This is an all time mix up, and if you are familiar with the “Dan Le Batard Show” that was formerly on ESPN, you know that it is par for the course for the show’s bumbling, corner-cutting co-host.
Jon “Stugotz” Weiner and some of the other Miami-based show’s producers are currently in Lake Tahoe, Nevada to create content around the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament. The golf tourney is a real who’s who and creates the perfect storm for content creators to bring in celebrities competing in the championship for soundbites.
However, there might be a little too much going there considering that the Le Batard Show’s co-host Stugotz mixed up a country music star for an NFL player. When the show sat down with Jake Owen, the producers were aware that they were talking to the country music singer, but Stugotz was thrown off just a bit and mistook him for New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
This video below clears up how it all went down, with Stugotz saying that Jake Owen and Aaron Rodgers were practically “identical twins:”
Stugotz allegedly talked to Jake Owen for around 20 minutes, and though at first the co-host was asking generic questions and was “fanboying,” he soon started asking Jake Owen questions as if he was Rodgers, and Owen hilariously just went along with it.
The Dan Le Batard Show is famously known for “going along with the bit,” and the producers decided that the interview would be that much greater if they let Stugotz go full steam ahead as if he were talking to Aaron Rodgers.
After the fact, the Le Batard Show co-host admitted that he thought Rodgers “looked shorter” and had appeared to have lost weight. Those weight and height differences (Rodgers is 6′ 2″, Owen is 5’9″) somehow did not trigger Stugotz to realize he had made a mistake.
And to make matters even worse, Stugotz is a die-hard New York Jets fan and has interacted with Aaron Rodgers multiple times before, so it’s honestly surprising that something like this could have happened (though if you know the show and the antics of Stugotz, it is not).
The co-host was embarrassed, saying:
“I was hugging him. I was patting him on the stomach. ‘You’re my quarterback. You’re my quarterback.’ And Jake Owen was going, ‘I am, I am.'”
Shoutout to Jake Owen for playing along and somehow not breaking character throughout the interview. At one point in the clip below, it appears that they brought Owen back to their interview spot, and Jake says:
“It’s nice to be here…I’m wondering if you would have ever even had me on your show if you hadn’t thought I was Aaron Rodgers.”
I won’t make any excuses for the Dan Le Batard Show co-host, but I do see the resemblance.
Here is a picture of Jake Owen that was posted just yesterday, who is standing second from the left next to NFL wide receiver Adam Thielen.
And the New York Jets quarterback happens to be out at Lake Tahoe for the tournament as well, though it is clear that he has ditched the long hair look that Owen is rocking.
Like I said at the start, the whole thing is truly an all-time mix up, but one that does provide a good chuckle for NFL fans and country music fans alike.
