Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it.
It’s 11:00 p.m., and I’ve just boarded a nonstop flight to Munich with my family. When you fly to Europe nonstop, you’re almost always forced to take the redeye. You know that your flight will suck, but you also know it’s the cost of doing business. I’ve flown redeyes before, as have my wife and kids. We know the deal, and prepare accordingly. My wife stocks up on melatonin for everyone. We all pack eye masks and wear them. My kids wear the loosest possible clothing that Sean Duffy will let them get away with. And I know to take the complimentary seat pillow and use it for lumbar support. None of these preventive measures are guaranteed to induce sleep, but they at least serve to mitigate discomfort.
I am not comfortable. We’re sitting in the ass-end of the plane, having passed through the mythical pod section of first class while boarding earlier. I’m now wedged into an aisle seat that’s only a single row removed from the shitters at the back. I’ve taken off my shoes—but not my socks, I’m not an animal—and left them behind my feet on the floor, so that I can stretch my legs as much as the crude seating arrangement will allow. The plane takes off and the cabin lights go dark. I crucially forget to take my regular redeye dose of Advil PM to knock myself semi-cold, but I do take a weed gummy to make up the difference. We’ve got eight hours to Munich, and I’m going to power down for those eight hours as best I can.
There’s a pronounced difference between suffering from insomnia at home and suffering from it while stationed 30,000 feet above an ocean. If you can’t sleep at home, you can get up to piss, or to grab a snack. You can try sleeping on your couch if your bed somehow isn’t working. You can move. This is not really an option while you’re on an airplane. Even if the seat-belt lights are off, all you can do is get up and then sit back down again. You can’t lie down in the aisle. You can’t commandeer one of the luxury pods up front (although you should be able to). The late John Madden famously hated flying because of this claustrophobia it triggered in him. And while I don’t fear flying myself, I get where Madden was coming from. Once that door closes and the plane is airborne, you’re stuck. Trapped. All you can do is sit, close your eyes, and hope.
I am closing my eyes. I hope sleep finds me, but I’m not terribly confident. I feel a small ache in my stomach—the beginnings of a flu virus that won’t fully ravage me until a couple of days later—so I practice my breathing to get rid of it. It’s a stock therapy trick. You breathe in deep, count One, then breathe back out before counting Two. Repeat ad infinitum. I have a restless mind, so much so that waiting to mentally count off One until after I’ve finished inhaling is nigh impossible. But I try anyway. My stomach calms down. For now.
My socks are damp from sweat and choking my feet. I desperately want to remove them, but bravely keep them on for the sake of public decorum. I constantly shift my feet around to stay ahead of any coming back pain. I crack open my eyes and someone ahead of us has the flight path graphic beaming out of their seat TV. I don’t wanna know how many goddamn hours I’ve got left sitting here, and yet I have no choice but to see the ETA calculated down to the exact minute. A watched pot that will never boil.
I look over at my son, whose eyes are shut tight. I wonder if he’s asleep, or if he’s stuck in the exact same purgatory I’m in. I don’t ask. I see strangers with their eyes shut in the rows ahead of me and wonder if they’ve drifted off to Sleepland without me. I won’t be happy if they have. When you can’t sleep, it feels like everyone else in the world is asleep except for you. You alone are awake, and only you care about it. You are dead to the world, and it to you.
I shut my eyes again, thinking about football. My team is dogshit, but I think about them anyway out of habit. I know that I’m falling asleep when my mind comes away from its moorings and begins thinking in random, dreamlike spurts. My ruminations over poor quarterbacking often give way to random thoughts of horses galloping across a prairie, or a dog a driving a car, or whatever other strange imagery my subconscious devises. But on this night, I never sense that I’m on the threshold of REM. I’m still thinking about football, and getting about as much out of it as you’d expect.
I get up to piss and look in the bathroom mirror. I look as tired as I feel. I come out of the loo, guzzle down a cup of tepid water from the galley, and then resume my seat.
The struggle continues. How many hours have gone by? We must be halfway there by now, right? Maybe I should open my eyes and check that one dude’s flight path screen to see. No. No, don’t do that. You’ll just make yourself more miserable. I keep my eyes shut. Time passes, in increments I cannot perceive. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. Either way, it feels like a lot of time. And yet here I remain, still awake.
I pretend my airplane seat is my recliner at home. If I lean back and stretch my legs just enough, I can trick myself for nanoseconds at a time. But that’s all the tricking I can do. Quietly desperate, I envision myself at home, in my bed. The covers are over me, and my dog is within petting distance. I can see Carter rolling over on his back and letting his paws stick straight up in the air. I can feel my hand grabbing his limp paw in the darkness. I can feel the breath going in and out of little dog body as me sleeps beside me. I can almost (key word) feel the warmth of our bed enveloping me, lulling me into a deep, peaceful slumber.
But my mind, my busy busy mind, knows it’s an illusion. It knows precisely where I really am: in the air, in this seat, with no other options at my disposal. I would pay $10,000 just to lie down flat in this moment. The people currently dozing off in first class have done exactly that. Assholes.
Sunlight seeps through the downed windowshades. It’s morning, which means that there’s more flighttime behind us than ahead of us. I think I slept for 10 minutes somewhere in there, but have no idea if I actually did. I have some meds I gotta take, so I grab the pills out of my bag and pop them dry. I’m usually good at taking pills dry, but this time one of the pills gets stuck in my throat and begins dissolving. It tastes like a pill. My stomach is hurting again.
I get up to use the bathroom, but all of the toilets are occupied by rousing passengers. I throw up in my mouth, then put my hand over my mouth to keep the vomit from spilling out. Panicked, I see an open trash can in one of the galley carts and unload into it. Then I sit back down and am served a European breakfast pastry with cream cheese and apples. I eat the whole thing, and then I eat my son’s. I do not throw any of it back up. It’s the only victory I’ll experience on this leg of our journey.
We land in Munich. None of us slept well. All of us are tired and miserable, forced to wait for the rest of the plane to disembark before we get to taste fresh air. Once we finally do, my wife’s cousin greets us in the terminal with open arms and a big smile. The past night immediately recedes into the background, like a dream. We arrive at my wife’s aunt’s house as a light snow blankets the countryside. Germans say “It sugared” when the snow falls like this. We’re just two days away from Christmas, so this fallen sugar is more than a welcome sight.
Auntie M greets us at the door, beaming. It’s late afternoon now, and she serves us fresh bowls of homemade chicken soup, plus fresh baked bread and Bavarian pretzels. I booted my guts out just a few hours prior, but my appetite is back now. As is my strength. My redeye hell was among the milder hells this world currently has to offer, and it was well worth enduring to get to this house, on this night, to eat this food with these people. I knew that before I even booked the ticket, and now I’m reaping the payoff. This is the best goddamn pretzel I’ve ever eaten, and I’d gladly fly over a midnight ocean all over again just to eat one.
But not anytime soon. I need to sleep in my actual bed for a while before I get back out there.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms. And because I’m brave and strong, I pick every playoff game. All picks are guaranteed to win or your money back (you will not get your money back).
Five Throwgasms
Jaguars (+1.5) 27, Bills 19. Thanks to a spate of catastrophic late-season injuries—Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons come first to mind—we’re getting another round of “The NFL can’t move to an 18-game schedule” opinion pieces. These pieces are all correct, of course. The human body isn’t built to withstand one NFL game, let alone 18 of them. Throw in the expanded playoff field, and it’s downright inhumane to force players like Mahomes to play 20-plus games every season. Not only does the extended schedule potentially deprive fans of seeing the league’s best players in the postseason, but it also waters down the field to the point where an underwhelming offensive team like Denver can snag a top seed. The players suffer, and the quality of the on-field product suffers as a result. That alone is a compelling enough argument for the league to reduce inventory rather than increase it. This schedule is simply too much punishment.
But for the NFL, the punishment is the point. You might look at a playoff bracket that’s missing Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and think, well this sucks. I promise you that the league feels the exact opposite. You already know about the NFL’s many parity levers: revenue sharing, a hard salary cap, the reverse-record draft order, etc. These elements of the CBA produce consistent turnover at the top of the standings, and they give every fan (save for those in Cleveland and Las Vegas) reasonable hope that their team can win it all sooner rather than later. It’s a good system for anyone who takes “any given Sunday” as football gospel.
Now we’ve got a 17-game schedule that has increased attrition league-wide, and HEY PRESTO! Suddenly, ownership has another parity lever to yank on. They love this season’s upside-down playoff field, and they’ll be even more elated when the 18-game schedule scrambles everything up even further. All of this is saleable. You thought the Chiefs were inevitable? They’re not even in the running this year! Sick of pass-happy offenses neutering the physicality of the sport? Well, now every team is running 13 personnel for half their snaps because they only have two healthy O-linemen! Think your seven-seeded team has no shot at winning the conference? Well guess what, the six teams ahead of them are ALSO frauds! NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL EXCITEMENT!
So rail against the coming 18-game schedule all you please, but just know that you’re wasting your breath. The forecast calls for pain.
Packers (-1.5) 24, Bears 20. I want the Bears to win this game nearly as much as Bears fans do. But I know how dark karma works, and I know there will be at least two calls in this game that will make the greater Chicago area demand bloodshed. I know the Packers have a Civil War-level injury list, and I know that the Bears spent the back half of this season evolving from a lucky team into a good one. But I just know that little shitfuck Romeo Doubs will catch a late TD pass that has the color guy openly drooling. I’m already pissed about it.
Patriots (-3.5) 35, Chargers 28. If you’d like the Pats exposed as frauds who spent this entire season feasting on a comically soft schedule, you couldn’t ask for a worse opening-round opponent to do the unmasking.
Four Throwgasms
49ers (+4.5) 30, Eagles 10. I’m not making this pick as wishcasting (hate that word). The Eagles have been fucking weird all season, and their offense has been abject misery to watch. AJ Brown only reaches his hands up for every other pass, Saquon Barkley has reverted back to his New York incarnation, and the Tush Push doesn’t work anymore. Meanwhile, Brock Purdy came back from his injury a few weeks ago, saw the rest of this sorry NFC field, said to himself, Actually, I’m better than all of these losers, and then played like it. Except in the final game against Seattle, but that I was out of the country for that game, so it doesn’t count.
Anyway, the Eagles will probably win another Super Bowl in this decade, but I’d trust Riley Cooper to conduct a rousing antiracism seminar before I trusted this year’s Eagles to do anything important.
Three Throwgasms
Rams (-10.5) 20, Panthers 7. As Mike Tanier has repeatedly pointed out, Matthew Stafford turns into a pumpkin the second a raindrop falls on his jersey. That’s why the Rams lost the last time they played in Charlotte. And what’s this? Turns out there’s rain in the forecast again for this coming Saturday. A smart fella might use that bit of inside intel to bet Carolina’s way. But I am NOT a smart fella, and the next time I believe in the Panthers will be when the other 31 NFL teams all simultaneously die in a freak chemical lab explosion. Also, no one still knows if Bryce Young is good or not.
Two Throwgasms
Texans (-3) 40, Steelers 0. I told the rest of the Defector staff that I was high on the Texans coming into this postseason because Houston’s defense is better than any other unit in the league right now. Then, just a day or two later, Barry Petchesky was like, I’m actually feeling the Texans in the AFC right now. And then Luis Paez-Pumar did the same shit. First of all, you two are copycats. Second of all, no one should be bullish on the Texans, ever. The fact that THREE Defector staffers are in on them should send any rational football fan sprinting away from them. Please don’t be as stupid as us.
That said … Aaron Rodgers is 87 years old and refuses to throw any pass more than three yards past the line of scrimmage. Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter will ground him down into a fine paste, and then Mike Tomlin will get a 10-year extension.
Also, that fan that DK Metcalf punched? He had it coming. Fuck that loser.
Last postseason: 6-7
One Throwgasm
None. Here’s a video of Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey telling ICE to “get the fuck out” of his city after they murdered Renee Nicole Good:
I watched the video of Good being shot in the face yesterday and found myself, as I have many times over the past few years, unable to say anything constructive. I wanted to write something interesting and eloquent for my SFGATE editors, but nothing came to mind outside of FUCK THESE PIECES OF SHIT. That’s both the only response to what’s happening right now, and also the correct one. Jacob Frey, not a great Democrat by any means, understood that yesterday. I’m gonna need more of his peers to do likewise.
Pregame Song That Makes Me Wanna Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall
“Formaldehyde,” by Clowns, who do not perform dressed as clowns! Big upset! From Jon:
"I'm pretty sure I'll never die cuz I'm soaking in formaldehyde" is exactly the kind of unhinged shit I want out of my punk rock. These guys are from Australia and they rule. That chorus has been stuck in my head for three days now.
Don’t sleep on the main riff, either. These clowns can fucking shred!
Fire This Asshole!
Is there anything more exciting than a coach losing his job? All year long, we’ll keep track of which coaches will almost certainly get fired at year’s end or sooner. And now, your current 2025 chopping block:
Brian Callahan—FIRED!
Brian Daboll—FIRED!
Jonathan Gannon—FIRED!
Pete Carroll—FIRED!
Kevin Stefanski—FIRED!
Raheem Morris—FIRED!
John Harbaugh—FIRED!
Mike McDaniel—FIRED!
Shane Steichen—NOT FIRED!
Zac Taylor—OH COME THE FUCK ON, REALLY?
Aaron Glenn—OKAY NOW THIS IS JUST FUCKING RIDICULOUS
Dan Quinn
Mike Tomlin
I was reading our old friend Kalyn Kahler’s deep dive on the Raiders’ collapse, and I highly recommend you do likewise. You’ll learn that Tom Brady is an absentee shadow president who sucks at decision-making, and you’ll learn that Pete Carroll’s staff in Vegas was riddled with has-beens, cronies, and his own kids. One of those kids was Brennan Carroll, who served as OL coach for his old man and sucked at it. I was prepared for that bit of intel. But I was NOT prepared to discover what Brennan Carroll actually looks like:
That’s a post-divorce Mark Schlereth right there. No chance I could play for this man without laughing in his face every time he walked into the meeting room.
Jim Harbaugh’s Lifehack Of The Week!
“Any time a loved one loses their job, as my dear brother John just has, I take them out to my favorite diner for a tuna sandwich and an egg cream. And then I say to that loved one, as I said to John yesterday: These people have no idea what they’ve done. They have no idea of the power they just unleashed upon the world. They will pay, both in blood and in treasure, for their transgression. God will see to it, because God knows who is righteous and who is weak. Then I crack a raw egg into my coffee and drink it.”
Great Moments In Poop History
Reader Mike sends in this unexpectedly touching story I call IN THE NAME OF THE SQUATTER:
Probably around 1997 my dad took me to a high school football game, which I’m sure had more to do with my burgeoning social life as a 10-year old than it did with any actual interest in the game. But my dad was cool about bringing us to things we wanted to do when I’m sure he’d prefer to be doing something else, so we went.
The school had extra space behind one of the goal posts, where some of the younger kids would gather and throw the ball around and sometimes play a makeshift game. I was playing in one of these games when I got tackled straight on in the stomach, which made me let loose in my jeans.
I quickly ran to the port-a-potty before any of the other kids could notice. I was freaking out about it in the way a 10-year old would, intrinsically factoring in the impact of such an incident on my grade school social life. There were girls around, after all. I told the other kids to please, PLEASE get my dad, without sharing the details of what happened. He came to get me. giving me a jacket to wrap around my waist to save me some embarrassment. We snuck out and made it home to clean up. Crisis averted. I now have a permanent memory of doing a 15-minute hip thrust to make sure I didn’t drench the car seat with my soiled pants on the car ride home.
I remember this story because it’s a core memory of my dad taking care of me in the most delicate of ways, and I’m sure I’m romanticizing it in my memory because he died the next year. December 12th is the anniversary, and I don’t think about him as often as I should. Same for other loved ones that have passed. Sometimes it’s a strong source of shame, the fact that I don’t have daily recollections of these people that are so central to who I am and how I navigate the world. But then I remember something like this, where Dad got me out of a jam by just being there for me, and it makes me feel good even with the embarrassment still fresh in mind.
That’s how grief has evolved for me: raw devastation giving way to lingering sadness, giving way to me remembering some of the most important people in my life in very specific instances because of how they made me feel in such lasting, meaningful ways. 27 years is a long time to be without someone, but I’ll always remember what my dad meant to me because of moments like this one, and it makes me strive to make sure that’s the kind of dad I am for my kids.
Now that’s good story. All my best to you and your fam, Mike.
Brick Johnson’s Executive Proposal Of The Week
“Dad, you remember the Bored Apes, right? Well check out what my buddy Rensselaer just came up with: Bored Lizards. BOOM. Whole new NFT market, dad. Chicks are gonna crazy for these geckos."
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Cisk Strong! Here comes trouble in a can. Reader Philip gives us the details:
Cisk Strong, Malta's tajjeb-est beer. Two euro for half a liter and a 9% ABV will get you there.
Tastes like malt liquor on a Russian yacht.
Mmmmm… corruption.
Gameday Movie Of The Week For Raiders Fans
Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel. This movie never had a prayer of living up to Eric Jager’s book (I also strongly recommend Blood Royal from that same author), but it fits neatly into Sir Ridley’s twilight run of overlong historic epics that look fucking great: Napoleon, Gladiator II, and the like. Your top-of-the-marquee stars are Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and a highly amusing Ben Affleck. But the heart of the story is Jodie Comer’s Lady Marguerite, whose alleged rape at the hands of Driver’s Jacques Le Gris sets the whole plot into motion. Marguerite is not just victimized by the vainglorious men around her, but then used as a convenient pawn for those same to fight over land, money, and status. Comer wears the burden of all that on her face, and it’s a better performance than any of her male counterparts give in this movie. More Jodie Comer in things, please. Three stars.
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
“Honey! Are you sure you want to be Mrs. Montgomery Burns?! Wouldn't you rather be Mrs. Abraham J. Simpson?!”
“No.”
Enjoy the playoffs, everyone.
