The August 21, 2025, episode of “The Paulie & Tony Fusco Show” discussed a recent incident involving ESPN host Monica McNutt, who mistakenly confused Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinee Barry Sanders with Shedeur Sanders during an appearance on “First Take.” The show hosts criticized the mix-up and suggested ways for ESPN to address the situation.
Throughout the podcast, hosts Paulie and Tony discussed how Druski appeared on “First Take” wearing a blue and silver NFL jersey with “Sanders” and the number 20. Monica McNutt then erroneously associated the jersey with Shedeur Sanders rather than Barry Sanders.
Paulie commented: “An absolute all time blunder by ESPN’s Monica McNutt. She was on first take with some guy named Druski … this Drusky drew Ski shows up where in a blue and silver uniform NFL uniform with sanders and then number twenty on the front … Here’s what happened, he shows up, we’re in the jersey. Play the clip of what happened next? So the jersey.” He later added: “First of all, you know, I thought because ESPN, you know, has gotten so political, that she was going to say Birdie Sanders … but you know, people they’re saying that this is bad for ESPN. Well, okay, true, not necessarily … You know what you got to do in this business is you got to take advantage of opportunities like this.”
Tony agreed with his co-host about capitalizing on such incidents: “(You know what you got to do in this business is you got to take advantage of opportunities like this. This is why we’re programming geniuses … we get how this business works.)”
To turn the situation into a positive for ESPN, they proposed a mock game show segment titled “Guess What Jersey Monica McNutt Thinks This Is,” wherein contestants would try to guess which athlete Monica McNutt would attribute an NFL jersey to based solely on her previous mistake.
After running through several examples as part of their parody game show—featuring jerseys such as a blue-and-silver Johnson No. 81 (a reference typically associated with Calvin Johnson)—the hosts continued to joke about misunderstandings surrounding football player names and numbers.
At various points throughout the episode, Paulie remarked about audience engagement and technical issues: “Our notification for you … so you can go there now and you could make it up your teah by weight and interviewing now yeah … subscribe and like two lazy Yeah … anyway … let’s get right into a top story story,” while Tony added commentary throughout.
The episode featured additional discussions about other sports news topics unrelated to Barry Sanders but returned repeatedly to riffing on misidentifications between athletes due to similar last names or shared jersey numbers.
No representatives from ESPN or Monica McNutt have publicly responded within the scope of this episode regarding the initial mix-up or commentary by “The Paulie & Tony Fusco Show.”
