Pardon My Take
Indiana Pacers Take Game 1, Wright Thompson, Mike Florio Talking NFL, Aaron Rodgers Is A Steeler + Fyre Fest Of The Week
Fri, 6 Jun 2025
The Indiana Pacers did it again, stealing game 1 after being down all night. We talk about how incredible this run has been for the Pacers and the fact that the NBA has stripped all pomp and circumstance out of the NBA Finals (00:00:00-00:18:27). Back in studio we talk about Aaron Rodgers finally announcing hes a Steeler, the White Sox are out of hell eventually, Elon vs Trump and more (00:18:27-01:39:29). Wright Thompson joins the show to talk about his career, writing about Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Ted Willliams, interesting stories from his travels, the Grateful Dead and tons more (01:39:29-02:19:01). Mike Florio joins the show to talk OTA's, biggest stories in the spring, schedules, NFL and more. We finish with Fyre Fest of the week (02:19:01-02:37:01).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take
Chapter 1: How did the Indiana Pacers steal Game 1?
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On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have an awesome interview with... Wright Thompson, incredible author, talking about stories about Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, all the books he's written. Really, really cool guy. Awesome to talk to him. And then we have our good friend Mike Florio. Talk a little OTAs. Talk a little football.
We've also got a lot of news to talk about. The Indiana Pacers. Steel game one in Oklahoma City. Incredible start to the NBA finals. We're going to talk about the Stanley Cup final game one. We're going to talk about Aaron Rodgers to Pittsburgh. We have Firefest of the Week, a great show sending you into the weekend.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Aaron Rodgers joining the Steelers?
Hal Burton is an absolute just ice in the veins killer. He just does it time and time and time again. I just I don't know what to say. Like the Pacers are so much fun. There's been an incredible run. This this finals obviously had going into it. There's a lot of talk about, you know, OK, so you're going to kill him. You know, the ratings, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
And then the Pacers just show up and they're like, hey, you know, you want some fun games. Let's make it an incredible game one. and everyone buckle up because you're never safe with the Indiana Pacers.
How many players do you think have more last-second game-winning shots than Tyrese Halliburton in the course of the playoffs? I believe this is since the year 2000.
Probably, like, I mean, is it none?
Excuse me. Since 1997, final five seconds of fourth quarter in overtime since 1997 in the playoffs. There's one guy. How many? It's LeBron James. He has eight. Tyrese Halliburton has five.
crazy it's and how many is he having in this in this playoffs alone three i yeah i think three yeah it's it's nuts and they're just like the thunder sga was awesome tonight you dort was awesome tonight their defense what were the what was the turnovers in the first half was it 18 turnovers 19 i think 19 turnovers were you like when you saw like the halftime lead what was it 10 points
Yeah, it was, uh, no, it was 12 points, 12 points at halftime. And it felt like the thunder could have been up. Like the thunder didn't play that great offensively in the first half. They were just incredible on defense. And it felt like the lead was way bigger than 12 points, even at that point. So, uh, I don't know. I don't know what the Pacers are doing.
I don't know what Rick Carlisle is doing. I don't know what makes them so different other than the fact that they always believe that they can win until the very last second. But this must be the best thing ever to be an Indianapolis Pacers fan. It must be the best time. These playoffs have to just feel like crack, just hit after hit after hit of crack.
Yeah, and I think it's a testament to their conditioning, their pace. And Richard Jefferson actually made a really good point in the first half where you could see it in the first quarter where The Pacers' pace, which they like to play at, they needed to dial it down a little bit because they were just playing too frenetic. The Thunder were in every single passing lane.
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Chapter 3: What’s Wright Thompson's perspective on sports and culture?
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Chapter 4: What insights does Mike Florio share about the NFL offseason?
Yeah, of course, a little concerned. All right, so the Steelers' schedule, we've got some juicy ones. So they play the entire NFC North. So that is all revenge games or old rivalry games. So Steelers-Jets week one. They play the Vikings in week four, and then the Packers in week six, and then the Bears, like I said, November 23rd. It's going to be fun.
I don't like Aaron Rodgers, but I do think he's more interesting than Mason Rudolph. I think it's an upgrade. The Steelers are probably going to be in some primetime games. I think it's an upgrade over last season. Yeah, it absolutely is an upgrade over last season. I'm looking right now.
The Steelers are in a decent amount of primetime or standalone games, and I'd rather have it be Aaron Rodgers than Mason Rudolph or Will Howard might be fine.
Do you think that this is going to scratch Tomlin's itch for having a crazy guy in the locker room? Ooh. I think it might. It could. I think this is what he needed.
He has DK, though.
Yeah, but DK, he's just violent. I think there's a difference between crazy and violent.
Yeah. Yeah. DK definitely is on the line of of crazy. We also had the state of Pennsylvania. It ayahuasca is banned. Yeah.
That's okay. He can grow his own.
Yeah. Aaron Rodgers. Hank, any thoughts? Aaron Rodgers back?
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Chapter 5: How are the Stanley Cup Finals shaping up?
At some point, if it went to like 10 overtimes, the team would quit, right? Well... Unless the rules say that you can't quit. That's only the eighth overtime. Ninth throw overtime rules are one team has to quit. The ninth overtime rules are written on the bottom of the Stanley Cup. Yeah, one team has to quit, but if both teams quit, then they both lose. Yeah.
But if one team quits, then it's only one team loses.
Right.
Mutual quitting. And if neither team quits, then it's both teams lose two games each. The tenth overtime is hidden behind Mount Rushmore. Yep.
Right next to the Declaration of Independence.
What pages are they looking for in the next National Treasure? I don't know. The Lost Pages. I can't wait for that movie to come out.
Yeah. I mean, they got the system, and they run it. They run the same play, and it works every time.
Bruckheimer's going to do it again. Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. Yep.
They've never worked together. Nope. It's going to be great. Most ambitious crossover of all time. Okay. Anthony Richardson is hurt. Another shoulder injury to the quarterback rank. So CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson. I feel like this is going to be Daniel Jones. Yeah, I do too.
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Chapter 6: What’s the latest on the White Sox sale?
Yes.
But doesn't every team have to have a player?
No, that was an old rule.
Yeah. OK, so the premise behind this movement is it would be funny if the All-Star roster was just comprised of Colorado Rockies in the National League, despite the fact that they're the worst team in baseball history up to this point.
Yes. But I'm in. Somebody said it would be like the GameStop movement, and I've been chasing that high.
Ooh, stonks. I love that. By the way, they are still the worst team in MLB, but they did win three in a row. Yeah. They beat the Marlins. Beat Scottie Scheffler. And if you wanted to do like if we did a power rankings, I think even though the A's are better on record.
I think their power ranking would be ahead of the A's after this week because the A's are about to win a game, but I think the A's were 1-21 in their last 22 games, now 2-21 in their last 23 games. There's so many bad teams in baseball. It's crazy. Dude, Paul Skeens, poor Paul Skeens. I feel so bad for him. I don't feel bad for Paul Skeens. No, this sucks.
PFT, one runner less in each of his last five starts, and the Pirates are 2-3 in those starts. I understand why you wouldn't feel bad for Paul Skeens in other parts of his life, but being that good of a pitcher and just having your team suck around you would be maddening.
So I think it's better now than it would have been if he was pitching at this level, let's say, 30 years ago or 35 years ago when people just looked at wins, losses, and being like, oh, that guy's having a tough year. That's true. But now I feel like sports fans are smarter for the most part.
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Chapter 7: What are the dynamics of college football in the South?
I understand his reasons. And I'm not going to question the idea that he's got personal issues. People close to him are ill. He recently told Joe Rogan in...
a 184 minute podcast about nothing that that i don't guys i don't get it i love your show i don't consume a lot of content i watched those three fucking hours and i don't know what i heard i think my ears were bleeding by the time it was over but But anyway, he mentioned he's got some people. What a right turn. He's got people close to him who are fighting cancer.
If that's the reason, that's fine. But you can let the world know I intend to play for the Steelers. He told everyone that two years ago. I intend to play for the Jets months before the Jets traded for him. He said, I intend to play for the Jets. Nothing stops him from saying, I intend to play for the Steelers. And at some point, he just needs to do it.
So back to the Browns real quick. You said, yeah, if you have five quarterbacks, you're the Browns. That is accurate right now. If you had a gun to your head on this, I'm not going to pull the gun back out, but hypothetically gun to your head, if you were to pick one person that's going to start week one for the Cleveland Browns, who would that be?
Probably Joe Flacco, just because that's the guy who you can get ready with fewer first-team reps in August. See, that's the problem. If you take four guys to camp – now, let's set Deshaun Watson aside because they've basically moved on from him. It gets very interesting if Watson shows up with a piece of paper saying, I've been cleared to practice and play.
Then the Browns have a variety of problems. But let's set him aside. I believe, and I don't know, but I believe that they're going to try to move Kenny Pickett before the training camp opens. He was the insurance policy they traded for before they made any of these other moves. Flacco is the fan favorite.
They couldn't bring Flacco back last year because they would have had to bench Deshaun Watson for Flacco. Now he's back. The fans are going to want him. You can get him ready easily. and you can focus your efforts on trying to figure out between Dylan Gabriel and Shadur Sanders, which guy's the most likely to emerge as your long-term answer. So I think they're going to go to camp with three guys.
I think it's going to be Flacco, Gabriel, and Sanders. Flacco will start week one, and then once one of the other two guys is ready, they'll put that guy out there. It could be Sanders. It could be Gabriel. We'll see.
Who's starting for the Giants? Is it going to be Russ? Is that just decided?
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Chapter 8: How do elite athletes cope with loneliness?
That offensive line was the strength of their team. How are the Lions going to adjust to this? They've had a lot of turnover this year.
They've got the rookie they picked in round two who's already taken the snaps at center. I think that Ragnar was transparent. And he did him a favor by not retiring before the draft. Because if he retires before the draft, then every time the lines are on the clock or approaching being on the clock, there's a blinking red light. They're going to draft an interior offensive lineman.
By not knowing that Ragnow was out, it allowed them to not worry about getting jumped by somebody who tries to predict, hey, you know, we kind of like that guy. Maybe the Lions are going to take him. Let's cut the line in front of the Lions and get the guy they may be looking at. So I think they knew. And this is just another example of the adversity that they're having to deal with this year.
Both coordinators gone. Much tougher schedule. Seven games outdoors this year. They play all those teams from the AFC North, all the teams from the NFC. There's going to be some great games this year with the Lions. But when you look at their schedule, like we were looking at the first seven games before the bye week the other day. Five and two is the best case scenario.
A team that went 15-2 last year, five and two through seven games they should be thrilled with. So they've got to forget about last year. They can't make excuses. They can't say, oh, woe is us. We've got a new offensive coordinator. We've got a new defensive coordinator. And I think Dan Campbell's the right guy to set that tone and get them to forget about last year and focus on this year.
This is why I love Mike because his show, which I was lucky enough to do with you many times, like in this part of the season, they'll be like, all right, it's Wednesday, May 22nd. What are we going to do? We're going to just break down the Lions schedule. I'm looking at that right now. I love it.
It's just ball all the time. Go through it, Mike. You're living the dream. Lions at Packers week one.
Well – I feel like I give the edge of the home team in that one. I hate to do the Mike and the Mad Dog. There's a win. There's a loss.
No, it's the best. That's what this time of year is for, Mike. That's why we do it.
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