Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about football, auto wipers, road trips, and more.
Whoa hey, I’m back! Let’s see what happened while I was away. Well, my family and I went to Germany for the holidays, only for me to immediately come down with a case of the barfing flu. Then we got stranded in Frankfurt for two days after New Year’s thanks to a missed flight connection, then I had to split my family into separate traveling parties just to get us back stateside before 2029, and then we bombed Venezuela. What an exciting time to be alive. And barfing.
Anyway, I’m back now and ready to give you only my finest, worst opinions. But before I do, let’s give a big-ass round of applesauce to all of the guest hosts that covered for me here, and over at the Jamboroo, while I was gone: Albert Burneko, Brandy Jensen, and Matt Ufford. These people are the REAL Santa’s little helpers.
Now let’s quit dicking around and get to your letters:
Veronica:
When I was a kid I loved taco salads, so much so that on one year I ordered one as my birthday dinner. You better believe I housed all 3k calories of it, edible bowl and all. As an adult, I love crafting myself my own taco salad. Because of this, one day I had a salad and as I was about to make my vinaigrette when I just added salsa instead. That's when I realized how good salsa was as a salad dressing. Add some crumbled up tortilla chips, maybe some pickled jalapeño, some shredded cheese, maybe some guac, and it's terrific. Even on its own I feel that it rivals a vinaigrette. On certain days, it even surpasses it.
OK, I can’t answer any taco salad question without first paying my respects to one of the greatest beer ads of all time. And you can EAT that deep fried crunch boooowl! We used to make things in this country.
Now, onto the topic at hand: salsa as a salad dressing. This scans as epicurean blasphemy, not unlike putting ketchup on your spaghetti. But let’s read into the nuances here. First of all, not all salsas are created equal. If you’re dumping a jar of Chi Chi’s Medium onto a Cobb salad, I’m probably not gonna be all that enthused. But let’s say you’ve got some quality pico de gallo lying around. Or maybe you’ve even got the Frontera fire-roasted tomato salsa—best in category if you ask me—that you can throw onto that bad boy. I think I’d be all right with that. I like salsa, and I like enough dressing on my salad to render that salad a nutritional liability. Would I ever be able to get my wife on board with this idea? No. But it’s good to keep on my back pocket anytime I have to eat a sad, Marty Hart TV dinner on my own.
One more thing: I often default to making a salad on taco night. You know how the Old El Paso hard shells always break? Well, I work around that by just crumbling up the shells in a bowl, dumping all of the fillings on top of them, and then eating my tacos that way. Don’t take this as cooking advice. It’s just some lazy bachelor shit I do on occasion.
Adam:
You or one of your loved one has to have major surgery. You receive a recommendation for the best surgeon in your area to do the critical, delicate operation. When you go into the surgeon’s office for the consultation their office is a standard professional’s office (big desk, nice furniture, medical books, etc) but on one of their office walls they have a life-size FatHead sticker of Aaron Rodgers. Do you still get surgery from them?
That doctor could have a photo of Hitler tattooed across their chest and I’d still get the surgery. I know Aaron Rodgers has become the 21st-century poster boy for shitty medical advice, but good doctors are hard to find. So I’ll take one in any form I can get it. I’ve had doctors with bad politics before. I’ve gotten lobbying pamphlets from their practices. It’s never been a dealbreaker.
By the way, good doctors are only gonna get harder to find in the next few years. Because who the fuck would want to practice medicine in this country anymore? You and I have only just begun to suffer from the talent drain that Trump 2.0 is willing into reality. By the end of 2026, I’m gonna need to fly to Switzerland just to get a fucking flu shot.
Mike:
I've seen this Cybertruck on several occasions near my home (SW Chicago burbs). This is probably a $10k wrap job. However, I have yet to see the driver. Who do you think it is? An aging Gen X-er? An ironic college student? A former member of the band? Who would do this?
The Venn diagram between “people who wish rock and roll would come back” and “people who have shit taste in politics and even worse taste in cars” is damn near a perfect circle. I’ve seen more than my fair share of nostalgia acts over the past few years—GNR, Metallica, Motley Crue—and all of the crowds were older and whiter than even I am. So it doesn’t shock me that some McDonald’s exec in Oak Park would get a custom job like this one. We’re a nation of pretend rebels, after all. I wish that I was better represented by my fellow Def Leppard fanboys, but I’m not naive.
Walter:
What do you think the percentage of NFL QB busts in the last 10-15 years are due to coaches' overly complicated offenses?
Walter, I’ve just had to spend the past season going round and round with myself about this very topic. I have long believed that you fit your scheme to players and not the other way around, but that’s me basically saying that every NFL coach is either Mike Martz (rigid) or Matt LaFleur (adaptable). But that’s not really the case. The deal is that every NFL offense HAS to run some fairly complex concepts, because the defenses themselves are so complex. From there, a coach can tailor the playsheet down to suit a young QB still figuring the game out. But any QB you draft still has to be able to execute some of some of the hard shit. Otherwise, you’re just gonna be running a college offense that’ll inevitably get annihilated.
This is why I’m finding it harder to believe that organizations really do fail their QBs more than the other way around. Look at Drake Maye. That guy had to spend his rookie year playing for a head coach who had NO fucking idea what he was doing. Then he had to spend this year acclimating to an entirely new staff. It hasn’t mattered. He still became Drake Maye anyway, much to the world’s growing chagrin:
I have zero doubt that some coaches are talented at getting the most out of otherwise average players (Sean Payton with Bo Nix, for example), and that some are so inept that they could fuck up an All-Pro falling into their lap (Zac Taylor since 2021). But on the whole, the deal is that good QBs usually reveal themselves, one way or the other. Some guys can play, some guys can’t, and some guys are Mac Jones. I know that reclamation projects like Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield have gotten a ton of press over the past two seasons, but those guys are exceptions to the rule. Also, both of them still have never gotten their teams past the divisional round. And Baker collapsed down the stretch this season. A good coach can only hide your flaws for so long.
Andrew:
Automatic wiper blades: at what point did flicking the stick on the steering column become a problem that needed solving? If you qualify to drive a car, you also can tell when rain is falling on your windshield.
OK, but what if you’re the kind of person who’s constantly fiddling with the wipers to fit the intensity of the precipitation? Because I am one such person. I flick my wipers to Low, then the rain picks up, then I flick the wipers to High, then the rain slows back down and my wiper blades go SKRRRRRRRR as they cross a dry-ass windshield. And that’s just when I’m driving alone. You better believe that any good marriage involves the two spouses arguing over wiper settings mid-drive. Whenever my wife reaches over and changes the wipers without asking me (all the time), I take it as a personal affront. I’m a man! I’m 49! Am I not qualified to handle this shit, lady? WHO MADE YOU THE WIPER GOD?
This is why automatic wipers, in theory, are a big help. I can just let the car toggle between speeds for me. The problem, as you might have guessed, is that my car BLOWS at it. My auto function won’t give me orders to give myself an overdose, but sometimes it doesn’t even register that rain has started to fall. Unacceptable. You better believe that I will angrily tag Hyundai of America in a terse Bluesky post to get them to remedy this situation.
Shane:
Had a dream last night where I gave a new girl my number and she said that I was “the most titted mouth man she had ever met.” What does this mean?
I think it’s self-explanatory: your mouth looks like a tit. It’s round, pink, fleshy, and looks great in a tight sweater. I wish I could be as tit-mouthed as you, good sir.
Jared:
It seems like every NFL coach or coordinator is the son or grandson of a former coach. Is any profession more nepotistic than coaching?
All professions are equally nepotistic, it’s just that you can see the nepotism in NFL coaching much more easily than you can in, say, the snack food industry. So when Chris Shula gets a head job this week—and he absolutely will—it’ll be just a symptom of a more widespread disease.
In fact, the NFL functions as a visible avatar for MANY of America’s worse qualities. In theory, we could use this visibility to effect more widespread public opposition to nepotism, predatory sports books, domestic violence, corporate fuckery, and all other kinds of nasty shit. But you’ve met the NFL, and you’ve met our national media. I don’t see anyone from those worlds getting openly huffy about Jac Collinsworth getting paid TV work.
John:
What number did you wear in college, and what would you wear if you played various positions today?
I honestly don’t remember. I didn’t have the same number all the way through my career. Some seasons I was 79, some seasons I was 63. I wasn’t special enough to put in a special request to wear 0 or anything cool like that. I got the number the equipment manager gave me, and tough shit if I didn’t like it. No OL numbers are all that cool anyway.
Now if I was actually really good at playing football, and the head coach was like, “Magary gets to wear whatever number he wants because he’s a good guy at sports,” then I’m going single digits. You’ve already seen how much NFL players love that single-digit jerseys are now available to multiple position groups. I’m just as much of an integer whore as they are. Gimme number 7, and then let me take the field while also wearing a cape. No one could stop me. I’d be like Micah Parsons and Josh Allen all in one.
HALFTIME!
Derek:
Whenever I go on a road trip with the family, I pleasantly imagine the new parts of the country we'll get to see. Maybe we'll stop at a local diner, or a UFO museum, or Civil War battlefield, etc. Then we get in the car and I inevitably start doing arrival time math, and next thing I know I'm telling my wife and kids that if we eat and pee quickly at the rest stop we can get there an hour sooner. How can I break this habit and slow down and enjoy road trips?
There’s no way to break that habit, and do you know why? Because long road trips are always worse than advertised. To this day, I still daydream about driving cross-country. I indulge my inner Griswold, renting an RV and taking the scenic route across the continental 48. I pass through the Appalachians. I cross the mighty Mississip. I meet a kindly service station worker who tips me off as to the whereabouts of Nebraska’s finest corn pudding. I check out the Grand Canyon. I cruise up the Pacific Coast Highway. I do all the romantic road trip shit that movies and TV have taught me is a quintessential part of the American Experience.
Then, back in real life, I get in my car and remember that driving in this country fucking blows. Every highway is infested with traffic. Every street is the same flavor of strip mall. And every other driver is a belligerent prick. Whatever fanciful notions I have about car travel are instantly dispelled anytime I have to hop onto I-95. All I want to do is get where I’m going, and I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt about it.
That’s because this country hasn’t given a shit about infrastructure since the Eisenhower administration. If it did, then driving from the Atlantic to the Pacific might actually be a journey greater than any destination. Shit, it wouldn’t even require driving at all. I could simply send myself, via vacuum tube, from one landmark to the next. Or I could engage the FLIGHT function on my 2026 Hyundai Aerosky. Instead, I gotta sit inside a fucking car for days at a time, wondering when eastern Colorado will ever end. At least I can find a Shake Shack at some rest stops now. Otherwise, I’m not stopping to smell the flowers. Those got bulldozed a decade ago to make room for an Ocean State Job Lot.
Jon:
As I've done more work travel, I wholeheartedly recommend this hotel hack: always bring an HDMI cable in your bag. Gone are the days of trying to navigate terrible hotel TV interfaces, seeing if your streaming credentials will load, etc. You just plug your computer into the port on the TV, and you're good to go.
Oh, this is a good idea. Lately I’ve spent every trip hoping that I can cast to my hotel’s television set. But you know hotel TVs. They’re about as user-friendly as a Cybertruck touchscreen. So it behooves me to deploy a manual solution the problem, which Jon has just now provided. Excelsior to you, good sir. Now to go rooting around our family’s designated cord bin.
Chuck:
How long could you keep your eyes shut without falling asleep? Like nonstop shut, not even once.
Probably all night. I’ve had it happen before. Ask any insomniac; shutting your eyes often does nothing.
Jeff:
Is the movie-going experience truly on its deathbed here in the streaming era, or is there any hope that Hollywood can return to a semblance of its former glory?
I’ve heard that movie theaters are dying for decades now. And yet, it turns out that Americans really do enjoy seeing their blockbuster movies on a really big honking screen. They also like going to the movies for dates, for a relatively cheap night out with friends, or to shut their kids up for a couple of hours. I doubt any of those needs change in the coming years, even if Netflix scoops up Warner and starts turning every local cineplex into an interactive Emily in Paris experience.
Also, please don’t sleep on the advent of reclining auditorium seats. The average 20th-century theater had a seating arrangement about as comfortable as middle school assembly. Now you can kick the fuck back and there’s still room for other people in your row to sneak past you. That’s no small upgrade. Now if I take my 13-year-old to any theater that doesn’t have reclining seats, he spits in my face. I don’t blame him.
Kyle:
I'm a bit late to the party, but I recently saw the NYT Top 100 movies of the 21st century, which got me thinking about all time movie lists. What would have to happen for a movie made post-2025 to take the top spot on an all time list from a reputable source? It's impossible, right?
It is not. I know those lists can feel like they’re set in stone, with Citizen Kane and the like always at the top. But first of all, new masterpieces do get made, and acknowledged. You don’t think One Battle After Another is gonna start showing up on these lists after the acclaim it’s gotten this year? Paul Thomas Anderson already made an AFI mainstay in There Will Be Blood, and even our snobbiest film snobs enjoy dabbling in recency bias from time to time.
Speaking of bias, there’s also the fact that these lists have historically, and overwhelmingly, favored certain types of movies from certain types of white dudes. I know that wokeism is currently on life support in this country, but that hasn’t stopped moviegoers from forcing the AFI, the Times, and other outlets to rethink their methodology. This is why House Party will eventually show up in the consensus top 10 many years from now. It’s a correction that’s been long overdue.
By the way, I did my own top 10 of the 21st-century list using the Times generator and am still kicking myself for not including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on it. That was an incredible movie.
Ezra:
I am in the process of planning my wedding for this summer and I find myself very much dreading the first dance. I have never danced seriously in my life and the idea of solemnly swaying with my recently consecrated wife in front of 100+ friends and family is truly excruciating. Is this just a thing everyone does? Is it normal to find that horrifying? Is there any advice one can be given for this? My fiancée, for the record, is agnostic about it. But I fear she is trying to be kind and leave me an opportunity to bail on it.
It’s perfectly fine to be nervous about the first dance at your wedding. Everyone will be looking at you, which isn’t fun if you’re the self-conscious type. But let me tell you a couple things that might hopefully ease your mind.
1. No one at any wedding can dance.
2. No one at the reception is judging your dance moves out there, because they’re all drunk and horny.
3. It’s more charming if your first dance is slightly awkward anyway.
4. You, newly married, will be too overjoyed to care about your own dance moves. You’ll also probably be drunk.
I’m no Solid Gold dancer, which is why my then-fiancée signed us up for a free ballroom dancing lesson prior to our wedding in 2002. We went to some little dance studio in town, where a young Czech dude gave us a few remedial dance steps to run through. You give it a try, even if you hate the idea of trying. That’s marriage in a nutshell, baby. All of our wedding dance photos turned out goofy and awkward. I don’t give a shit.
Bernie:
I think it’s pretty neat that kickers are smashing insanely long field goals, but I also think it’s pretty lame that teams can easily kick a game winning or tying field goal when barely crossing the 59-yard line. How about special kicking balls with laces on both sides that would make it more difficult for the holder? This is a stupid idea that will never happen, but I think it would be fun!
You’re overthinking it. As Matthew Coller explained to us on The Distraction last month, kickers are nailing attempts from 900 yards out because the NFL changed its K ball rules this season so that kickers could doctor the ball anyway they see fit. They can blow ‘em up real big (Tom Brady would never), scuff ‘em up with a belt sander, and then poach them in red wine if they like. As a result, the 2025 K ball bears only passing resemblance to all other game balls. Vikings kicker Will Reichard only missed two field goals this season. The first miss happened because, infamously, the ball hit a wire midflight. But Reichard missed his second kick because, due to an in-game time crunch, he wasn’t able to use his preferred K ball. So if you’d like to put a governor on Reichard, Cam Little, and all their peers, all you have to do is change the K ball rules back to the way they were.
I don’t know if I’d prefer it that way. I get Bernie’s gripe that the surge kicking makes it too easy for otherwise moribund offenses to get a cheap three points. I also don’t like that coaches are now incentivized to settle for long range field goals the second they cross midfield. But I also like points, and I like seeing balls get kicked real far. You see my dilemma. Honestly, none of this would be a problem if NFL offenses just learned how to pass the ball again.
Alex:
Recently, I drove past a new restaurant in my hometown that called itself a "bistro," and I realized that the name "bistro" doesn't intrigue me the same way a "diner" or "grill" would. But I'm more interested in a bistro than I would be in a new "eatery" or "cafe." How would you rank your interest in a place based on how it describes itself? Also, I should mention that I later ended up trying the bistro and had an excellent banh mi, which means I definitely can't trust my own rankings.
When I see the word “bistro,” I automatically think “shitty hotel restaurant.” Now a trattoria? Whole ‘nother story.
Email of the week!
Bion:
In college, I had to do a paper on the breakup of the old AT&T telephone monopoly. I can’t remember now if it was a good or bad thing. Luckily, our great Regulators and Legislators solved the problem and giant evil monopolies are no longer an issue in the tech industry. Also, this story is about pooping.
I got a dense tome from the library about AT&T and decided the best place to start reading it was the can. After finishing (pooping, not the book), I looked down. To my horror, there was blood—my blood—everywhere. The water was red. Worse, I had left the book open on the ground and blood had splattered all over the pages (I stood up to wipe back then; why?)
My mother was a public librarian; I respect library property. But this book cost more than a textbook. Panicked, I told my dorm RA, who gently proceeded to laugh his ass off. “You look like you had your period.” Gracious guy. He also said to go to the student health clinic, and I did.
As for the book, I returned it without comment. It got restacked and probably sat there for the next 10 years, eventually disintegrating into dust, some of it red. I still dread the day the late fees come due. I can’t afford it.
Your secret, and your late fees, are safe with me.
