Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about smoking, swingers, eating fishing lures, and more.
Your letters:
Peter:
Wouldn’t a two-way player in football be more of a risk? More snaps equals more wear and tear, more chance for injury. I’m not saying Travis Hunter’s a bad pick, but I don’t think his two-way ability should be valued as high as it is.
I don’t agree. This has been a painfully quiet pre-draft season, making "Can Travis Hunter really do this?" just about the only lively conversation topic to be had. So let’s have that conversation right now.
Travis Hunter wants to be a full-time corner and a full-time wideout when he gets to the NFL. No one can agree on whether or not he should be allowed to try. In fact, anonymous league execs can’t even agree on which side of the ball he should prioritize. My gut reaction was like Peter’s above, and it’s a logical one: In today’s NFL, it’s not physically or mentally possible to play full-time on both sides of the ball for 17 games a season. You’ve seen how damaging football is on mere one-way players, and you know how complex these schemes can be to master. Force Travis Hunter to play 1,500 snaps a year and to attend 50 position meetings a week, and you’ll burn him out before his rookie contract is even up. Much shrewder to park him on one side of the ball and then have him do spot duty on the other side as a little treat. That makes sense, right? That’s the safe move.
Now how you do you, the football fan, usually react when your team makes a safe choice? I bet you’re annoyed. And how do you react when there’s a key down and you notice, before the snap, that the best player on your team isn’t on the field? What if that player happened to be this freak of nature?
That we’re having this debate at all should tell you how uncommon a talent Hunter is. His PFF grades on either side of the ball were nearly identical. He’s the best corner in this draft by far and the best wideout in this draft by far. And yet we’re talking about this as if it’s a DILEMMA instead of what it really is. Take it away, Mike Tanier:
There’s also a chance that Hunter develops into one of the greatest players in NFL history and ushers in a new era of two-way athletes who change how football is played, coached and scouted. It’s a small chance, but not an infinitesimal one. But go ahead, teams atop the draft board, and draft Abdul Carter instead because Hunter’s backpedal isn’t smooth enough, or because you need an edge rusher more than the one player who truly deserves the generational talent label. Yes, Carter is the safer pick and easier to project. Super Bowl teams are rarely built out of safe, easy projections.
Most vital, think about Hunter as a FAN, and not as a self-appointed draftnik. Don’t you want to see this guy try to be the first iron-man player in 60 years? Don’t you want to watch him get 135 yards, two touchdowns, and two picks all in the same game? And do you really care if that might adversely affect the Browns if they let him try it? What, like the Browns were gonna win the Super Bowl by restricting this guy to corner when they’ve been sucking tailpipe their whole existence? Fuck that shit.
After Deion Sanders and Brian Jordan hung it up, I assumed that was the end of the multi-purpose superstar. I’d never live to see another Bo Jackson. Another true freak. Meanwhile, Shohei Ohtani went to MLB and started doing things that no other baseball player has done in a literal century. Now here’s one of the greatest prospects in football history, with tape that screams I can do anything. He might not be able to handle the mental and physical toll, but shouldn't he get to decide if it's worth the attempt? If Travis Hunter believes he can do the impossible, it's worth seeing if he really can. If he can't handle the load, you dial it back. But if he CAN handle it, well then I'm more than ready to see something I’ve never seen before.
Michael:
How many fishing lures could you eat? I'll leave it open ended.
Well wait, are the hooks still on them? Because I’m not eating a fishhook. If I snag a fishhook just on my fingertip, I cry for days. No chance I’m gonna let one get lodged in my esophagus. So let’s de-hook all of these lures before Joey Chestnut and I go head-to-head. Call me a chickenshit if you like. It’s all too accurate.
To eat a fishing lure, I’d have to swallow it down with some water. I could do that. I swallow enough pills every day to fill a fucking candy dish, and my nightly Lipitor pill is so big that it could stanch a flood. I’ve swallowed 10 (prescribed) pills all in one gulp before. And my tenure as a binge drinker gave me even greater throat dexterity to work with. So I’m gonna go the full keyboard warrior and claim that I could choke down a dozen fishing lures before tapping out. That’s right, a dozen. Have Brad Bassmaster from Montana thread those lures himself if you like. I’ll gobble them right up and then, six hours later, experience the most painful bowel movement of my lifetime. I’m not afraid. Bring it on, fishie.
Matt:
Will self-driving cars become the new popular horror movie subjects?
That would have happened already if it was going to, right? Hollywood runs on dead concepts, so “Christine, but it’s a Waymo!” pitches itself. And yet, I see no such piece of shit movie on my Netflix menu. How can this be?
Well, you probably already know that Apple has a policy in place that none of their original shows/movies can portray Apple products in a negative light. That’s just one bit of corporate self-censorship that we know about, but I promise you there are hundreds more where that came from, with every streamer and studio forbidding criticism of any modern tech either because they make it, or because they’re backed by the people who do. None of these companies want to piss off the wrong people. It’s like putting Chuck Schumer in charge of show business, and guess what? It blows.
In fact, Adolescence is the first show I ever watched that felt like it was set in THIS world, and not in some imaginary realm where smartphones are incidental to people’s lives and every villain is the Joker instead of an everyday Texan. That’s why that show became a sensation (the fact that it was extremely well done also helped). But it’s only one show, and we only got four episodes of it. There should be entire genres of this kinda shit thriving all over the place, and instead every other release is Marvel’s The Marvel Gang. What a load. Gimme a movie where Stephen Graham plays Elon Musk and gets mowed down Inglourious Basterds-style at the end.
Also, if I myself ever made a movie about self-driving cars, it would be about a man who falls in love with his Waymo and tries to fuck it. Because I was a big fan of the Waymo experience, so I’m happy to dream up a story where I take that enjoyment one step too far.
Todd:
You have a Wikipedia page. Be honest: does it feel kinda cool in an "I've made it" kinda way?
Part of me felt like a big shot when I first saw it, because that was back when I tracked my every online mention obsessively. I bookmarked the Google search for my name and checked it every day. I also had my last name as a saved search on Twitter, and I’d check THAT every day, if not every hour. If anyone anywhere was talking about me, I wanted to know about it. Made me feel important. Such is the allure of clout-chasing.
Another part of me was worried when I saw that I had a Wikipedia entry, because I’ve always been vigilant about my personal security. Here was a destination page that anyone could edit (NOTE: I have never tried to edit my own Wiki; scout’s honor), that could contain personal information I didn’t want known, and could have lots of erroneous shit in it. Over the course of my career, I’ve had death threats lobbed my way and I’ve had trolls track down my wife’s employer to report me as a threat to children. So I’ve always been wary of becoming a little too well known, and too easily known. I know that’s hypocritical given my constant need for attention, but we all have lines we try to walk.
Fast forward to now and I never search my name online anymore, because that’s just asking for pain. I got rid of my search bookmarks, and I turn off my Bluesky mentions whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed with people talking at me, positively or otherwise. Turns out my ego has its limits. Meanwhile, I checked my Wiki recently and it’s both correct and also quite lovely. That doesn’t make me feel like a god, it just makes me feel relieved. Relief is a precious resource in 2025. I lap it up anywhere I can find it.
Matt:
What's your go-to if you crack an awesome joke, but nobody was paying attention? Do you hold onto it for a later, better time, or do you repeat the line immediately, only louder?
None of the above. Once a joke is out, it’s out. If it didn’t land, it’s gone. There’s no salvaging it. Take it from a guy who could silence any keg party with a repeated joke attempt. The second you try, it has the same effect as trying to explain a joke. “I said, ‘That guy looks like he’s got bigger breasts than a Perdue farm!’” You have to let the joke go and move on. Nothing else to be done…
Unless you decide to post that joke online. My Bluesky feed consists almost entirely of jokes I can’t sell to my wife and kids. If they actually liked my bits, I’d never have to be online at all.
Carolyn:
New-ish F1 fan here. I live on the west coast and am in no way British, so do I say "gare-age" or "guh-rahj"? American "garage" feels wrong, but without an accent I have no business saying "gare-age," do I?
I have no idea. Is this like when Jim Nantz pronounces the word amateur as “ammiter” at The Masters, because that’s proper golf-ese or something? I bet this is strictly a matter of feel. I don’t pronounce amateur all weird like Nantz does, but I do use the standard British-isms when I’m talking about soccer: pitch, nil, draw, match, (but, humorously, not “football”). Those terms feel correct, enough that I’d be embarrassed to flip on my Big Dumb American switch and tell everyone at Nevada Smith’s, “I think this game might go to overtime, bros!” I have no business being that ignorant.
I try to do as the Romans do with my sports, but figuring out what’s proper and what’s a strain isn’t always clear. That’s why, for F1, I’d probably start off saying garage the American way until it became clear that I was the only person, American or otherwise, doing so. Then I’d whisper “gare-age” as necessary and smack myself in the face afterward.
HALFTIME!
Leo:
A lot of my co-workers have Helly Hansen rain gear and suggested I try to find some. Their logo is HH. I'm SUPER not cool with that. Am I overreacting? I know my co-workers are definitely not Nazis and I don't judge them for their gear, but I'm personally on the fence about it, mainly cause I'm an aging punk. I'm being stupid, right?
You are. I took my kids skiing this winter and every worker on the mountain was outfitted in Helly Hansen. Not once that day was I like, Oh shit, that 22-year-old lift operator might be down with Hitler! I’m an educated man. I know when people are signifying their love of Hitler and when they’ve paid $400 for a pair of bibs. Not that tough to parse. America is the proudest, stupidest country on earth right now, but most of us living here can still tell the difference between an upscale lifestyle brand and a genocidal signifier. That sense of object permanence may disappear from the population in a year or so. But for now, good rain gear is good rain gear.
Brian:
I’m typing this in an airplane bathroom. Not the greatest dumping ground, but far from the worst. The worst place I’ve ever pooped was a porta potty in a crowded tailgating area at the end of the day following the Georgia/Florida football game. It was like entering the bowels of hell through the bowels of hell. My only saving grace was I was only about ten minutes away from blacking out. Where is the most disgusting place you’ve had to go?
A hospital bedpan. Not only do you have to shit your bed, but you’re surrounded by multiple people watching you do it. I don’t have vivid memories of this, because I was still in a druggy fog when I was stuck in the hospital for a month and change. But the fragments I’ve retained of the bedpan process are bad enough: arching my back, a hard rim of plastic digging into my buttocks, a poor nurse wiping me clean because I’m too out of it to do it myself. I’d rather shit in The Worst Toilet In Scotland than go through all of that again. Nurses are our most valuable citizens.
Barry (not Petchesky):
You very famously gave up something you loved, drinking. My bugaboo isn’t drinking, but cigarettes. Everyone in my family gave up smoking, but I can't and I don't understand why. When I don't smoke or even think about not smoking, I start to bounce off the walls. I go crazy. Drew, you gave up something you loved. How did you do that? How do I do the thing I think I cannot do? I feel so ashamed and weak knowing that American Spirit company owns my ass. I've never had a problem doing things to take care of myself, but this has got me by the balls. Please give me some words of wisdom.
I quit drinking because my head exploded. I didn’t want that to happen again, which made going Cali sober easy. But there are safer ways to kick a lethal habit and you, Barry, already WANT to kick that habit. In my experience, wanting to quit something gets you 90 percent of the way there. My folks quit smoking cold turkey in the 1970s, with my mom keeping an unlit cigarette in her hand for a while afterward so she’d have something in her hand. I remember her telling me that part. Such hacks might work for you, but it’s 2025 and you have many more avenues to quit smoking than my parents had. I don’t know what you’ve tried and what you haven’t, but here’s a checklist in case you need it:
-Support groups
-Therapy/anti-depressants
-Chantix (RIP Ray Liotta)
-Nicorette patches
-Nicorette gum
-Regular gum
-Downshift to vaping (which is bad for you but less so)
-Downshift to weed (non-working hours)
There’s no guarantee that any of these methods will work, but they’re all worth trying if everything else has failed. More important, forgive yourself if you fail. You shouldn’t feel ashamed or weak for your cigarette addiction. We all have our weaknesses. You’re in a bad spot, but beating yourself up over getting there won’t help. Instead of feeling like a failure, find your determination. You want to quit, and you’re willing to try anything to do it. So make a plan and set some hard goals. You still might fail, but at least you won’t feel like a failure as a person if you do.
Patrick:
Are you aware of the "pineapple decoration means we're swingers" trend in home decor? I feel this has ruined the perfectly good pineapple. Now every time I see a throw pillow, decorative pineapple wall art, or a pineapple shaped water pitcher, I have to wonder if I'm about to be invited into an awkward situation. Am I overreacting or is there something to it?
I have never heard of this trend, but it won’t dissuade me from wanting to eat pineapple. And I won’t be thrown off if I see pineapple wallpaper in some random person’s bathroom. Those people aren’t gonna suddenly demand I take part in an orgy, and do you know why? Because no one has EVER invited me to an orgy. What a load of shit. I watched Bruno. I know what real swingers look like. Those people aren’t too good for me; they should be HONORED to have me as part of their Tuesday night gangbang. What were we talking about again?
Oh right, tropical fruit as sex coding. Patrick, I did my research (googled it) and it’s the upside-down pineapple that apparently signifies that certain people are open to swinging and other forms of hanky-panky. Right-side up pineapples should not trigger you, unless you are hungry. And if you DO spot one of these DTF signifiers in another person’s home, that means they’re open to fucking around; it doesn’t mean they’re gonna dragoon you into a spontaneous fuckfest right there on the spot. So just chill out and remember to eagerly gossip about those fuck-starved exurbanites after you leave their house.
Adam:
I'm a lifelong Philly sports guy who moved to San Francisco a few years ago. I'm not trying to find a new favorite team, but it would be nice to feel some local team affiliation. I have two young boys who are probably going to grow up to be Warriors fans or something (God help me; at least Draymond will be retired and gone by then). What's the most respectable organization to root for these days in the City by the Bay? More broadly, is it even acceptable for a grown ass man in his 40's start following a new team? It feels like I'm starting a second family or something.
I’m surprised your Philly fans roots even allow for the idea. The average Philly transplant flies Eagles flags from their SUV, forces their kids to memorize directions to the nearest Wawa, and greets every neighbor with, “Philly fans did NOT boo Santa Claus, that’s a myth.” Alas, you appear to be a normal person, which is out of character for Philly but a welcome surprise to the rest of us. Will adopting a Bay Area team to follow tarnish your reputation? Well, let’s check out the options:
Sharks - I’m too ignorant about hockey and too East Coast Biased to know if the Sharks are widely despised. I assume they aren’t. I assume they’re just another NHL team to most people, which makes them safe to root for. But you have to like hockey, and you have to afford hanging out in San Jose, which is apparently the most expensive city in America now. Not sure that’s worth the effort. Speaking of which…
49ers - You have to schlep to Santa Clara to watch this team and then pray that your seats aren’t on the Death Valley side of the stadium. And what do you get for your efforts? A bunch of 21st century choke artists who are hollowing out their roster just so they can pay their munchkin QB $55 million a year. Plus you have to deal with old people like me accusing you of being a frontrunner, even though the glory days of this franchise came two generations ago.
Warriors - The only Warriors fan I that ever got on my nerves was Kevin Draper, and that’s only because I had to work with him. Otherwise, I still consider the Warriors to be cool because of Steph. They also tend to win more than the other teams in the area do. Draymond is a sack of shit, but even Dubs fans hate him now. I think. Given that I write for SFGATE, I should probably fact check that.
Giants - Their owner is a remarkable piece of shit. But the stadium is gorgeous, the unis are cool, and you get to adopt a new enemy in Dodgers fans, who are roundly despised. If you’re adopting a new team in the Bay Area, the Giants seem like the safest—not to mention least costly—way to go. Just don’t plan on them being relevant anytime soon. Same goes for...
Valkyries - They're an expansion team, so they might be fucking terrible. But at least they have a clean slate and no Draymond.
J:
I recently had major GI surgery (will make a full recovery). As a part of it I'll spend the next few months with an ostomy bag on my stomach for me to do my business into. This is mostly just an annoyance, but one of the major changes is that I no longer have to excuse myself to drop a deuce. Passing into the bag is a silent and pretty much unnoticeable process, which brings me to my question: have I been given the greatest disrespectful move possible? Is there any coming back from, "your point was so stupid I literally took a shit while you were making it?"
Well yeah, because I can just shoot back that I’m not the one shitting into a bag. Gird yourself for such rejoinders. Also, be sure to thank your nurses.
Email of the week!
John not Jeff:
As a lifelong Loveline/Adam Carolla/Dr. Drew fan, it's been a bummer to see what that legacy has turned into. However, Carolla has a condo in Malibu, and he was displaced by the fires for a few weeks. Once he was granted access back to his complex (which was spared), he started a video blog showing the devastation in the entire area. I thought it would be just a bunch of his current schtick, and complaining about Gavin Newsom, or some shit. But, the vlogs are really good! He talks about the architecture of all the houses that burned down around him. He examines the burned out exotic cars. His series with the Army Corps of Engineers was fascinating. I had NO idea what those people even do, and I learned a lot! I may not be on the same wavelength anymore with someone like Carolla, but it's also okay to appreciate very good and informative content from that same person, right?
P.S. You referred to me as "Jeff" in an E-mail of the Week a few months back (my name is not Jeff). I sent a screenshot of it to my best friend, whose name IS Jeff, and said, "Congrats, fucker, on your undeserved E-mail of the Week Award.” He's a subscriber. He was dying laughing.
Oh wow, these videos ARE good! In the macro, Carolla is still a bag of shit. But I’m glad he carved out time to be an actual person for this. Congrats on your DESERVED email of the week award, John.
And to Jeff: you watch your ass.
