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.
Analytics have made NFL football a better sport. I’ve made some variation of that argument dozens of times in the past, and so have many of my colleagues. Thanks to all the nerdy math nerds crunching the numbers out there, more NFL teams are going for it on fourth down, going for two when they’re down eight points (might be a bad idea), and taking deep play-action shots even when they have a shit running game. All of that is fun and cool. Dan Campbell may never win a Super Bowl, but for his work putting analytics into practice, I’d gladly give him a Hall of Fame jacket and a kiss on the mouth. Analytics, on the whole, are good. Analytics are right. Analytics work.
But not all of them. There is one brand of advanced stats that adds no entertainment value to the sport, and it looks like this:
Probability stats now dominate the life of every sports fan. They’re meant to be predictive, but most of the time they’re telling you shit that you already know. Oh, the Giants have an infinitesimal chance of losing a game where they’re up three scores late? Well, the fact they’re up three scores late kinda clues me in on that. I don’t need analytics to help me interpret something that a scoreboard, on its own, can make perfectly clear. Same deal for the other side of the equation. I don’t need a jumpy line to appreciate what Bo Nix and the Broncos were able to do at the end of that game. All I had to do was, you know, watch. Oh, but if I watch the game in full, how will I keep tabs on all of the other win probability charts for all of the other ongoing games? And why pay attention to any sport in real time when I can simply experience it through the magic of precalculus?
Win probability charts are an easy target for this kind of critique. But you and I also need to pay attention to the more bespoke predictive analytics now being slung around by much more respectable folk. Shit like this:
This one thing happening is likely a numerical fluke, which means that it’s unlikely to happen again is a useful enough insight, interesting and accurate in small doses. I myself will use a stat like this to troll other fanbases. But as a tool to enhance your enjoyment of the games, a stat like this is not only useless, but counterproductive. I do not watch sports because I'm all hyped up to watch pro athletes regress to an established mean. I watch sports FOR the flukes. I’m here to be surprised. I’m here to have all of my expectations blown to shit. Taking the randomness out of football is great if you run a team, like Dan Campbell does. Punch away on that calculator, big dog. But if you just root for a team? Fuck that shit. Randomness is why they play the games, and the game results are the only thing that matter in the end. Final scores might be the only facts left in this whole country that all citizens recognize as legitimate.
Aaron Schatz would agree with me on all that, as would everyone at Pro Football Focus, at the 33rd Team, or inside the nerd wing of Bristol. These are all people who love football for football’s sake, just like I do. So why bother trafficking in a form of analytics that seemingly only exists to negate the football game that you just watched, and partially deprives fans of the right to have their own fun dumb opinions?
Ah right, the whole gambling thing. As my colleague Kathryn Xu noted when ESPN started putting win probability charts on its baseball broadcasts, the underlying motive here is to get sports fans to think more like gamblers. Projection metrics are invaluable to sportsbooks eager to court new wagers. In turn, FanDuel’s ample cash reserves are invaluable to the vast majority of indie football writers and podcasters who need that company’s ad revenue to make a living.
In theory, it’s a symbiotic relationship. Aaron Schatz comes up with an interesting stat about the sustainability of the Bears' offensive success, one of his readers places a bet based on that stat, and the sportsbooks get some return on their investment into the media industry. Predictive metrics sell betting slips, which means all data journalists will be influenced, subconsciously or otherwise, to crank out more of them. In the process, it reduces the game you just experienced—or even just the quarter you experienced—to background data for a gambling addict. Worst of all, it feels lazy after repeated exposures. Every fucking outlier get flagged now. If you don’t gamble, and I don’t, this data is intrusive clutter. If you DO gamble, this data is a honey trap. In either instance, it’s not fun. Certainly not as fun as a head coach going for it on fourth down inside his team’s own 50.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
Packers at Steelers: This is the best matchup on paper this week. On paper. On television, this game means that we have to endure Cris Collinsworth presiding over a game that features both Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love as the starting quarterbacks. There ain’t enough Jergens lotion in the world for Cris to make it through this game without his palm coming clean off of his hand. I suggest you watch a Jared Leto film instead.
Four Throwgasms
Cowboys at Broncos: The Cowboys aren’t a good team, but they are a deeply entertaining one. They have the worst defense on the fucking earth, which means that poor Dak Prescott has to throw for 400 yards every game just to have a chance for them to win. Watching these Cowboys is like switching over mid-afternoon to a Big 12 game that’s 30-28 at halftime. I’m down with that kinda shit. Also, I still hope Jerry falls down an elevator shaft.
Three Throwgasms
Bills at Panthers: This game is only alluring because I have to grade it on a curve. Thanks to six teams being on their bye week, we are about to suffer through the worst slate of games this season has to offer. They should probably splice some porn into the RedZone broadcast out of pity.
Two Throwgasms
Vikings at Chargers: I have one more game to watch before I’m out of Carson Wentz jail. It just happens to be tonight. On the road. On the West Coast. Four days after Jalen Carter forcibly removed the rest of Wentz’s brain from his skullpan. Gonna be a long one.
Commanders at Chiefs
Giants at Eagles
Browns at Patriots
49ers at Texans
Bears at Ravens
Dolphins at Falcons
One Throwgasm
Jets at Bengals: Let’s assume that Tyrod Taylor is starting this game, even if Aaron Glenn is still being pointlessly coy about making it official. My opinion of Tyrod Taylor remains hopelessly stuck in 2017, when the Bills benched him in favor of running joke Nathan Peterman in order to tank their season. I was vehemently pro-Tyrod back then, because Nathan Peterman was Nathan Peterman.
None of it really ended up mattering, because the Bills landed Josh Allen. And yet every time I see Tyrod’s name pop up, I’m like, “That’s the guy the Bills fucked over! He’s pretty good!” Oh, reader. That was five teams ago. Tyrod Taylor is now 36 years old and just threw two hideous picks in mop-up duty against a Panthers defense that hasn’t been good since Luke Kuechly could feed himself. The only time Taylor has ever averaged above 200 yards a game was in Buffalo, and he barely managed it. So the Jets have to bench Justin Fields, but their only alternative is a guy who looks a whole lot like Nathan Peterman these days. I find this terribly cruel.
But also, when I tell you the Jets are fucked at quarterback, they’re like in the seventh circle of fucked. Kevin Stefanski is looking at that QB room like, “Oh thank God that’s not me.”
Titans at Colts: As my team currently resides in last place in the NFC North, I have no right to dump on the Bears’ front office at the moment. HOWEVAH, it’s hard to ignore the whole “They took Colston Loveland instead of Tyler Warren in the draft” thing. Colston Loveland currently has eight receptions for 78 yards on the entire season. Meanwhile, Warren is helping the Colts’ offense suddenly morph into the ’99 Rams. [Troy Aikman voice] I think Ben Johnson would like to have that one back, Joe.
Bucs at Saints
Pregame Song That Makes Me Wanna Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall
“Blast Furnace,” by Fugitive! Submitted by reader Chris:
Fugitive is members of Power Trip and Creeping Death: two extremely good and extremely heavy metal bands over the last 10 years. This song has a driving riff, drums that you can head bang too, and easy lyrics. What more do you need? Satanic Panic quick edits in the video? FUCK YEAH. Fire? PLENTY OF FIRE. Blood? YES!!! Riotous activity? DAMN RIGHT. Listen to this and you will want to commit many crimes!!!
Chris is right. I absolutely want to rob a convenience store right now. I don’t care if they only keep $100 in the safe. I’m gonna loot that joint for Suzy-Q’s anyway (because Suzy-Q’s are back).
By the way, lead singer Seth Gilmore here took over as lead vocalist for Power Trip after original singer Riley Gale died of an overdose five years ago. Seth Gilmore doesn’t look like a heavy metal singer at all. He looks like I just played nine holes with him. But the man knows how to scream, so I must give respect.
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!
Mike McDaniel***********
Jonathan Gannon*
Zac Taylor
Brian Daboll*
Aaron Glenn
John Harbaugh
Kevin Stefanski
Pete Carroll
DeMeco Ryans
(* - potential midseason firing)
DeMeco Ryans built up a lot of goodwill from his first season as Texans head coach, so much so that all of the team’s offensive failings have largely been pinned on the procession of slobs he’s hired to call plays. Plays like this one!
I don’t want DeMeco Ryans to fail, but I DO want C.J. Stroud to live. You see my dilemma. When your coordinators are dogshit, always blame the dude who hired them.
Jim Harbaugh’s Lifehack Of The Week!
“I admire the shark so much. Sometimes I drive down to La Jolla, in the red triangle, just to watch the sharks swim. And hunt. And feast. They never sleep, sharks. Did you know that? They patrol the ocean with eyes wide open, their whole lives. Always on guard, never vulnerable to ambush. A perfect animal. This is why I don’t sleep. Ever. I lie in bed all night, my eyes propped open with broken toothpicks, and I envision myself as a shark, more powerful than man and more determined. In my mind, I’m always lurking, always ready to strike. Then I get in my car and hit Denny’s for a Grand Slam Breakfast. Kathy there knows I like my bacon raw.”
Great Moments In Poop History
Reader Ben sends in this story I call OXFORD POOS:
I rowed on my college's club crew team my freshman and sophomore years, and I quickly developed a pre-practice poop habit to prevent any unwanted bowel movements while I was on the water. I would usually go before I walked from my dorm to the team bus, but I would occasionally use the boathouse's bathroom. I initiated this practice not because of any actual incidents but, out of an abundance of caution, as a preventative measure. Of course, I did not always actually need to poop before getting on the water, but I felt that it was in my best interest to at least try. I lived peacefully, free from any immediate fear of shitting my trou on the water, for the better part of my time on the team.
One morning two years ago, halfway through the fall semester of my sophomore year, I arrived at the boathouse at 5:30 in the morning having failed to poop when I woke up. I vaguely felt like I had to go but I ignored the feeling, under the impression that my need to shit would become urgent in the long term and not the short. I checked the boat lineups. We brought the oars down to the dock. We carried the boat, an eight, to the water. As we climbed into the boat I felt something move deep in my guts. We pushed off of the dock and paddled out to the lake, and my intestines began to boil. Pain shot through my torso. Pressure rapidly built. I clenched, afraid. It soon dawned on me that I had woefully misinterpreted the signs that my body had given me.
I looked over at our assistant coach, perched on the back of his launch, and said, "Hey Andrew, I have to take a shit." I communicated the urgency of the situation when he asked me how badly I needed to go. He pulled his boat up next to mine and I climbed from my spot in the stroke seat (furthest astern, in front of the coxswain) into the boat while my teammates sat on the water and waited. Not wanting to delay practice any more, I declined to put on my shoes at the dock and ran barefoot across about fifty yards of gravel to get back to the boathouse. I barely made it in time, and emptied my guts into the boathouse's toilet as efficiently as I could to spare my teammates from having to sit on the water any longer. I ran back across the gravel to my waiting coach, who took us back out to the boat while mocking me and the vagaries of my gastrointestinal system. I'm pretty sure he called me a fucking idiot, or some variation of that.
Yeah, but you managed to shit in a toilet. Not every athlete is brave enough to come clean to their coach like that.
Brick Johnson’s Executive Proposal Of The Week
“Dad, can I get Dua Lipa’s number? What do you mean, you don’t know who that is? What, did your dick stop working when you married Suzanne? Come on, old man.”
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Bush Crack! Yes, that’s the name of the beer. Why are you laughing? Stop laughing. No one should be shamed for putting their lips to an ice cold Bush Crack! Reader Evan with more:
I present Bush Crack Special Bahamian Beer. Picked up this tall boy at a liquor store in Exuma, Bahamas. I should’ve gotten scared off by the price at less than $2 for 16 oz on an island where everything is marked up by at least 500%. No beer style or ABV listed, but according to the can it is a “special Bahamian Beer… for power and vitality!” On a positive note, it was not atrocious. Because it tasted like they imported Bud Light, ran it through a Brita and then diluted it with water. Haven’t had a beer with less flavor, but on a white sand beach in the Bahamas, it sure did the job.
I can see that. I feel more powerful and vital just looking at that can. NICE COCK!
Gameday Movie Of The Week For Jets Fans
In honor of the World Series, it’s Caught Stealing, which might be the most normal film that Darren Aronofsky has ever made. The director is best known for making movies that are either disturbing as shit, depressing as shit, or both. Usually both. This time, though, he decided to Coen Brothers-ify his output by 10 percent by making a dirtbag crime flick set in 1998 New York. I lived in New York in 1999, and have always wanted to see a movie that reminded me of the fabled Summer of Drew (I drank and hooked up a lot that summer). This one scratched that itch plenty. I was sold within five minutes.
Austin Butler, in by far his most normal performance, plays a Lower East Side bartender who gets into a big ol’ jackpot with a bunch of shady-ass criminals, all because he decided to housesit his neighbor’s cat. Butler’s Hank also happens to be a former West Coast pitching phenom who burned out for tragic reasons (hence the title of the movie) and is now a full-time boozer. Are there murderous Hasidic Jewish gangsters in this movie? Yes. Are there henchmen of vaguely Eastern European descent? Oh yes. Is everyone after a big ol’ duffel bag stuffed with cash? Reader, you know they are. There’s also a quality Mets joke during the climax. I couldn’t have asked for more. Three and a half stars.
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
“When I read your magazine, I don't see one wrinkled face or single toothless grin. For shame! To the sickos at Modern Bride magazine.”
Enjoy the games, everyone.
