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 farts, mashed potatoes, playfully threatening your besties with violence, and more.
Before I get started, I just wanted to thank all of the readers, friends, and coworkers for their condolences last week. Everywhere I looked, social media included, I saw nothing but kind words for my family. The internet is a better place than it’s often reported to be, and you people stand as proof of that. So thank you. It’s been a pleasure writing for you all, and it always will be.
Now let’s talk about a bunch of stupid crap. Your letters:
Steve:
What's your go to app on the toilet? I'm a TikTok man myself. Do you have a ranking?
This is a good question, because I’ve danced around my phone habits on the shitter for long enough. There was a period last year where I swore off bringing my phone with me into the john so that I could take a dump in true solitude, as God intended. But then I got bored sitting there with nothing to do, and I lapsed back into the habit seconds later. What’s so important that I can’t wait? What must I know this instant, even if I’m mid-turd and can’t do anything about it?
The answer, as you might have guessed, is nothing. I just want my phone so that I can keep doing all of my usual phone shit. I have a circuit to my phone use, where I toggle between apps like I’m hopping from one set of free weights to another on leg day. I run this circuit anywhere I use my phone: in my chair, waiting in the car, on a plane, and yes, on the crapper. I don’t have these apps ranked in my head, because all of them exist in harmony (probably not the right word) with one another. They all fall under the umbrella of Phone Time, and here they are:
- Slack
- Messages
- Safari
- Zombie Twitter
- Bluesky
- Gmail
- NYT Games (mornings only)
- Yazy (a Yahtzee knockoff)
- Classic Words (a Scrabble knockoff)
Yes, I still fuck around with Twitter. This is because Sports Bluesky is a desert, so there’s still no better place online for real-time sports news and highlights than Elonworld. Plus, whenever I’ve batted around my app order, I can go back to the social media feeds and find something new! Granted, that new thing is usually some dipshit in my feed telling everyone that the internet was a mistake, but at least it’s a new thing to look at. What else am I supposed to look at otherwise when I’m in the bathroom? The sink? The door? My poor, hairy dick wedged between my thighs? No thank you. Just show me some reposted Tee Higgins highlights from two nights ago and I’ll be satisfied.
This is not good for my brain. It’s not good for anyone’s brain. Studies have proven it. I just want it noted that I don’t watch videos while I’m shitting, and I don’t blast audio out of my phone during that time, either. This already makes me better than 85 percent of the adult US population, so don’t even think about knocking my hustle. Go live in a cabin if toilet-phoning scares you so much.
David:
I noticed recently that my language has gotten sloppily hyperbolic, dangerously so. I'm Gen X, and as you know, hyperbole is the language of Gen X. If my best buddy and I didn't threaten one and other's lives multiple times a day, for years on end, were we ever really there?! It never occurred to me how my language effects the way I see the world. Hyperbole has crept into my language so readily that I internalize it. I've come to see too much of the world as hostile, and it's had a huge impact on me, adversely, and as a dad trying to raise my son to see the good in the world first. Hyperbole is dangerous, I know, I'm suffering its effects as I type this.
Ah well, it’s a good thing that I, a professional blogger, never dabble in such bad habits. In fact, many people have accused me of being too subtle in my work. They tell me, Drew, you’re the most understated man who ever lived. Why can’t you open up a bit more? You never even talk about what you do when you’re pooping! No writer has even been more guarded. Not even Salinger.
In all seriousness, the internet makes hyberbole so easy to exchange that it blunts its effects entirely. It’s easy to get attention by shouting that this movie is the worst, or that this person is a king, or that this timeline is the darkest. Misuse of “literally” has never been higher. But I’m so used to all of this shit that it scans as normal to me. This is probably because Gen X didn’t invent hyperbole. It’s been around since the advent of language, as have attention-starved people looking to take advantage of it. But live long enough, as I have, and you develop your own internal best/worst gauge that’s far more accurate than whatever @RizzGirl68 is telling you. Once you have that gauge calibrated, you can accept outside hyperbole as just that. It’s all part of your growing literacy, and always has been.
And yes, I threaten to kill my friends on a daily basis. That just lets them know that I love them.
As for seeing nothing but hostility in the world, that’s almost a separate issue. Like everyone else, I’ve had my fighting reflexes triggered by outside voices online. But I have gotten better at accepting that all of that is, at its core, noise. This is harder to do if your personal life is going horribly, but even then the sun still shines, birds still chirp, and the banana pudding shake is still back on the Chick-Fil-A menu for a limited time only. Carve out time every day to treat yourself to good things, and then all of that noise will feel less relevant to your psyche.
With that in mind, I’m gonna go eat a blondie now.
Lee:
Which division do you think has the best coaching from top to bottom in the NFL? I'm torn between the AFC North and the NFC North. Green Bay, Minnesota, and Detroit all seem like slam dunk top 10 coaching staffs, but then there is the Bears dragging down the rest of the division.
After what happened in London, I can’t shit on Matt Eberflus as much as I used to. His Bears are extremely good on defense, and whatever he and Shane Waldron are doing with Caleb Williams appears to be working, if only by accident. I’m not gonna crown Eberflus’ ass just yet, but he’s venturing perilously close to becoming Competent, something I haven’t been able to say about a Bears coach in … actually, this would be a first. If you say “But what about Ditka?” to me, I will stuff your asshole full of sauerkraut.
Given that the North currently houses the two best teams (per DVOA) in the entire league, and four of the best teams in the entire NFC right now, I’m with Lee in that it’s probably the best coached division in the sport. I’m biased here, because my team is unbeaten and because the dude running it, Kevin O’Connell, is a dream come true. He knows how to build a quarterback, and he likes fucking it and throwing it deep. That’s my kind of coach. I need KO’s post-victory locker room speeches like I need sleep at night. You can make a good case for the NFC West if you like (although the jury is still out on Jonathan Gannon), or perhaps the AFC West (ditto Antonio Pierce, who probably isn’t very good). But then we wouldn’t be focusing on MY team, and that would be very sad.
As for the AFC North, its coaching bonafides are hopelessly muddled by the presence of this man:
After the Browns’ 20-16 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, (Kevin) Stefanski left no wiggle room when asked if (Deshaun) Watson remained QB1 heading into next week’s game against Cincinnati.
“Yes,” Stefanski said.
Kevin Stefanski has won Coach of the Year twice. He’s authored two of the very best seasons in New Browns history, and might even have a conference title already on his resume if he worked for pretty much any other organization. But the Deshaun Watson fiasco has a great many culprits behind it, and Stefanski is one of them. Maybe Browns ownership won’t let Stefanski bench Watson. Maybe he never wanted Watson to be his QB in the first place. None of that absolves him. He deserves to wear this shit around his neck for the rest of his career, and he will.
Deshaun Watson is, by nearly every advanced metric, the worst starting QB in football. He’s the worst quarterback in New Browns history, in fact. And that’s not hyperbole. See for yourself here, there, and everywhere. Think about all of the shitty QBs who have had a cup of coffee for that team. Watson is worse than all of them. Sean Payton is a legendary prick, but that prickishness came in handy when he needed to tell Broncos ownership to get rid of Russell Wilson, regardless of how painful the ensuing cap hit would be. Watson’s hideous contract is a different beast compared to Wilson’s, but do you think that Payton would have let Jimmy Haslam force him to start a complete nonentity at the position? Of course not. Someone in that building needed to speak up, if only for football reasons. Someone still needs to. Kevin Stefanski hasn’t. So I ain’t gonna cry when he gets kicked to the curb after this season. The man had his chance to throw some weight around in Cleveland, and he never used it.
Mark:
What, if anything, can they do about the refereeing problem in the NFL? Every time they try to tweak the rules, they make it worse.
I assume you’re referring to the 49ers getting fucked out of a muffed punt recovery on Thursday night because New York somehow didn’t get any decent camera angles from Amazon’s production truck. Or perhaps you meant the 500 flags that landed on the field during Bills-Jets last night. Back we go to ruminating over the epidemic of hyperbole in digital society. Every time the refs do something stupid, refereeing has never been worse. It’s a crisis, and no one seems interested in fixing it. WE’LL ALL DIE FOR CERTAIN.
I’m too old to bother complaining about any of this shit. Bad officiating is a force of God, same as any other variable in a football game: weather, fumble recoveries, injuries, etc. I expect it, and I know that bad calls usually balance themselves out across every team (minus the Packers, who get every call because they’re so goddamn special). If you ever hear me pissing and moaning about the refs, it’s almost strictly because I WANT to piss and moan about the refs. They make for a convenient target, and all them are now jacked enough to defend themselves. For real, they got rid of all the fat refs. It’s super weird.
More important, most of these refs are good. There’s a reason that Jeff Triplette doesn’t have a gig in the NFL anymore. The league wanted officials who could manage an overtime coin flip, and now they have them. One of the most frequent questions I get for this column is a variation of, If I played in a pro game, would I be able to gain one yard/get a base hit/make one basket? But a more interesting question is, with a month to train, how long would I be able to capably ref an NFL game? The answer is 20 seconds. I’d have a nervous breakdown the second any player or coach got in my grill. The pro refs have fucking eagle vision on the majority of calls, and they have a better poker face than a dead man. So I consider their mistakes to be the exception rather than the norm, because they are. I can’t believe I just defended NFL refs so vigorously. I feel dirty. Gonna throw out a “Fuck Bill Vinovich” just to even things up a bit.
HALFTIME!
Nicholas:
If MLB brings an expansion team to Oakland, and even if somehow they get the name and colors and history back, would it be enough to get people to care again? That last game in Oakland was heartbreaking. And there is no longer another major team, but how much does that matter after that amount of damage was done?
They’d have to still be the A’s to get traction. They can’t be the Oakland Quake or some other bullshit team. They have to have the name, the colors, the jerseys, and all of their other beloved trappings. If that were to happen, and the new owner was passable, fans in Oakland would care again pretty quickly. As recently as 2019 (the first and only year that Oakland carried a payroll over $100 million), the A’s were averaging over 20,000 fans in attendance per game. That’s what made the final A’s game in Oakland so tragic. This wasn’t like the Commanders, a team that lost entire generations of fans because Dan Snyder spent 20-plus years drowning them in the gutter. By the time Snyder was gone, the fans had already long deserted Snyder, as had working toilets at the stadium. By contrast, the A’s were a relevant franchise, and one with a moniker that wasn’t racist as shit. All they needed was an owner who gave a fuck, and John Fisher doesn’t.
In fact, Fisher serves as an important case study in how many sports leagues no longer view local fanbases as relevant. This is especially true of the NFL, which still makes gobs of money despite having two teams in LA that have never gained traction with residents and likely never will. If a league wants to go global, and all of them do, the needs of a single team’s fans become more of an impediment than an asset. The NFL wants every team to have a national profile. Thanks to Sunday Ticket, nationally televised primetime games, and other easy avenues for far-flung fans to see any team they want, the league has succeeded in that objective.
The problem is that when every team is national, no team is local. No team needs to be local. It simply needs to exist on a television set, and play in a new stadium for its owner can brag about. I am a Vikings fan who hasn’t lived in Minnesota since 1991. That’s exactly the kind of fan segment the NFL seeks to monetize. Why bust your ass trying to win over a single city when you don’t need to? Hence, the L.A. Chargers.
Major League Baseball is a somewhat different animal because of regional broadcast agreements (many of which are now falling apart). But you can bet your ass that Rob Manfred considers the NFL’s way of doing business to be his North Star. Is letting Fisher destroy the centuries old brand equity of the A’s a good way of replicating the NFL business model? No. But these are very stupid people we’re talking about. They see the NFL fuck over this town and that one, and they think, That could be us!
Michael:
How fast could you eat a garbage can full of mashed potatoes?
Fuck. A month? I’d need a while. The Wegovy will only allow for me to eat so many taters in one sitting. And how servings are in a garbage can? We’re talking in the gallons. That’s so many mashed potatoes, man. The fall weather has me in the mood for them, but after a week straight of eating that shit I’d feel like I’d been imprisoned. Better call it a full year. I’m not competitive enough to be in a hurry.
Joe:
How do you feel about teams that changed their names for reasons of offensiveness (i.e. the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians) being referred to by their old names in pieces about the past? Obviously, you can't use the old name when talking about the present, but with the past it feels more ambiguous. I know technically the Guardians weren't called that in 1995, but if I'm reading a piece about the 1995 team, I still inwardly cringe when I see the old name. What should writers do here?
If the team’s name got changed because it was racist, I use the new name for all historical references. This is awkward to my brain, because A) referencing old team names like the Washington Senators (who became the Twins) is the usual style guide mandate, and B) I remember teams like the 1991 Commanders vividly, including the part where they weren’t called the Commanders back then at all. But that awkwardness isn’t worth me insisting on using old names, even in proper context. Shit changes, and you change how you operate to keep up with it. No big deal.
Weirdly, I have a much harder time letting go, at least mentally, of the Guardians’ old nickname. You know why? Because of Major League. Major League, a movie that came out 35 years ago. That’s the only reason I became fond of the Cleveland … Guardians. And now the connection between that team and that movie has been altered irrevocably. Please know that this will not compel me to vote Republican next month.
Jeff:
Josh Allen doesn’t have a lot of name brand receivers (a la Diggs) to throw to, but he’s making them look good and they’re making plays. This begs the question: are wide receivers overrated? Do teams really need to pay these players big money?
They do. You can make hay with a bunch of slobs at wideout if your QB is named Josh Allen (currently throwing for his fewest yards per game in five years) or Patrick Mahomes. Every other QB needs a pass catcher who get gain separation, make contested catches, and keep the safeties playing deep. Outside of quarterback, no other position in football has a higher Wins Above Average tally than wide receiver. You don’t even need the data to understand the position’s importance. Just think about Cooper Kupp winning a Super Bowl all by himself, or Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle instantly making Tua Tagovailoa into guy who gets MVP chatter when his skull isn’t leaking. Wide receivers run the NFL now, even with passing stats down leaguewide. Paying them will always be a good idea.
Robert:
Sometimes when I fart, it feels like I’m blowing a bubble. There’s definitely a little “pop” at the end. Is this even a thing? I’m too fat to see it by holding a mirror down there, and I’m sure as hell not gonna ask someone to film one for me. Thoughts?
Oh, I have the bubble fart. It’s a scary moment, because it makes you afraid you committed a partial shart. Sometimes I head to the toilet to check in down there just to make certain I didn’t.
Shane:
Lately somebody keeps leaving a water bottle of pee/tea on my front lawn. I know it's a construction guy because the water bottle is always from White Cap, a supply store for construction workers. It happens overnight during the work week, one day per work week. This has been happening for last month, and it's just my lawn, so it's not gonna stop. What's the best way to handle this situation? Leave a note on all trucks surrounding area looking like they work construction? Or not do anything in this volatile political year?
Leave a note. The odds of someone shooting you over it are quite low, whereas the odds of your mystery foreman seeing the note and muttering, Fuck this guy, and then picking up after himself so that he doesn’t get another annoying missive from some tightassed (according to him, not me) homeowner are much higher.
I actually had a neighbor’s dog shit on my lawn and not pick it up. I asked them to not do that again. I was polite, but firm. They didn’t fuck with our yard again. They just let their dog shit in another neighbor’s yard before that neighbor yelled at them, too. Public shaming has no currency online. In the real world, it’s a different story. Unless you live in Texas or something.
Michael:
You know how on your computer your mouse icon always points to the left? I'm not sure what happened today, but for some reason mine is now pointed to the right, like a mirror image of what it's supposed to look like, and it's driving me absolutely insane. I'm for real going to take a half day off. I can't deal with this shit on a Friday.
I wouldn’t be able to, either. Sometimes I hit a wrong key on my PC and the cursor changes to this weird half moon that scrolls up and down windows without me asking. It triggers a great fury within me before I fix it half a second later. When the digital world is your world for whole sections of the day, any subtle shift in that world feels calamitous. This is why I want to throw a brick at my monitor whenever I get the “(Not Responding)” prompt from Microsoft Office. You fucking piece of shit application. DO YOUR JOB.
Dave:
In the Year of Some Lord 2024, do the majority of people have rhythm or not? If you picked any pud out of a crowd, could they clap to a standard 4/4 beat?
Sure.
Email of the week!
William:
My family and I evacuated Western North Carolina following the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. We were very lucky and had no real impacts from the storm, but it's been a mentally taxing ride.A few days ago we took a pre-planned trip to visit family. As I got to my seat I then realized my four-year old was sitting directly behind Johnny Damon (in coach). As a casual Red Sox fan, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to love or hate Damon at this point, but I was trying to figure out what I'd say to him if given the chance while he drank his double rum and Coke.
Anyhow, we land and Johnny Damon strikes up a conversation with the folks next to him. After pleasantries, our fellow passenger asks how Damon likes living in Florida, to which Damon says, "I love it. It's the most free place in the world. We've got Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott."
So all I can say, as my community reels from a disaster and desperately needs Federal assistance, and as Hurricane Milton barrels towards Tampa and your criminal senator that didn't vote for FEMA funding, is fuck you Johnny. I should have pulled out some chalk and had my kid play hopscotch on the back of your seat the whole fucking flight.
Also he had a dumb haircut.
I bet he did.
