RUSH: We have Sean in Palm Beach Gardens. Great to have you, Sean. How you doing?

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: Well, I am so disgusted at these NFL football players like most of America right now. I can’t see straight (chuckles), and I’d like to make a couple of points. First of all, Tim Tebow was fined for praying. Okay? So he’s fine for praying, and we have Villanueva that does the right thing. He earns a bronze medal (sic), serves three tours of duty in Afghanistan, and Coach Tomlin, you know, says he should have been part of the team. Now we have Villanueva backtracking.

And you know what I think? I think that we have racism in the other direction. I think we have Coach Tomlin, an African-American, who looks at this man and says, “You know what? You are showing respect for the flag.” It’s the flag! It has nothing to do with the president. It’s the American flag. And what he’s saying is, “You know what? I’ve been under the…” Behind the scenes he’s saying, “If you ever want to play on this team again, if you ever want to actually make a play again, guess what, buddy?

“You better say what you did was a mistake and that you meant to be with the rest of the team.” Because I know. I know how it works. I have been around football. When I was in my younger days, I knew the football players of a national championship team. And, you know what? These guys, both black and white and Hispanic, they all get away with practically murder, okay? And it’s white men that are putting up the money that have literally said to the schools, “You know what? Even though he doesn’t make the cut…”

RUSH: Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on just a second. I’m running out of time. I don’t mean to be rude. I’m gonna respond to you after the break here at the bottom. I don’t think Tomlin wants Villanueva to disrespect the flag. I don’t think that’s what that’s about. I will explain what that’s been. I’m very nervous when you use the word “murder,” even though… I know you’re using an expression of speech here.

But nobody’s been murdered yet, and nobody’s getting away with it, and I want to be… You know, when this issue comes up, it’s already charged enough without putting a cherry on top of it or a cherry bomb on top of it. But as to what you’re saying, I’ve got a story that pretty much makes your point. So I’m gonna end up making you look good here, Sean, and I want you to think about something. I’m gonna hold you through the break, okay? Can you hang on?

CALLER: Okay, I can, yes.

RUSH: Would you like a new iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus?

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: Good. Don’t sound so excited. We’ll take a break and be back. Don’t hang up, Sean.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. We’re back, and we have Sean in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Tell me, are you aware of the new iPhone 8? Do you know anything about it?

CALLER: I am. Yes. I am actually excited. I’m sorry I didn’t sound excited. Thank you so much!

RUSH: That’s okay.

CALLER: I loved you before but I love you even more. (giggling)

RUSH: I know you were stunned beyond belief —

CALLER: You’re right! (giggling)

RUSH: — and were practically frozen into expressionlessness. I just… It came out of nowhere.

CALLER: (giggling)

RUSH: But do you know about the new iPhone 8s?

CALLER: No, I don’t. I’ve only heard about the weird one where you need your face (giggling) and I don’t even want that one.

RUSH: Well, then you don’t have to get it because I’ve got a brand-new iPhone 8 or 8 Plus for you. They come in three colors: gold, space gray, black, and silver — and the silver is so gorgeous, it’s almost white. Now, there are two sizes: 4.7-inch screen or 5.5-inch screen. Which one do you want?

CALLER: I’ll go with the five.

RUSH: Five and what color? Do you have a preference?

CALLER: I’ll go with gold.

RUSH: Go with gold. Okay, make a note in there. I have this story… I’ll get your address. Don’t hang up. Mr. Snerdley will get it. Make sure it’s a FedEx address. We don’t use the mail here.

CALLER: I thought you wanted me to do it on the air. I’m like, “I don’t know about that.” (laughing)

RUSH: No, no, no. If we… No, no, no. We don’t. We don’t. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: It will work with any carrier you have. It doesn’t have a SIM card in it. You can take it to any provider — AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, whatever — and get it activated. Thanks very much, Sean. Here is the story. She said that the players are getting away with murder. What she meant by that is they’re never disciplined. But they are. They’re fined. This is one of the great contradictions. The coaches… When the Kaepernick stuff started, the coaches all said (impression), “I can’t tell them what to do!

“These are grown men. I can’t tell these boys what to do. I can’t say you shouldn’t do that! I can’t say you shouldn’t do this. I’m not…” But, Mr. Coach, you do it all the time. You demand they show up at a certain time of day for practice. If they’re not there, you fine ’em. You demand they show up for the pregame meal at a specific time so you know they’re out of bed and ready to play, and if they’re not there you fine ’em. You’ve got all kinds of behavioral codes. There’s a dress code for when the team travels on some teams. There’s all kinds of rules where you tell ’em what they can and can’t do.”

But when it comes to this (impression), “I can’t tell these boys that, Mr. Limbaugh! I can’t tell them what to do,” and then the league fines them. The league fines them for having too much fun after a touchdown. The league fines them for any number of reasons. Too hard a hit. The league fines ’em, suspends them, you know, for putting too much air in the football. You do all kinds of things, and yet, “We can’t control these boys! We can’t say what they can do.” But they do all the time. Now, there’s a story here in the New York Daily News. Mr. Snerdley… Oh, he’s getting the address from the super-excited Sean in Palm Beach Gardens.

Have you heard about the controversy with Odell Beckham Jr.? (interruption) You obviously haven’t. Well, the New York Giants played the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Beckham had a great game, had some spectacular catches, and after one of them, he pretended to be a dog and hiked his leg as though he were urinating in the end zone at Lincoln Financial Field. (interruption) Yeah, it’s been done before. Randy Moss when he was with the Vikings, scored a touchdown in Green Bay and acted as though he were defecating on the goalpost. Remember what Walter Williams said?

We’re dealing with an eighth-grade mentality, education level here. Okay. So, ladies and gentlemen, Odell Beckham. He’s in the last year of his contract with the New York Giants. He’s demanding a five-year, $100 million contract with $50 million guaranteed, and the Giants are determining whether or not they should pay it, and they didn’t re-up him last year ’cause they wanted to see if he would exhibit more maturity this year, before committing that kind of money. So the New York Daily News, one of the two tabloids, has this story:

“Giants Have a Tough Decision to Make with Odell Beckham Jr. Showing No Signs of Maturing.” The owners of the Giants “better give it a lot of thought before they p— away $100 million on Odell Beckham Jr.” That’s the lede. The writer here says — and his name is not mentioned; it didn’t print out. The writer says, “I hate to be so crass, but after Beckham’s disgraceful walking and peeing-like-a-dog, end-zone act Sunday in Philly, exactly what will he do next, and what are the Giants buying if they give Beckham a five-year, $100 million contract with $50 million guaranteed?

“They get an incredibly talented and unstoppable game changer, perhaps the best offensive player in team history…” By the way, the Giants are 0-3 despite Beckham’s talents. The New York Giants are 0-3. So “[t]hey get an incredibly talented and unstoppable game changer, perhaps the best offensive player in team history and the most explosive force in the game today, but also,” says the New York Daily News, they get “a high-maintenance volatile diva with a flair for turning everything around him into unnecessary drama, who also damages the team with his me-first solo acts and then makes no apologies or promises he won’t do it again.

“$100 million for that? Really?” The owners of the Giants “had not publicly commented on Beckham’s embarrassing behavior on Sunday,” cannot be happy with his “latest act of immaturity. It has to be humiliating for the organization that prides itself on being classy to answer questions why its best player is making believe he’s urinating on the field” in Philadelphia. Well, take the elements of this story. What do you have? You have a super-duper player, maybe the best offensive wide receiver at the moment in the NFL, genuinely a game-changer.

But the team on which he plays is 0-3. His contract is coming up, and you don’t want to lose the guy! After all, winning games and drawing people to pay the money to sit there, watch the games, watch ’em on TV, whatever… You need stars. Nobody denies that. But they got a guy that has repeatedly exhibited behavior way below the number of years of his age, and it’s gonna cost them $100 million with $50 million of it guaranteed — and once he’s got the money, there’s no stopping him. Whatever he does, you gotta live with.

This is not unique to the New York Giants, folks. This has been part and parcel of professional sports. The people that are able to do it are so few and so rare that it’s been tolerated. You know the bad boys that have played all these different sports, and you know they’re tolerated. They’re tolerated way beyond the level they would be in any other line of work. Odell Beckham Jr. is gonna get his money from the Giants. But look, nowhere else in America do you get money like this and do things like that. Nowhere else.

And now you’re not gonna stand for the flag, and you’re gonna do whatever that is gonna participate and drive some fans away from the game. This is what she meant when she said the caller, they get away with murder. She didn’t mean murder, and that’s why I had to step in there, because, you know, it’s already charged enough without adding — it may happen someday. You just never know. But it hasn’t yet. (interruption) No, that was off the field, and that’s still not —

At any rate, you see, my friends, what do they do? They’re gonna show him the money. You imagine them not paying — I think it’s really, really relevant that they are 0-3. They’re 0-3. (interruption) Hm-hm. Well, if the broadcast money shrinks away — that’s gonna be awhile. ‘Cause what else is gonna replace — the NFL’s always gonna be — this is the thing. What is there to replace it? Even if the ratings — and, by the way, last night’s game was up on ESPN. The Monday night games are up. Sunday night game was down again. Overall the ratings are down. Last night’s game was up. In fact, Monday Night Football’s the only thing that’s up this year.

But even with their ratings dropping, they’re still the most watched thing on TV. What’s gonna replace it on Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday, what’s gonna replace it? Nothing. That money from the networks is gonna flow one way or the other and in certain amounts one way or the other. So that’s why the Beckham story, this is what she’s talking about, they get away with things that — and, by the way, there is a sense of entitlement after you get away with stuff like this. Why stop it? “By the way, I’m on the highlight roll on ESPN, everybody for two days saw that thing I did in the end zone.” Love it. Absolutely love it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Gary Myers who wrote the New York Daily News piece that I quoted, and Gary Myers — well, let’s just say proud Obama supporter. And he still took Odell Beckham Jr. to task for imitating a dog urinating in the end zone in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia fans probably understood it. Maybe even enjoyed it.