Shannon Sharpe is a busy man. The beauty of that, however, is that what Shannon Sharpe does now after his football playing days is talk, and Sharpe has plenty to say. In June of this year, after a year since he departed FS1 after working on Undisputed for 7 years, Sharpe signed with ESPN to make appearances on First Take with Stephen A. Smith, which he adds to his list of commitments such as his Club Shay Shay podcast and the podcast that spun off from that show and the one I eavesdropped in on this week, Nightcap, which he hosts with another former NFL’er Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson.
When the show was announced last September, it was described as, “The new nighttime sports talk destination with legends Shannon Sharpe and Chad Ochocinco Johnson. Hang out with Unc and Ocho as they give their unfiltered takes on the latest headlines from the NFL, NBA, and college football, and give their instant reactions to the biggest games moments after they end.
“Ocho and I have had many debates off-camera throughout the years,” Sharpe said in a release when the show was announced. “We’ve decided to bring those on camera with Nightcap. Looking forward to debating my good friend Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson.”
Johnson said, “When Unc called me about the idea of expanding Club Shay Shay I thought to myself, this is a no-brainer. We just go together like a McDonald’s No. 1 with Coke, no ice. Hits every time. I’m extremely excited to join Club Shay Shay & the Volume on this new venture.”
The YouTube page for the show currently has 1.6 million subscribers and a total of almost 500 million views, with several episodes garnering more than 500,000 views.
This past Saturday, the guys went live after a tripleheader of NFL action which saw the Chargers blow out the Patriots, a crazy overtime win for the Bengals over the Broncos to keep Cincinnati’s playoff hopes alive as well as a last-minute questionable interception to give the Rams a 13-9 win over the Cardinals.
As the episode began, ‘Unc’ was selling. A Draft Kings endorsement ad was followed by several mentions for things you could buy which Sharpe was connected to including alcohol, merchandise and event tickets for a live show with Johnson at the Super Bowl. He also gave a quick mention for the consumers of the podcast to vote for their show in the Best American Football and Best Sports Comedy podcast award categories.
Then it was on to reaction from the games that had just taken place. And that is where the show begins to separate from most other podcasts. This isn’t the day after or a recap of the weekend of games, this was immediate. This was hearing two former star players thoughts about things that just happened, while they’re relaxed and looking to have some fun while giving a lot of opinion and information over a couple of hours on a Saturday night.
They started with the last game first and one that had recently ended in a bit of controversy when Ahkello Witherspoon made a diving interception after a pass was deflected, in the end zone with 37 seconds left to play.
Johnson said he didn’t know what the referee saw when they made the call as he clearly thought the ground helped Witherspoon make the play, but even after it was reviewed, they still stayed with the call. You immediately see or hear how raw the show is, meaning there hasn’t been much time since the last game was played, so it is immediate, natural reactions. And, if you know anything about Sharpe and ‘Ocho’ you know they’re not known for holding back, they are going to say it like it is.
A lot of ex-players sometimes have trouble when it comes to critiquing players or saying things could be deemed controversial. Again, if you are looking for middle of the road, boring banter, you’ve come to the wrong place. As the discussion moves to the Rams wide receivers and comparing 23-year-old Puka Nacua and 31-year-old Cooper Kupp, Sharpe says about Nacua, “He’s a younger, more physical Cooper Kupp…He can do everything Cooper Kupp does, but he’s bigger and more physical…and he’s cheaper.”
Next, you really get the insider knowledge from not just two former players, but two guys who played more than a decade in the NFL. They talked about the physical beating a slot receiver like Cooker Kupp has taken throughout his career. They add in that Kupp not only takes punishment on many balls he catches, but also on several he does not catch. Add it up over his eight-year career and it is a lot of hits.
Sharpe leads the way through the conversation and often has the first and last word on a topic. Johnson, who played most of his career for the Cincinnati Bengals, was more hyped than usual for this show as his team had a big win in overtime against the Denver Broncos. Not only did they get the win, but their odds of making the playoffs increased into double-digits after it was less than a 5% chance just a few weeks ago.
Conversely, Sharpe spent a majority of his career playing for the Broncos, so naturally ‘Ocho’ was giving it to ‘Unc’ a little bit. Johnson said about the game, which could have given even a non-interested fan a heart attack, “Games like this don’t have to be so close,” he said. “The decision making, the play calling …c’mon what are we doing?” He would later add about one specific play, “We called a timeout to run a fullback dive?!”
Opinion, check. Insight, check. Facts, check. Hilarity, check.
Nightcap has it all and is a podcast that makes you feel like you are hanging out with the crew and just talking football, sometimes other sports or life as well. Fans can engage with the show as it airs on YouTube and so far this episode has been viewed nearly 250,000 times in less than 24 hours.
Of course, while the Bengals got the win, they still need help to get into the playoffs. Mainly, they need the Broncos to lose at home to the Chiefs in a game where the Chiefs will most likely rest their starters since they have already clinched the No. 1 seed. So, while ‘Ocho’ got his licks in for this week, Sharpe was setting him up to be let down next week.
“I don’t think the Broncos can beat the Chiefs ‘B team’,” Johnson said. Sharpe countered by pointing out how the Broncos seem to always do well against the Chiefs at home.
Sharpe and ‘Ochocinco’ go back and forth on the topic of the NFL MVP this year, making cases for both Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson. Both hosts agreed that it just is what it is when it comes to the voters looking at team win-loss records and factoring them into their votes for MVP.
They also hit on Coach of the Year as they talked about the Los Angeles Chargers win and their coach Jim Harbaugh. Sharpe pointed out some of the moves made since Harbaugh took over and said, “This is what he does,” he does. “The Chargers, Stanford, the 49ers, Michigan. Normally this takes him at least a year, it didn’t even take him a year!”
‘Ochocinco’ talks about some specific things Harbaugh fixed, and Sharpe adds, “Just goes to show you how poorly coached they were…Coaching does matter, it does.”
As they go through the main sports topics, they will deviate to real-life talk which generally leads to the two cracking each other up. In this episode, Sharpe talked about the pain in his knees and said they hurt whenever he does anything, and as he described how his knees could feel bad during sex, Johnson was dying laughing. The conversation turned into the pains that come with getting older – something everyone listening can most likely relate to.
After the NFL talk, they moved to college football and their friend Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes losing to BYU, 36-14. Sharpe said flat out, “You gotta have a better effort than this. They were never in the game…It’s Coach Prime’s job to have this team prepared and ready to play better than what they showed…it’s really that simple.”
‘Ocho’ added, “It almost looked like they didn’t belong…it looked like they were the JV playing the varsity.”
Another college football topic was about Miami’s Cam Ward who set the DI career passing touchdown record and then didn’t come back to play in the second half of their bowl game. Sharpe said he thinks Ward shouldn’t have played at all and that stopping midway through is a bad look which NFL people will not like, implying it could have an impact on where he is drafted.
Before finishing with a ‘Q and Ayyy’ segment, the two talked briefly about some other topics such as DeShaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns restructuring his contract, Mike Brown getting fired by the Sacramento Kings and Eric Dickerson not wanting Saquan Barkley to break his single season rushing record. In between, there was a rather interesting discussion about how Johnson chose women he wanted to have children with.
The ‘Q and Ayyy’ rewarded the fans who had participated in the YouTube chat as the show was live. Questions covered a wide range of subjects with some related to topics within the show. Then there was a man nearing 30 who asked for advice on starting a career and family. The two hosts understood the family part but were super concerned about the gentleman wanting advice on starting a career at almost 30 years old.
The questions and the answers showed the wide range of interests of both the hosts and the consumers of Nightcap.
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Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
