The ‘Lost Tapes’ Of Men In Blazers Before They Were MIB

Many listeners to Men In Blazers may not know but Roger Bennett and Michael Davies had their own soccer podcast before they were Men In Blazers, which ran from 2010-11.

The ‘Off The Ball’ podcast, starring Davies and Bennett, was released on ESPN. Unfortunately, all of the episodes are no longer online and the pages where they were housed on ESPN now only display 404 error messages.

Davies and Bennett ran the Off The Ball podcast from World Cup 2010 to Women’s World Cup 2011 before becoming Men In Blazers on Grantland in 2012.

Thankfully, we’ve unearthed one episode, which you can listen to below. Plus, we discovered that Roger Bennett and Michael Davies had a rugby show on BBC America before they were Men In Blazers — from way back in 2011.

Listening to ‘Off The Ball,’ it’ll sound very familiar to fans of Men In Blazers. The rugby episode on BBC America, meanwhile, shows their comedic side and a certain Mr. Bennett with a little more hair than now. The rugby episode includes former NFL defensive end Hugh Douglas.

Plus, if you go back into the Wayback Machine, you’ll find several other rugby videos that Bennett and Davies did for BBC America including psychic puppies and a primer on rugby. Unfortunately, it appears that the BBC have taken them down.

Watch Men In Blazers talking rugby on BBC America:

And watch the first soccer podcast show from Roger Bennett and Michael Davies here:

Mobile app users, watch the videos here and here.