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.
I have to start with Bill Belichick. I promise I won’t linger on that washed-up piece of driftwood for very long, but he serves as a useful, if minor, example. Here is Bill Belichick’s official website. It’s a terrible website. The design is so old that I half expected a pop-up alert telling me that I needed to download Flash. And the copy is so weak (example: "In 2000, Belichick led the Patriots to 20 winning seasons") that Belichick’s weird-ass girlfriend probably wrote it herself.
Bill Belichick has many millions of dollars. He owns a fancy boat. He owns several houses on Nantucket. This is a very wealthy man who can afford pretty much anything he desires, including the services of a capable web designer. Instead, Belichick—or one of Jordon Hudson’s 568 LLCs—decided to half-ass it.
“You get what you pay for” is still a worthy admonishment to people who cheap out when they don’t have to, but what about when people DO spend a lot of money but still get a cheap, flimsy product? Well, the answer to that question pretty much explains 21st century America in full.
Because spending money well takes just as much thought and care as earning it. And you, the ultra-rich people of 2025: you have put NO thought into how you spend your dough. None. Zero. And I’m not even factoring in all of the Nazi shit you guys like to splurge on, The Free Press included. I’m talking about shit as basic as a landing page, a home, or a pickup truck. We used to have proper status symbols, you know. The ultra-rich used to spend their money on Rolls Royces, honeymoons in Anguilla, houses with lush mahogany parlors, and priceless works of art. Real high-life shit. Now I gotta read about they just paid $1.1 million for a painting made by a fucking computer. Where’s your dignity, you wrinkly old bats?
I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that our more moneyed citizens once had universally good taste. Donald Trump is 79 years old, after all, and he’s had awful taste since exiting the womb. He can’t even spend this country’s money in a careful, considered manner. But just as Trump believes that making lots of money means he’s good at his job (he isn’t), he also believes that spending lots of money on something automatically makes that something good.
Money is the means to finer things, but not the manufacturer of them. The finer things are usually crafted by people: smart, determined people. These people make a good product, and then they sell it to a buyer who is equally discerning in their tastes. Ample amounts of money go into such exchanges, but the money itself does nothing. The money you spend should be reflected in the quality of whatever you’re buying. This is what we know as VALUE. And people who understand value innately are people who have what we call STANDARDS. These are people who, to borrow from noted elitist Aaron Rodgers, do their own homework.
Our wealthiest 0.1 percent no longer bothers to do any of that homework, and their garbage standards are now filtering down to the masses. America 2025 is a nation of dogshit taste, and that’s reflected in the products we buy, the services we use, and the leaders we vote for. You can’t have nice things if you don’t educate yourself on what nice things actually are.
Which brings us back to Bill Belichick. The University of North Carolina needed to rebuild their woeful football program from scratch, and they had money to burn. So they handed Belichick, who at the time had been doing visibly shoddy work as a head coach in the pros, a contract that guaranteed the coach at least $30 million, no matter how long his tenure in Chapel Hill lasted. They thought that contract, plus the Belichick name, would be enough to make them the new Clemson. Maybe the next time they shop around for a coach, they’ll at least check out his website.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
Chiefs at Bills: In case you haven’t encountered it yet, the NFL has instituted virtual measurements for spotting the ball in close instances. Instead of waiting a few torturous minutes for the refs to bring the chain gang out onto the field to measure, the league just has a computer, probably one powered by AI, do it instead. On paper, it was a decent idea to save some time during gameplay. Here is what it looked like in practice for the Chiefs versus the Commanders a week ago, and guess what? IT BLOWS.
I discounted the bit of cheap suspense that comes with the crew extending the physical chains to take the measurement. I’m not here to whine that the Chiefs get all of the calls (that’s the Packers), or that the Gemini4600 cost Washington the game (they still would have lost). I am strictly here to complain about the aesthetics. I still had to wait for the virtual measurement to come in from … New York? Tacoma? An undisclosed server farm in Western Sahara? And when it finally arrived, it came packaged with shittier graphics than Madden. Are you fucking kidding me, Roger? For the purposes of both transparency and entertainment, fans want to see that measurement taken right in front of them. They don’t want a fifth-inning Jumbotron cartoon doing it behind closed doors.
Thanks to expedited replay, expanded video feed access for coaching staffs up in the booth, and sped-up reviews, I’ve become much more comfortable with the NFL’s replay system. I’m not as old and cranky about it as I was, not even a year ago. But it took a lot of trial and error for the NFL to get there with replay. Here’s another error. It’s a small one, but a small turd is still a smelly one.
Four Throwgasms
Colts at Steelers: Last weekend, the Colts leaked that they’d like to sign Daniel Jones to a big extension. It would be mildly amusing if Jones got paid just like he did in New York and then proceeded to suck absolute shit, just like he did in New York. I’m not actually rooting for that to happen, but I know damn well the possibility of this outcome has crossed your mind, too. In the meantime, let’s all marvel at Jonathan Taylor doing some serious MVP shit. Old man Irsay didn’t wanna pay this guy! WHAT WAS HE ON WHEN HE WAS THINKING THAT?!
Three Throwgasms
Falcons at Patriots: I would prefer to not acknowledge that Josh McDaniels has proven to be a good, if not brilliant, offensive coordinator during his time in New England. So I’mma go ahead and yell at him for calling plays that are bound to get Drake Maye killed. Stop doing that, you weaselly little fuck.
Broncos at Texans: I rooted against Bo Nix and Sean Payton right from the start. This is because Bo Nix came into the league with a whiff of fraudulence, and because Payton is a raging cock. But I’ve been depriving myself in rooting for these two to fail. First of all, the Broncos win some games in truly batshit fashion. Secondly, they don’t even play in my team’s conference. Thirdly, every other traditional AFC powerhouse bores me now. So I’m gonna quietly admire these Broncos from afar, right up until the moment Kansas City beats them by 20 in the Divisional Round.
Seahawks at Commanders
Two Throwgasms
Vikings at Lions: This games makes J.J. McCarthy’s re-debut after the Vikings forced Carson Wentz to play two games and change with a fully dislocated left shoulder and fractured ball socket. They would have put McCarthy back in earlier, but his ankle was only 99.5 percent healthy, so they chose to let Wentz get murdered instead. Wentz is now lost for the season.
Now, in principle, I’m in favor of murdering Carson Wentz. We all are. But even I found Minnesota’s treatment of him to be cruel and unusual. In the process, I gained a whole new respect for Wentz. He’s a lousy player but holy shit, man. Ever hurt your shoulder bad? Ever hurt it so bad that they have to engineer an entirely new form of brace just to hold it together? Ever get sacked 50,000 times after all of that happened? This man earned his veteran minimum and then some. Thank you for your service, Carson. If McCarthy plays well on Sunday, I’ll forget you were ever here.
Ravens at Dolphins: You and I both know that Baltimore is winning the AFC North now, yeah? Just making sure. Was fun while it lasted, Aaron.
Panthers at Packers
Cardinals at Cowboys
49ers at Giants
Bears at Bengals
One Throwgasm
Jaguars at Raiders: The Jets are off this week, but every other one-‘gasm team on this week’s slate is dogshit, so let me use this space to give some love to Aaron Glenn for his locker room speech a week ago:
Because my team stinks right now, I’m not getting my proper RDA of postgame victory speeches out of them. Ergo, I have to live vicariously through other teams’ postgame celebrations for the time being. Aaron Glenn probably won’t turn out to be a very good head coach. He’s too paranoid, and he’s handled his QB situation about as well as his owner has. But folks, this man knows how to drop some most triumphant F-bombs in the wake of improving to 1-7. I have to respect him for that, and for pretty much nothing else.
Meanwhile, if you think that Nick Mangold dying at 41 is sad, you better grab an entire box of Kleenex before you read about how and why he died so young. Mangold had a rare kidney disease that required a transplant, but was unable to find a donor who matched his blood type (O). Because we live in a GoFundMe economy, Mangold had to go on social media to plead for a matching donor. No match got to him in time, and he died as a result. This man wasn’t just an NFL player, but one of the best players on his team for years and years. And still he couldn’t get the help he needed. I’m gonna hug every member of my family right now, the dog included.
Saints at Rams
Chargers at Titans
Pregame Song That Makes Me Wanna Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall
“Dust For Blood,” by Dozer! Not to be confused with Hozier. Here’s Byron with a quick sumup:
Swedish stoner rock with a riff so catchy it was stuck in my head for a week. What's not to like?
Byron is right. This fucking rocks, especially with the stoner visuals embedded above. Why are Swedes so adept at writing catchy hooks? Between Max Martin, ABBA, and these guys, it’s like some kind of Nordic melody cartel. I must learn their secrets, and then flirt with their women.
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*****
Mike McDaniel*
Jonathan Gannon*
Zac Taylor
Mike Tomlin
Brian Schottenheimer
Raheem Morris
Aaron Glenn
Kevin Stefanski
Pete Carroll
Kevin O’Connell
(* - potential midseason firing)
If you watched Giants-Eagles last week, you saw The Many Angry Faces Of Brian Daboll. My favorite bit was the future ex-Giants coach getting hosed on a call (the officiating all game long was atrocious) and then pissedly putting both his hat and his headset back on. Daboll was like, You refs are such pieces of shit! You want me to keep coaching this game? Fine. BUT I’M NOT GONNA LIKE IT, DAMMIT! We have a mild dearth of redass head coaches in the league, so I’m always grateful to see a tree stump like Daboll here continue a dying tradition.
Jim Harbaugh’s Lifehack Of The Week!
“On the field or in the boardroom, victory demands sacrifice. This is why, before every game, I take a razor blade and slit open my palm. I let my blood drip into an eight ounce glass of pure, distilled water, and then I mix it with an electrolyte packet. When my victory cocktail is ready, I hold it up to the sky and say, ‘By the power of God, I spill this blood for thee,” and then I drink the mixture in one swift gulp. That is what God demands of me, every day, no matter the obstacle before me. This is why I can solve any crossword puzzle in less than 90 seconds.”
Great Moments In Poop History
Reader Annie sends in this story I call DAYS OF THUNDERBUTT:
My gentleman friend and I went to walk on the beach, where there were some conveniently placed porta-johns in the parking lot. I availed myself of one and, as I was standing up, heard a terrifying thunk. It was the key fob to our car.
I believed that I’d heard the key fob hit something solid (suggesting that it could be resting in a matrix that was shallow), rather than sink like a stone into the murky excretorial depths. Someone once told me that replacing a key fob costs a couple hundred bucks, so it was time for me to go for the gold.
I took off my jacket. I rolled up my sleeve. I got on my knees and stuck my hand in. My hand hit bottom almost instantly, I had been correct about the nature of the thunk; there was a plastic shelf about six inches under the surface of the fluid, which was the color of Windex but more opaque. Success felt within my grasp, as did wads and wads of toilet paper. I swear I didn’t feel any mass with structural integrity (i.e., shit). Or anyway, not that I remember. It smelled like pee and maple syrup.
I swished and patted, and within about 20 seconds I felt something promising. I pulled it up. My key fob! There was a hand-sanitizer dispenser in the porta-john, and I just about emptied it out over the course of two rounds of rubbing it all over my hands and my key fob.
The key fob still works. We walked on the beach for two hours and it didn’t rain, then we went to lunch and I scrubbed my hands at the restaurant. In the future, if I’m headed into a porta-john with pockets that snap, you bet I will snap them. I will never tell this story to anyone I know.
But you should! Sticking your hand down into a contaminated biff is one of the most daring feats I’ve ever heard of.
Gametime Snack Of The Week
Bringing back this segment for one week just to extol the virtues of a bagel with hummus. When I lived in New York, this was my cheap brunch option. Every Sunday morning, I’d hit up Tal Bagels in Midtown, get an everything bagel with hummus, and then bring it back to my apartment with a copy of the New York Post. When I opened the wrapping paper, the bagel would be covered all over in fresh hummus, even the outside. I didn’t give a shit. I housed that thing within seconds, and then farted all day for the rest of the day. It’s one of my most treasured memories.
So when my in-laws brought over a huge bowl of takeout hummus to go with dinner last week, I used the leftovers on a fresh bagel the next day. Still hit. Both the bagel and the hummus need to be high quality for this thing to work. It doesn’t work with, like, the tray of hummus at a college dining hall. You know the kind of hummus I’m talking about, where it’s kind of grainy? Like it might have sand in it? That’s not gonna elevate the dish. You need the fresh hummus, the kind that goes bad with a day.
By the way, we found out this weekend that my brother-in-law doesn’t like hummus, which almost had me reacting the way other people react when they find out that I don’t like mayonnaise. I was thinking Why don’t you like hummus, man? But I restrained myself. My brother-in-law is a grown man and a solid dude. If he doesn’t like hummus now, I’m not gonna turn it into some big cause.
When he left the house though, my wife and I turned to each other and both said, at the same time, “Holy shit, he doesn’t like hummus!”
Brick Johnson’s Executive Proposal Of The Week
“Dad, I’m going as Zohran for Halloween! I got everything I need: a fake beard, a turban, a couple of toy airplanes, and even a real Uzi that my buddy Disco lent me. Now I just need a fake pilot’s license. Do you have a guy for that? My friend in Tribeca can’t get the photo dark enough.”
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Special Export! A classic of the genre. From Mark:
As a reverse snowbird, I left the Phoenix area to attend college in Minneapolis. This was the late 80s. when the drinking age had just changed from 19 to 21 nationally. I missed the cutoff by two fucking months, but almost all of the bars and liquor stores around campus sold to anyone without carding because they just figured everyone was of age. One of my first nights in the dorm, a buddy bought Special Ex. This was the days before every town in the U.S. had 3,459 micro breweries, so this was very exciting to me. When I saw the label, emblazoned with an old timey ship. I was sold. I spent most of my college weekends playing quarters with a Schlitz Malt Liquor glass (another quality cheap beer) chugging Special Ex. I don't know about the "export" part. But it truly is "special".
You gave to admire them touting the “export” part in the name. Any snobby asshole can order an imported beer. Oh, that one came from Holland? That’s cute. Well MY beer gets exported to Holland. What you think about that, princey boy?!
Gameday Movie Of The Week For Titans Fans
Weapons, which would be just a regular-ass horror movie if it hadn’t been so well acted and directed. Julia Garner plays the lead, and doesn’t have to affect a clumsy accent. Josh Brolin plays a normal person instead of a trigger-happy lunatic. Fake Han Solo plays a hunky cop. And Amy Madigan, who I had not seen in a movie since she begged Kevin Costner not to build a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield, plays the bad guy. That’s a weird cast, but weird casts are the best kind of cast.
All of these actors are very good in Weapons, which is enough to forgive its handful of requisite modern horror film clichés. Do the monsters have Joker makeup on for no real reason? Yes. Are there jump scares where someone looks up at the camera and OMG, their face is all ghoulish and freaky now? Oh yes. I’ve seen that jump scare in every horror movie since The Ring. Studio execs essentially mandate you put one in there for the sake of the trailer. But writer/director Zach Cregger cares more about his characters than about all of that tired shit, which makes a big difference on the screen. Also, the final chase sequence in Weapons is one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year. Three stars.
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
“Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!”
“Ooooh, that's bad.”
“But it comes with a free Frogurt.”
“That's good.”
“The Frogurt is also cursed.”
“That's bad.”
“But you get your choice of topping.”
“That's good.”
“The toppings contain potassium benzoate.”
“…”
“That's bad.”
Enjoy the games, everyone. And Happy Halloween!
