Sam and Jim are doing a better show. It needs improvements but sounds like an already existent show. They had the advantage of already knowing their partner.

Opie though was caught flat footed and sounds like he's making it up as he goes along. We are all jokingly dead serious about how much Opie sucks, but he is a seasoned radio pro who ran a successful show for decades, so he has tricks up his sleeves that he can use to make a big splash when he needs to like he did with getting Ant on his first show or by doing the dopey cryptic videos or by talking shit about Jim and Sam or by finally exhibiting some humility and self-awareness. Opie's biggest contribution to O&A was orchestrating all the attention seeking stunts and pranks that turned them from nobodies to notorious during the first decade of the show. So the first week played to Opie's strengths.

Plus, Opie was the more desperate and angry one because he did have the rug ripped out from under him (deservedly so). So it was easier for him to launch bombs while Jim and Sam could only counterpunch. If Jim and Sam were the ones on the offensive, they would have come off as taunting bullies spiking the football in the face of their former teammate. So Opie could come off more heroic like Conan on his last week of The Tonight Show.

But stunts and bitter rants will only carry you so far before you just come off as a pathetic butthurt bitch. So now he has to start building a show while Jim and Sam just need to fine tune what they already have. Opie though already has one foot out the door, promising to leave after a year. Hard to build or to convince others to join you when you got a foot out the door. Jim and Sam however seem like they would be happy to stay with the company for as long as they'll have him. Makes it easy for the company to decide who to build around.