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. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, through here.
The 2024 Minnesota Vikings are not going to win the Super Bowl. Mathematically speaking, they have a definitive chance (4.4 percent, according to FTN) of pulling the feat off, but they remain something of an afterthought among title contenders because of the teams above them (Detroit and Kansas City, most notably), because of their history of coming up short in big moments, and because of their current starting quarterback. This starting quarterback.
I haven’t written about Sam Darnold in over a calendar month, which is an act of Herculean restraint on my part, given what he’s done in the intervening weeks. After doing his best Nathan Peterman impression in a desultory 12-7 win over Jacksonville, Darnold has thrown 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions in four subsequent victories. The last of those wins, a 42-21 paddling of the Falcons, featured Darnold going 22-for-28 for 347 yards and five touchdowns: a stat line that no Vikings QB has posted since Daunte Culpepper did it two decades ago. Darnold currently leads the league in PFF’s big-time throws grade. Among starting QBs, he ranks third overall in total TD passes, passer rating, and adjusted yards per attempt. And he’s only just begun to make full use of having Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and T.J. Hockenson at his disposal. This man is becoming a fucking stud, just as he was meant to be when the Jets drafted him at No. 3 overall seven years ago.
I should be unreasonable about all of this right now. I should be booking plane tickets to NOLA, clearing out room on my mantel for replica Lombardi trophies, and screaming THIS IS OUR YEAR to random people at the grocery store. I should be a giant, insufferable asshole. Or, at least, more so than I usually am. After all, going full sports bro is how I’ve usually comported myself whenever the Vikings have put themselves in contention.
But I haven’t done any of that this season, because I know how fleeting all of this is. I don’t mean that in a sentimental way; I mean it in terms of cold, hard business. Darnold is currently on a one-year deal. He was signed exclusively as a temp QB, and rookie J.J. McCarthy was on the verge of taking his job in the preseason before McCarthy got a visit from the injury fairy and ended up on IR for the rest of the year. McCarthy is talented and cheap. Darnold will only be one of those things after this season is over.
This rendered the 2024 Vikings disposable compared to other seasons. Their marriage to Darnold was one of convenience, which eliminated the possibility of them winning Super Bowl LICKS, much less even coming close to it. This wasn’t like the previous six years in Minnesota, when I had to contort my imagination into Windsor knots to picture Darnold’s thoroughly ordinary predecessor, Kirk Cousins, magically turning into Kurt Warner somewhere around November. I could get all hyped for the 2025 version of this team, but I didn’t have to get too attached to the 2024 vintage.
I still haven’t, and I’m not alone. Purple Darnold jerseys are still a rare sight at the Vikings stadium. Minnesota front office staffers and coaches refuse to verbally commit to Darnold beyond this season. And even Darnold himself doesn’t seem interested in campaigning to keep his job. If the Vikings win a Super Bowl this season, then all parties involved will revisit the conversation and the take industrial complex can go into full effect. But again, that remains statistically (and cosmically) unlikely. So this is a summer fling for everyone involved. Zero attachments. Teammates with benefits.
And you know what? It fucking rocks.
To be an NFL fan is to constantly exist in alternate universes. If your team sucks, you’re already living in the 2025 offseason. If your team is good right now, you’re already living in your postseason daydreams in your free time. If you’ve just suffered a brutal loss (hello Cowboys), you’re sliding a door and watching a game where they DON’T muff a punt they just blocked, or lose that one dude to injury, or miss that field goal. The fantasy involved with being an NFL fan is a full-time job, often because that fantasy is more enjoyable than your team’s reality. Unless you’re attempting to erect a shoddy defense mechanism for a coming loss, no fan wants to temper their expectations.
The problem is that expectations in the NFL are, by definition, demands. If I say to you, “I expect us to beat Chicago on Monday night,” what I’m really saying is, We better win that game or else I’ll fucking kill someone. This goes beyond football. If I tell my kid, “I expect you to be home by sundown,” I’m not offering any wiggle room. If Seamless tells me to expect my food delivered between 6:15-6:30, I am visibly pissed if it doesn’t arrive in that window. Expectations no longer communicate belief. They’re orders, with a helping of paternalism on the side.
So what happens when you root for a team that, through some truly unique circumstances, has removed the burden of expectations from your psyche? I didn’t think this current Vikings roster was good enough to win the Super Bowl before the season, and I still don’t. Their interior OL remains shoddy, their defensive backfield is thin and old, they can never run a successful trick play, and their short yardage game is atrocious. Thanks to his dragon arm, Sam Darnold has given me tacit permission to ignore those issues and to start doing all of the tired, “I’m ready to have my heart broken again” shit that fans of star-crossed teams are wont to do. But I haven’t. I like being free of expectations. I like asking nothing of my team and then seeing what they do without my fanboy bullshit weighing them (and me) down.
In return, I’ve gotten a team that plays free. These Vikings are made up almost entirely of deep balls and defensive abandon: a team that dances like no one is watching. That attitude, plus a historically good free agent class from the previous offseason (which netted Darnold, Aaron Jones, Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman, Andrew Van Ginkel, Shaq Griffin and Stephon Gilmore), has led to an 11-2 record that, with a plus-99 net point differential, is anything but illusory. No one expected the Vikings to be this good, especially me. Lowering my expectations has paid off quite handsomely.
So I’m content to keep those expectations right where they are. I’m not looking too far ahead, not even past the next game on the schedule. If they let Sam walk after this season, job well done, my son. If they keep him around, well then something pretty cool must have happened. At the same time, I’m not carrying the psychic baggage of this franchise’s past with me whenever they turn the ball over (they do it a lot) or miss a kick (not quite as much as they used to). I’m just here to enjoy the ride, man. I’m just here to watch some football.
And football, on its own, has been no small gift to me this year. I’ve been through some shit in 2024 (as perhaps you also have), so I really have needed sports to be my safe haven from losing loved ones and watching the world burn. The first good football game I watched this season was a Labor Day matchup between LSU and USC, two teams that would eventually prove irrelevant to the national title race. I didn’t care about either of those teams' prospects then, and still don’t. I only wanted to see them claw each other’s eyes out from kickoff to final whistle, and they did. It filled my heart with the purest joy.
Then the Vikings season opened with them destroying the moribund Giants, and they’ve only improved since then. I have more years behind me than I do ahead of me, which means that I only have so many football seasons left to experience. To watch. To win. To lose. To feel. And thanks to Sam Fucking Darnold, of all people, I have learned to stop living in alternate football universes and let the beauty of now wash all over me. It makes the wins sweeter, and it makes both the losses and the inevitable, hacky taunts in the wake of those losses easier to shrug off. Whether or not you believe I’m staying this centered is immaterial. The only thing that matters is that I know I’m having a good time. And that’ll remain true even if Darnold can’t bring my team deep into the playoffs. He probably won’t. I know that. I also know that I love this team more than just about anything. They’re not gonna win the Super Bowl this year, but fuck me if it hasn’t been a blast watching them try. Enlightening, even.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
Bills at Lions: My sons now have inside jokes about my wife and me. I don’t know what those jokes are (hence the “inside” part), all I know is that whenever one of us grownups says something at the dinner table, these two miscreants will give each other a knowing look and then giggle under their breath. What’s so funny, gentlemen? Is it that I eat my fried chicken like I just got a tummy tuck undone? Is it that Mom just gave everyone an update on a neighbor none of us even knew existed? Is it because I’m not wearing a shirt? WHY DON’T YOU TELL THE WHOLE FAMILY WHAT’S GIVING YOU SUCH A CHUCKLE?
Four Throwgasms
Steelers at Eagles: There’s a chance these teams meet in the Super Bowl, at which time our national USDA allowance of Pennsylvania will have been exceeded. I’m afraid that we’ll have to nuke the entire state, twice, to bring PA levels back down to something more tolerable.
Also, the Eagles can’t pass the ball for shit.
Packers at Seahawks
Three Throwgasms
Rams at 49ers: The fabled “team you’d hate to see in the playoffs” team has always been a canard. That said, I want no part of the Rams in January. Puka Nacua is a fucking alien. No thank you.
Bucs at Chargers
Two Throwgasms
Chiefs at Browns: I don’t know why I have multiple thoughts on this game, but I do. Now you shall be forced to endure them. Please read all of these in Larry King’s voice:
- I honestly can’t tell if Patrick Mahomes’s mouthguard is a mouthguard or if he’s just on Invisalign.
- 2020 already proved that the Chiefs can’t do important Chiefs stuff in the postseason if their left tackle is a Dyson vacuum.
- I can’t watch Isaiah Pacheco come back from a broken leg without thinking of Greg Jennings, and now you can’t either. Loogit that shit.
- I don’t like the idea of Jerry Jeudy suddenly turning into a viable NFL receiver. It was much more enjoyable to dump on him for being a slob. You get back to sucking this instant, young man!
- Is it me or are refs announcing penalties to the crowd faster than they used to? I like it.
Cowboys at Panthers
Dolphins at Texans
Patriots at Cardinals
Colts at Broncos
Commanders at Saints
One Throwgasm
Bengals at Titans: Let’s all watch Calvin Ridley take the ball out of bounds short of the sticks on third down, when he easily could have turned upfield and gotten the first. Maybe even scored a touchdown. Did the Titans convert the ensuing fourth down? I think you know the answer.
"I thought it was a Cover 2 look. The corner was already over there, waiting on me. So when I got over there, I took a picture of him, and then I just lost track of him. I thought someone was on me."
Maybe you should have, you know, LOOKED AT ALL THE FUCKING OPEN FIELD DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU before coming to that assumption, eh Cal? We have a potentially unprecedented number of teams that are currently in Operation Shutdown: Browns, Bears, Raiders, Jets, Giants, Jaguars, Saints, Falcons (starting Sunday). But for my money, those naughty little Titans are the most checked out of the bunch. They just hired this coach, by the way.
Jets at Jaguars: LT Tyron Smith is no longer a Dallas Cowboy, nor a good player. But he remains, in my mind, one of the most intimidating arm brace guys in league history. Look at this mecha-lineman in action:
I know that sporting an arm brace means that you are injured, perhaps critically. That doesn’t stop you from looking MEAN AS SHIT with one adorning your arm. Or one on each arm! Every time I see a big arm brace guy out there in the trenches, I think to myself, What if that guy clubbed me with his cyberarm? Man, I bet that would hurt so fucking bad. Knee braces make you look like Tiny Tim. Arm braces make you looks like Robocop.
Bears at Vikings
Falcons at Raiders
Ravens at Giants
Pregame Song That Makes Me Wanna Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall
“Jump And Run,” by We Butter The Bread With Butter! Hey, that’s how I butter MY bread, too! Amazing. Here’s reader Kevin:
Check this shit out. All of their songs are batshit crazy, but I feel this one has that special touch that readers will enjoy.
I know I did. I think all of you are now aware of how much I’m enjoying the recent trend in Eurotrash disco metal, which means that We Butter The Bread With Butter is now officially a “band to watch” in my personal orbit.
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 potential 2024 chopping block:
Robert Saleh—FIRED!
Dennis Allen—FIRED!
Matt Eberflus—FIRED!
Doug Pederson*
Brian Daboll*
Mike McCarthy
Antonio Pierce
Zac Taylor
Kevin Stefanski
Shane Steichen
Brian Callahan
(*potential midseason firing)
If you thought that Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi was one of the feel-good stories of firing season, here’s a video of him primed beat the unholy shit out of his punter for missing a lane assignment:
Dan Campbell was a Saints assistant before Detroit hired him. I don’t quite see Rizzi’s career arc having that same upward trajectory. That guy is staying a special teams coach until he’s 90.
Great Moments In Poop History
Reader Ken sends in this story I call THE POOPALIST:
As an erstwhile holder of a green card (which, for me, was actually pink) in my early 20s, I was very excited to finally go through the process of obtaining my US citizenship. I was walking from the train station to the local field office when I got that familiar funny feeling churning in my guts. I tried farting a couple of times to try and relieve the pain, but sure enough, a bit of the squirts got past my defenses. I froze in my tracks and, for whatever reason, had visions in my head of all the previous times I had shat my pants (two other times, once in college and another time in high school).
I quickly duckwalked to the office, got past security while wondering if they could smell my ass, and then exploded in the toilet. Only afterwards was I able to assess the damage, which wasn't as bad as I'd hoped. I cleaned up to the best of my abilities, then proceeded to answer some pretty easy questions about the federal and local government. All the while, I still wondered if anyone could smell my filth.
The upshot is that I'm a citizen now! USA! USA!
And people say this isn’t the greatest country in the world anymore. Lies!
And Now Let’s Go Down To The Sideline And Check In With Charissa Thompson
“Drew, I just got finished talking to Luigi Mangione in his holding cell and I asked him, ‘Why’d you go to McDonald’s after killing that man?' Luigi told me that particular McDonald’s, located in Altoona, Pa., is a good luck charm. ‘I always stop there after shooting a guy,’ he said. He told me he gets the same order every time, too: a Big Mac, a large order of fries, and a Reese’s McFlurry. When I asked Mangione what he does if the McFlurry machine isn’t working when he visits, he gave me a wink and made a little pistol sign with his right hand. ‘Somehow the machine always works when I’m there,’ he told me, smiling. Now all of Altoona is smiling with him. Back to you, Drew.”
Thank you, Charissa.
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Bud Zero. I put a peanut butter stout in this section last week and readers were like, Hey man, that beer isn’t cheap, and it’s good! I’m sure all of that is true, but I also ran out of beer submissions from readers and that was the only unread one I had left in my inbox. Crowdsourcing ain’t what it used to be. Anyway, if you find a cheap beer in your travels, send it my way.
As for Bud Zero, it does exactly what it says on the label. I like cheap beer for the taste of it, and that remains true even now, when I drink only near beer. Make it nice and watery, baby. That’s my kinda brew.
Gameday Movie Of The Week For Giants Fans
Avengement, which doesn’t sound like an actual word but IS yet another masterpiece of ownage from our man Scott Adkins, whose allowed to go the full chav for this one. The plot is straight off of Guy Ritchie’s desktop, with Adkins playing a hardened convict who busts out of jail to track down his brother at a seedy pub and settle their outstanding beef once and for all. Many asses are kicked to bring you this story. And major bonus points to Adkins for being an honest-to-god, talented actor. Shit, I’d watch this man ply his trade in a Merchant-Ivory film if they cast him in one. Three and a half stars.
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
“What's that building over there?”
“That’s just a TV studio where they film Krusty the Klown and other non-box-related programs. Since it has nothing to do with boxes, I'll just shut these blinds.”
Enjoy the games, everyone. SKOL Vikings.
