

He had traded up from 27th in the first round to 10th in the first round to snatch up this kid that he fell in love with, this quarterback at Texas Tech. I didn't see it coming. I watched Patrick Holmes a lot at Texas Tech. Certainly watched him against Baker Mayfield in the University of Oklahoma. And I liked him, but he was wild. He'd try anything. He might even try throwing it between his legs.

high interceptions, high touchdown rate. Andy fell in love with him and Andy was so right to spend whatever it took to go all the way up to 10th to snatch him. And life changed in Kansas City. The rest is literally Super Bowl history because Andy Reid had him an Alex Smith or a Dak Prescott and said, not good enough. I want to win Super Bowls, plural. And he has. Which brings me to

The San Francisco 49ers operated by the Shanahans, Kyle and Mike, for whom I have enormous respect. They have offensive genius about them, both of them. For a mere second round pick, they stole Jimmy Garoppolo from Bill Belichick, who I think traded Jimmy G out of spite because he wanted to start Jimmy G over Tom Brady. And Robert Kraft said, no, no, not going to happen.

So out of spite, I believe that Belichick said, hey Kyle, I got one for you. You need a quarterback? Just give me a two and you can have Jimmy Garoppolo, the next Tom Brady. Kyle jumped. Jimmy G became a 49er. He was really good for the 49ers. When I look at these numbers, went 38-17 as the starting quarterback. Went 4-2 in the postseason to Jimmy G for the 49ers. 82 touchdown passes to 42 interceptions.

Average 240 yards passing per game. That'll work, man. But all that mattered to the Shanahans was 2019, they went 13-3. They wound up in the Super Bowl. But more important, they wound up leading the Super Bowl 20-10 about midway through the fourth quarter. They're up 20-10 on Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid in the Super Bowl. And Jimmy G unraveled.

the way he is wont to do. In the fourth quarter, Jimmy G went three for 11 for a grand total of 27 yards and a big interception and missed a throw late in the game that could have changed the game. And the Shanahan's said, no, just not good enough. Really good, really good, but not that guy. And they Super Bowl plunged.

And they bet three first round picks and a third to go from 12th in the first round up to three in the first round to take Trey Lance. I loved Trey Lance before that draft. I was way out in front of that because nobody really saw that coming. I didn't see that coming, but I just said he's worth that haul.

And you know what happened to Trey Lance. He kept getting banged up, hand injuries, leg injury, ankle. Just one thing, he just could not stay healthy. And if you can't stay healthy, you can't play this game. I still don't know what Trey Lance is because I never got to really see what Trey Lance was. Hadn't played a lot of football.

Had the COVID season when he was at North Dakota State. Hadn't played against high-level competition, but he is really, really gifted. And he is really, really a good kid. Big intangibles, hardest worker, big arm, big frame, can run. He's got all the tools. I just don't know yet whether he can play football.

Well, obviously, Mr. Irrelevant fell right into the Shanahan's laps. They literally hit the lottery and realized in the first camp with Brock Purdy, well, he's just more advanced. He played all four years at Iowa State against pretty good Big 12 competition. And he was just a little better than Trey was. So they go with him and he showed right away, I can play in the biggest games. I ain't afraid. I won't fold. And obviously, just to

clear the decks for Brock Purdy. They needed to get rid of Trey Lance. Jerry Jones stole Trey Lance for a mere fourth round pick. And there he sits behind Dak Prescott. I still love him. If only he can stay healthy. I think he's got a chance to be, who knows, maybe a Super Bowl quarterback. I would give him a chance just on raw tangibles and intangibles. Being a little better than Dak Prescott, the fourth round pick.

So they traded a fourth for a player who could replace a fourth-round pick. But obviously, Jerry might have bigger plans. He might be hoping, as we speak, that the Cowboys can be just bad enough to get within striking distance, trading range, of Shadur Sanders, who could go one or two or three. I would take him one. But is it possible they could pull that off? And if they pull that off, would Deion then leave Colorado to coach his son in Dallas?

I'd bet on it. That's a Super Bowl move. That's what my team needs and what my team deserves. It's been 30 years, Jerry. No more Dak. No more pretty good that turns out to be pretty bad when it matters. Plunge, Jerry. Plunge. Hey, sabotage, Jerry. Sabotage.

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First question today is from Alvaro from St. Louis. How hard was it leaving covering the Cowboys? I did leave Dallas 1997-1997.

After as a columnist covering the team for, lo, those, what was it, 15-ish years, 16 years. Alvaro, it was not that hard to leave because I'd become known nationally at that point as the cowboy guy. Anytime, any kind of show, sports or non-sports show, CNN, CNN.

name it, ABC, NBC, CBS, I did all the big national shows. Anytime they needed some perspective or some inside knowledge of those crazy cowboys, they called the cowboy guy, they called me. And I had written three books on the cowboys, or I should say they wrote themselves. That was 1990, 1993, 1996.

And as I've mentioned on this show before, those books are why I recently was interviewed for five straight hours with two 10-minute breaks by the crew from Netflix that is working feverishly and brilliantly on what I think will go down as the greatest sports documentary ever, ever. And I love The Last Dance because I also lived The Last Dance in Chicago in 1998. But as I sat there...

Being interviewed for five hours, and we delved and we delved and we dug and we scratched and we clawed at everything. Cowboys dynasty of the 90s. It hit me. As we ended the interview, it hit me right between the eyes. How blessed was I? I left at the perfect time.

I did stay for one more season after the Super Bowl season. So in 1996, they were pretty good, but they lost at Carolina to what was just a rising expansion team. Deion got hurt in that game. Troy was getting more and more beaten up. Michael was on his way to what became a career-ending injury in Philadelphia. And I suddenly, out of the blue, had the opportunity...

to become the lead columnist at the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper, a great newspaper, I had turned down in 1984 when they offered me a columnist job. And I had regretted that because I love Chicago. I'd spent a summer there on a Vanderbilt school program when I was in college. And the opportunity to leave Dallas to go cover Michael Jeffrey Jordan's

at his height in Chicago, was just too, it was too huge to pass up. I said, I have to go, and I did go. So think about what I did. Thank you, God. I went from one future Netflix documentary right into another future Netflix documentary. I went from the Cowboy Dynasty to the Michael Jordan Dynasty in his last dance with Phil Jackson,

as they were at war with the Jerrys, Kraus, and Reinsdorf. I wanted to become more of a national guy instead of the cowboy guy, and that was my magic move to do just that. But again, as I've said before, and as I told the Netflix interviewers in our final minutes of that five-hour interview, if you had told me the night of that Super Bowl in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the post-game Dallas Cowboy Party that I attended,

If you had stopped me then and told me this team, this franchise, will not return to even an NFC Championship game for 30 years, I would have laughed in your face. And I, unfortunately, would have been wrong. This is Drew from Denver. Did you know that if Team USA wins gold at the Olympics, LeBron will have more gold medals than Jordan? Drew, I know who you are. I know what you're trying to pull off here.

Obviously, you are a LeBron idolater, a defender, an apologist, as I call them all, a blind witness, and you're poised to leap upon my head and say, see, it's another reason LeBron is the GOAT. No, it's not, Drew. You can't tell me that LeBron James, as we speak...

isn't supremely, acutely aware of exactly what he's trying to pull off here. He is seizing a very late career opportunity to one-up Jordan in gold medals, three to two. LeBron knows exactly what he's doing. So just to reiterate, Michael Jordan, coming right out of North Carolina, was on the 84 Olympic team coached by Bobby Knight, and he led that team in scoring 17 a game.

They had it pretty easy through the Olympics. And then, once again, Michael was on the Olympic team in 92, the dream team. He was second in scoring to Charles Barkley, but clearly the best player on that team, acknowledged by Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. So he won his two golds, just as he won his two slam dunk contests. And in 1996...

Michael Jordan was quoted as saying, no, I'm not going to participate in the Olympics this time. I'll let somebody else win their gold medal. Let somebody else. He'd done his duty for God and country. Let somebody else. Now we get to LeBron. LeBron was only 19, but he was part of that team in 04 that lost to Argentina in the semifinals to Manu and

Delfino, Scola, Oberto, Nocioni. They called them the golden generation. They were just better than we were because those guys all grew up together playing basketball. Smarter, more unified, just more experienced at winning international basketball games than our very young team was with LeBron at 19. D-Wade, I think, was 22. Mello was 20, maybe 21. So LeBron took the L.

He has an Olympic loss on his record, but he came back in 08, redeemed team, and they won. He was very good. Came back in 12, won again, his second gold. He was very good. 16, he had some ankle issues, but he mainly just needed to rest up his body because they had come back, as you recall, from three games to one down in the NBA Finals.

thanks to Kyrie's last second shot or last minute shot at Oakland to beat the Golden State Warriors in the finals. So LeBron took that one off and then COVID interrupted in 20. So here we are. It's now 2024 and LeBron James is 39 years of age, be 40 in December 30th, going into year 22 in the NBA. And did LeBron say, let somebody else win a gold medal? No, he didn't say that.

He said, I'm going to play. I'm going to be the point guard. I'm going to start. Does this team need him to win the way it might have needed him in 08? No, it doesn't need him. Would it win without him? Easily, it would win without LeBron James. Now, it's very clear LeBron's just trying to cherry pick a pretty cheap third gold medal. Once again, LeBron's trying to build a longevity legacy case that he's the GOAT.

Nope. Phony goat. Won't let you get away with it. This will not work. You did win a fraudulent NBA championship, a Mickey Mouse championship in the bubble, and now you're going to win a fairly easy, pretty cheap gold medal for the runaway favorites at the Olympics. And I, for one, am going to stand up and say, not impressed.

This is Theo from Thousand Oaks, California. I love Thousand Oaks. I used to go to cowboy camp there. I used to say I could live in Thousand Oaks. Maybe someday I will. It's out here in Southern California, not too far from where we are. What would you say? It's about an hour maybe, about an hour from where we're sitting here at the Fox Studios. Okay. Theo from Thousand Oaks asks, would LeBron winning a title with this Lakers team be his biggest achievement yet? Well,

Theo, yeah, by far, it would be his biggest. By far. I mean, with a coach who's never coached? While LeBron clearly is going to insist that his son play, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes a night alongside him? And this after Klay Thompson shockingly turned down more money from the Lakers to play for the Mavericks? Probably because he just wanted no part

of playing alongside LeBron James in the middle of this potential Lakers circus. DeMar DeRozan said no to the Lakers for what it's worth. Valanchunas, who had been a really good backup center, really good, maybe sort of a co-center, said no to the Lakers in favor of the Wizards? Seriously? Huh. LeBron, losing your touch. So yes, Theo, this would be LeBron's biggest achievement by far. And Theo,

This achievement is not going to happen. This is Joey from New Jersey. Would you ever write a book on LeBron like you did the Cowboys? Joey, I must admit to you, you got me with this one. I did read this question last night and it actually kept me awake for a while because I had never ever thought about writing a book about LeBron James. And when I woke up this morning at 2 a.m., my first thought was, you know what?

I would consider writing an honest, truthful book about everything LeBron James. All the good, all the bad, everything he has been through, everything he has been and has not been. I would love to write that book. Maybe I will write that book because I always tell you, LeBron James is...

A, the most interesting man in all of sports, and B, potentially, because he's not done yet, I may sit back at one point, say three years from now when he finishes playing, and say, LeBron James is the most interesting man in the history of sports. Because I keep trying to impress upon you, every game there's a backstory. Every game there's a new subplot.

Every game, there's a new plot twist. Every single game, there's some soap opera-ish narrative that I didn't see coming featuring LeBron James, the most interesting man in sports. Now, would LeBron sit down and allow me to ask him questions for this book? I doubt it, but you never know. I would try, but I could write this book without LeBron because he's spoken so much to the media.

I think I have a pretty good feel for what he'd even say answering my questions. And by the way, just a quick PS here. In the screenplay that I've written that I've not yet tried to sell, I do have a LeBron-esque character named Liberty Sims. I'll just leave it at that. This is Joe from San Diego. Are you anti-4th of July barbecue food? Joe, bear with me on this.

you don't understand. I don't eat barbecue at all now on any holiday or any day of any week because I don't eat barbecue period. That's because I ate so, so much barbecue my first 18 years of existence on this planet. So, so much. You have no idea how much barbecue I consumed in my first 18 years.

My dad and my mom owned and also operated a little barbecue place called the Hickory House on the south side of Oklahoma City, the rough side. I was forced to work at the Hickory House every day of every summer, every Christmas break, every spring break, until I finally, fatefully, won a full scholarship to

to uproot and leave Oklahoma City for Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. But when I worked at the Hickory House, I had no choice. I ate lunch and dinner at the Hickory House. I ate ribs. I ate sausages, giant sausages. I ate chopped beef sandwiches with either hot or mild sauce. I was always mild. I ate baked beans, potato salad, sweet slaw,

fried pies. You could have apple or cherry. I preferred apple. My dad always said there's no way he could eat the food that he cooked every morning, so I rarely saw him eat Hickory House food, but he smoked, and did he ever drink? I never saw my dad eat much of anything, and he finally wasted away and died of cirrhosis of the liver when he was only 49 years of age, but I can't tell you

How many times I came home from baseball practice or a basketball game or even a football practice in the fall. How many times I came home and my mother, who worked most days and some nights at the Hickory House, would leave for me in the oven with the temperature on low, Hickory House barbecue. I lived on Hickory House barbecue. I didn't hate it. I actually didn't know any better, but...

I just literally got fed up with it. And when I left, never again have I eaten a single bite of barbecue since the last day I walked out of the hickory house.

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This is Chris from New York City. What's your go-to delivery order that isn't Chinese food? Okay, so I'm assuming Chris has read some of the stories that were written about me when I was at ESPN. For 10 years, I lived in the Residence Inn during the week up in Bristol, Connecticut, actually in Southington, Connecticut, Bristol's home of ESPN, of course. But I lived there

on the third floor for 10 years. I'd go back and forth, see Ernestine, who's not yet my wife, my girlfriend. She worked in New York City, so I'd go back and forth on the weekends or sometimes she would come up to the residence inn. She liked the residence inn a lot, actually. But every Sunday night when I got back to the residence inn, I would order five days worth of steamed chicken and broccoli, steamed broccoli and rice.

that I could just microwave quickly and eat and I actually loved it. So the truth is, Ernestine, my wife and I never order out here in Los Angeles. We did find a chef that we like and we have said chef prepare for me, not for her, but for me, my meals for the week. He's good enough to deliver them

So, every day I eat the same thing, except I do mix it up. I have two lunches with salmon, broccoli, and rice. Then he makes me kind of a, he calls it a turkey chili. I don't know, it's just turkey with black beans and corn and peppers mixed with rice, broccoli on the side. Usually have that for lunch. Dinner is another, it's a turkey barbecue.

Dinner with beans and rice. I don't know. It's really just the same thing, sort of formatted a little differently. Broccoli on the side. I've told you before, we have our one cheat night on Friday night. Ernstine goes to Mulberry Pizza in Beverly Hills, California and gets us each a slice of pizza. She gets us frozen yogurt from a place called, it's a famous place called The Big Chill. Do you know Big Chill? Yes. My man Jonathan Berger knows The Big Chill. I'm

It's out here on the west side of Los Angeles at Olympic and Westwood. And Ernstine frequents the Big Chill quite a bit. So those are our little guilty pleasures, if you will. And I'm sure you're saying, man, that is really boring. And you're right. But for me, it beats the heck out of barbecue. This is Hector from Costa Mesa, California. Have you ever been caught in traffic or had a delayed flight and you missed an important game?

Interesting question. It's a good question. You know, Hector, I thought about it. I have been incredibly lucky or blessed. I'm knocking on this wood. Never had any travel issue or knock on wood, emergency that cost me one second of one big game that I was either going to attend or watch on television. I've been doing this for a long time. But I will tell you this quick story.

Since I went to Dallas to work for the Dallas Morning News, cover the Cowboys, that was in late 1978, I missed only one quarter and a half of the second quarter of one single Cowboy game by choice. This happened on November 2nd of 1986. Why was that? Guess what I did that morning as the Cowboys were about to play at the Meadowlands against the Giants? I ran the New York City Marathon.

So I thought, well, I won't quite make it for kickoff. I thought I'd make it a little quicker than I did. It's the New York City Marathon. It's hundreds of thousands of people. It's a madhouse. So you start in Staten Island. You finish in Central Park. So I just, whatever warmups I rode out with on, it's pretty chilly that morning actually, to Staten Island, I just trashed them. Took off running.

You run through all the boroughs, but I didn't even look. People always say, what a great route it is. I don't care. I'm just trying to keep one foot going in front of the other. Right away, after I got across the first bridge, I think it's the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, if memory serves, that you run across. I had a problem. Nobody's going to know what I'm talking about, except...

maybe the orthopedic surgeons out there, but I don't know why my iliotibial band, they call it the IT band, going from my hip down to my right knee, it just got inflamed right across the first bridge. I don't know what happened. That's why I ran marathons. I ran nine of them because you never know what your body's going to do on that given day. It's a crap shoot. If you have a harmonic convergence like I did once upon a time in Houston when it rained, it was about 50 degrees. I

marathon called the Woodlands. That was back in 1984. I ran two hours, 47 minutes and 20 seconds. By far my PR personal record, won my age group. Magic. They say you have one good one in you. I had that one in me. Five times out of my nine marathons, I ran under three hours. I did not run under three hours in the New York City marathon because I was laboring the whole way. I finished in three hours and I think five minutes.

And my grand plan was I was going to meet my childhood friend, my best friend, Craig Humphreys, the hump man, at the Carnegie Deli right by the park. We were going to meet in front of the deli as soon as I crossed the finish line and could work through the masses. Craig was waiting for me with my clothes for the game and a giant turkey sandwich with mustard and lettuce and wheat from Carnegie.

And the first cab we could hail that would go to New Jersey, we piled in the back and I literally changed clothes all the way down to my birthday suit in the backseat of the cab. Told the cab driver, just look straight ahead. I've got to do this here in the backseat. And I put on my work clothes on my sweaty body and we went to Giants Stadium.

And my friend Craig was able to find one guy who was still out there trying to sell a ticket for no money. And Craig went in to watch a Cowboy team he loved play. And I went with my press pass to the press box. And I got there mid-second quarter. And would you believe I witnessed the beginning of the end of Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys. You longtime fans will remember this game because it was the immortal Phil Posderic game.

Against a Giants team, a Bill Parcells team, that was 6-2, as were the Cowboys, 6-2 on that day, November 2, 1986. They were about to take off and go win the Super Bowl with Phil Simms as the MVP of a 39-20 game. While my Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys, were about to tailspin into Jerry Jones' oblivion. Because...

They ended up losing seven of their last eight games, their last five in a row. Then the following year, they went 7-8. It was a strike-shortened year. And then, of course, the final fateful year of Landry was 3-13. So that was the turning point game, little did I know, as I arrived from the New York City Marathon.

And they made a frantic push to win that game, which they ended up losing 17-14. And they lost because their right tackle, a fifth-round pick out of Notre Dame, number 75, Phil Posderek, had a flurry of penalties through the fourth quarter, holding penalties and false starts because he could not block George Martin. Could not block, not Lawrence Taylor, George Martin. They're doubling Lawrence Taylor on the other side, and poor Phil was left behind.

Against a George Martin he had no chance against except to grab and hold on for dear life. And they started throwing flags on number 75, the Phil Posderek game. I got to cover only a couple of hours after I finished running the New York City Marathon. And that team that night probably felt like it had tried and failed to run the marathon because it was about to hit home.

A big old wall as the Giants took over the division and went 14-2 and won the Super Bowl. That's the only time I ever, by choice, missed even one quarter of a Cowboy game. In honor of the 20th anniversary of Anchorman, I'm about to give you my three favorite lines in the movie. I do rank Anchorman number one in my all-time top five movies.

movie comedies slightly but only slightly ahead of Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles, Talladega Nights, and any of the Naked Guns but I'll stick with the first one because Frank Drebin was the Ron Burgundy of policemen. But I do prefer Anchorman, maybe you don't, but I prefer it because I've worked in television for 20 years and trust me on this,

I have worked closely with several Ron Burgundys. I'm talking about pompous boobs whose fame has cost them all perspective on who they really are. Anchorman. Ernstine and I started talking about it last night and we couldn't stop laughing. But she knows TV and she's known several Ron Burgundys as have I. So this is Ron Burgundy to Veronica Corningstone as they're sitting in the

front seat of the car, gazing down on the lights of San Diego. And Ron says, it was discovered by the Germans in 1904. They named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina. Favorite line number two, Brian Fantana, a reporter at the station, tells Ron Burgundy,

about his favorite cologne as he opens up his cabinet of colognes. And it's called Sex Panther that allegedly turns women into sex panthers. And Brian Fantana says, they've done studies, you know, 60% of the time it works every time. Sex Panther. And then finally, Ron Burgundy signing off with, you stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?

And the program director in the control room, Ed Harkin, yells, damn it, who typed a question mark on the teleprompter? Ron Burgundy would read anything on the teleprompter. I have worked with Ron Burgundy. And allow me to thank Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate and Adam McKay for Anchorman. I will close with this. I'm going to share with you my ultimate fitness secret. Look, I'm in really good shape.

I'm not boasting about it. I'm not bragging about it. But for any age, any stage of life, I'm in really good shape. I work at it. I earn it. To me, age is just an irrelevant number. From the neck down, I look pretty good. Okay, I will admit to you, I stay a little beat up because I push a little too hard every single day. But this I know. This is the ultimate secret to getting in and staying in shape.

Yep, you're right. You are what you eat. But just eating, just eating right, won't get you in shape. You obviously need the right fuel with the right cardio and the right weight training. You must eat the right food, but you must work out regularly, consistently, unfailingly. So here's the key. The hardest part is always the start.

of any workout. The hardest part is always the start. You must force yourself to just start your workout, no matter how strongly, overpoweringly you feel like not working out. And trust me, many days I just don't feel like it. And trust me, every time I fight through it,

It always rewards me because it always makes me so much happier than I would have been. So, quick example, this past Monday was our first day back on Undisputed from vacation. I couldn't really sleep the night before, anxious about getting up, had kind of a rough day.

welcome back kind of a show, a little out of rhythm, had meetings all afternoon, had a bottomless to-do list. And suddenly I look up, it's six o'clock and I had not lifted weights. I always lift weights on Monday afternoon. I do not miss, but I did not feel like pumping any iron. I was mentally wiped out. You know the feeling. I just wasn't up for it.

I started. I just started. I started warming up. My body said no, but I just said, okay, let me just start really light. My first few sets, I'll just go way lighter than I usually go. And I kept at it, kept fighting through it. And all of a sudden, I'm thinking, wait, wait a second. My body's starting to cooperate a little bit. And all of a sudden, 15 minutes maybe in, I'm thinking, I think I just defeated the couch potato in me.

And suddenly the competitor in me took over. Maybe my better self took control. And all of a sudden, maybe 20 minutes into the workout, I'm thinking, hold on. I'm actually starting to feel strong here. Pushing myself actually started to feel like invigorating and I'm starting to sweat and

I'm starting to build some momentum. And I started to lose myself in that flow zone, whatever that place is where you don't feel any pain anymore. And you get to the point where you can't wait to do the next set. So I went from, I can't work out right now to, I can't stop.

When I got to my final set, I was jubilant. I didn't make a big thing about it to Ernestine or our dog Hazel, who's watching me work out. But I was, you want to talk about exhilarated. I was so proud of myself for not only working out, but really working out. It just was so self-satisfying that the workout I didn't want to do

had turned into one of my best workouts ever, ever, because I started it. I forced myself to start and I kept trying until I finally broke through. And I don't care what you're doing, if walking on the treadmill, jogging on the treadmill, maybe you're going to walk outside or jog outside, whatever your fitness endeavor is,

The days you don't feel like it, you just have to start and you'll be okay. Don't let the couch potato in you win. Just start. Even if you struggle, trust me on this. Any workout, any workout is better than no workout. Any workout is better than none. Just start, no matter how much you don't feel like starting, and you'll quickly find success.

It's not nearly as hard as you thought it was going to be. You will love yourself for just starting. That's the key. And that is it for episode 120. Thank you again for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember Undisputed every weekday, 930 to noon Eastern, the Skip Bayless Show every week.