Broadly speaking, episodes of The Distraction that are just Drew and me talking tend to break down into two different styles. They can be kind of digressive in ways that are personal or just extra loopy, and then there are ones that are ... well, it's still a podcast, and it's still this particular podcast, but I was going to say "focused." The idea behind this one was to field a bunch of listener voicemails and do a quick whip-around the sports landscape first, and what it wound up being instead was a decently detailed talk about the NFL, the state of TV color commentary, and the trouble with processing something as unprecedented as Shohei Ohtani's most recent unprecedented season. And then eventually we get to the voicemails about cat poop. But it was a pretty thoughtful podcast for a while there!
The NFL portion of the pod began with the question of how fast any sufficiently cool New York Giants receiver decides they hate playing for the Giants and want to leave, but that segued into some decently granular football chat about teams using their cool receivers in cool ways, the best ways to watch a game as a football semi-idiot, and Drew's wholehearted embrace of being A Football Guy and new appreciation for coaching. We talked, too, about the improved state of analysis in football, and the ways in which J.T. O'Sullivan types have made it easier for fans to understand what they're watching, and the ways in which the rise of that kind of tape-heavy online analysis has paradoxically raised the bar in TV commentating, as well. We also addressed the most glaring public exception to this, which is the confoundingly, frustratingly wack broadcasting debut of Tom Brady, and the hilarious reason why he's so been bad. I won't spoil it, but you may be surprised to learn that it is not entirely, or even mostly, the natural result of Brady being an A-Rod style sports droid.
There was also some Aaron Rodgers chat in there, occasioned by the spectacle of the NFL's foremost raw water aficionado looking more or less like himself in last week's action. We addressed the horror inherent in the possibility that Aaron Rodgers is still good and the fact that we're going to have to deal with it, but spent nearly as long gaming out a possible future in which the restrictions of the color commentator gig could restrain him and he becomes a (probably pretty good) TV commentator in the Keith Hernandez style, before deciding that he might like his naughty dumb guy heresies so much that he can't turn them off. Drew also introduces the extremely powerful concept of "GNC Cantina."
After the break, we gave some serious consideration to the question of whether Shohei Ohtani is having the best season in MLB history. It's the sort of thing that ordinarily wouldn't warrant serious consideration—it is kind of an informal policy that we don't do GOAT chat on here—but also ... I mean, you're familiar with the season he's having. After a brief meta-addressing of the fun and fatuity of the "is this the greatest season ever" conversation, we actually considered it. The only competitors I could really think of from my lifetime were some of Barry Bonds's peak-absurdity seasons. It all feels kind of abstract and wrong, but that has been true of Ohtani since he entered the league with a legitimate scouting comp of "Babe Ruth." We also addressed the historically shitty White Sox season from a Mets fan perspective, and also more broadly.
And then it was time for the voicemails. Listeners asked us about the best sport to watch in an airport bar, or communally in general, and we responded by talking about Chili's and its defenders, before making some arguments that are both chalky (World Cup) and less so (low-stakes college football). A Canadian listener explained the strange origins of Boston Pizza and we talked about the distinctive Greek-owned mid pizzeria experience, the majesty of a sufficiently bad food pic, and insulting pizza slices. And then there was the poop question, which amounted to asking us whether we thought a veterinarian would be able to tell cat poop from person poop. All in all, the answer to that one was rather jarringly well-informed.
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