Podcasting is a "next man up" business. Not in the way that the NFL is—no one is actually getting injured out here, although thinking about human-induced climate change after last week's Peter Brannen episode did bum me out a little bit—but the show must go on even when the booked guest calls in feverish and groggy on the day of the show. Luckily, Drew is on a texting basis with Matthew Coller of Purple Insider, which meant that we not only could still talk NFL this week, but could do so with one of the elite emergency podcast quarterbacks, a returning champion guest whose football knowledge goes far beyond the grim NFC North team which he and Drew care about the most. We barely even mentioned the Vikings in this one, because there was too much other ball to talk.
But first, we began with a nice chat on the hazards and rewards of owning a friendly greyhound in a cold climate, but while Matthew certainly could've done the better part of an hour on Buddy The Friendly Rescue Greyhound and his many extravagant outfits, we did eventually turn to the matter at hand. The first chunk of the show goes over the dramatic changes in NFL passing offense this year, where the league-wide effort to scheme for Patrick Mahomes has led to trouble both for the Chiefs and other teams that suddenly find themselves unable to throw downfield.
Matthew helped us parse the reasons behind the sharp decline in league-wide passing stats, including how teams are letting overmatched rookie QBs go out there and lose instead of trying to win six games with Andy Dalton, the new efficiency-first template for winning QB play, and the absence of Jon Kitna-style dudes throwing 40 times per game in a losing effort every week. We celebrated the mastery of Matthew Stafford, who is both different and more fun in his washed king era than he was in his more reckless heyday, and turned once again to the confounding question of whether Caleb Williams is any good, or even any better than he was.
After the break, we turned to my favorite football story of the moment, which is the bizarrely plausible return of Philip Laserface Rivers to the league at the age of 44. We considered the real hazard to Rivers's health in an NFL game, and I simply refused to count him out despite some good arguments to the contrary. We also discussed the advisability of counting out Jalen Hurts and the thwarted and grumpy Eagles, and the worryingly average Mahomes. This was all the time we had with Matthew, but the 40-odd minutes we got were a masterclass in ball-knowing and game management on his part. We're in his debt.
The gift he received for dipping out was that he wasn't around for our Funbag discussion of the trash foods we've loved into our fussy, bougie adulthoods. I talked about Taco Today, an uncanny and gone-too-soon bizarro Tex-Mex spot in my neighborhood, and my affection for the Ortega-style orange-and-brown taco experience; Drew broke his legendary silence on his lasting love for 2700-calorie breakfast treats and grocery store sheet cake. Calories are only as empty as you let them be; in podcasting as in outlandish breakfast treats, every bit of nourishment counts.
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