Football
Friday January 17, 2025
It’s harder than you might think to come up with concepts for each of these newsletters, even at only two sends per week. Writing them invariably takes longer than it should because I can’t shut myself up once I start. On an average day, I speak to three people: Lindsay, Goose, and myself. If it’s a special day, I’ll also speak to the barista. But that’s basically it, so sorry for babbling.
Anyway, when I have an idea lined up, and then a more current one comes along, it’s a nice development. Monday’s all ready to go, next Friday might as well not exist, and today we get to talk about football.
That’s because this weekend is the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs, and Monday is the College Football Playoff National Championship. The Patriots are terrible and I don’t watch college football, so none of this really matters for me. But it might matter for you, and I kind of like football, I guess — like, I’m more into it than baseball probably, but that might change if Red Sox ownership remembers they don’t play in Duluth, but it’s a distant third behind basketball and hockey — so let’s talk football.
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One Watch: Washington Commanders at Detroit Lions, Saturday, 8pm ET (My loser pick — because I’m a shit sports gambler: Lions by 7)
The rest of the slate this weekend includes:
Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs, Saturday, 4:30pm ET (My loser pick: Chiefs by 13)
Los Angeles Rams at Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, 3pm ET (My loser pick: Rams by 3)
Baltimore Ravens at Buffalo Bills, Sunday, 6:30pm ET, (My loser pick: Ravens by 4)
Most football fans would probably say Ravens/Bills is the game of the week, and I’d normally agree with you, but my family has a Commanders connection, so I was pretty happy they won their first playoff game in 20 years last weekend, thanks to a doinked-in field goal as time expired.
My Grandpa Ray was a Commanders (then Redskins) fan, and my earliest memories of watching sports are Sunday Skins games over Christmas vacation in Virginia. My Charleston, SC fam are also all long-suffering Washington fans who hate Tom Brady, so despite their inability to recognize greatness, it was nice to see them win one for once. (Although I think the Lions are going to beat them tomorrow, unfortunately.)
Speaking of…
One Person: Tom Brady
I’m under no illusions that I was incredibly spoiled to grow up when and where I did. The 2000s in Boston were probably the best time and place to ever be an American sports fan, and I experienced it in the formative years of adolescence.
January 19, 2001 isn’t my earliest sports memory, but it is the first time I ever understood the cultural power of sports. I was at the John Carver Inn in Plymouth, MA, for my friend Drew Morrissey’s birthday because it has a locally famous indoor water park. The game’s historically known as the “Snow Bowl” because Massachusetts was getting slammed with two feet of snow in just a few hours. I vividly remember hearing strangers talking about how crazy the game would be in the blizzard, thinking it must be a big deal since all these people who appeared to have no connection to one another were all talking about the same thing.
Football fans remember what happened. The Patriots won, thanks in part to a controversial (at the time, 100% correct) call ruling that Brady trying to tuck the ball while getting sacked was an incomplete pass rather than a fumble. The “Tuck Rule” game, as non-Pats-fans call it, was a bananas watch for four ten-year-olds in a hotel room. It was the first time I understood the stakes of a playoff game, the stress of a replay review, the astonishment of seeing an unheralded player (Brady) greatly exceed expectations, and the euphoria of my team winning a game they had no business winning. A few weeks later, the Pats overcame even steeper odds to beat the Greatest Show on Turf Rams for their first Super Bowl, and I became deeply invested in every Boston team.
The Pats being a Super Bowl contender was a constant in our lives for the next 18 years. I could have been born on January 19, 2001, and I’d still be seeing Brady win Super Bowls after graduating high school. That’s insane. The man put up two Hall of Fame careers and was so dominant that you almost didn’t root for him; you just knew what was coming. (Although it got real dark in Marina del Rey when the Pats were down 28-3 to the Falcons. Thank you, Andy Keller, for your unbridled optimism.)
There are very few team sports GOATs: Brady, Jordan/Lebron, Gretzky/Ovechkin, Ruth/Ohtani. Getting to root for them on your team is an enormous privilege; watching them contemporaneously is nearly as special. Appreciate greatness while it’s unfolding.
I know you hate Tom Brady. I hate Patrick Mahomes; except my reasons for that are good ones. Yours are lame.
One Quote: “We didn’t lose the game, we just ran out of time.” - Vince Lombardi
I don’t mean to pick on Lombardi because he does have some lyrical bangers, but this is the kind of soft-brained tripe that incels rip on Twitter after their team fails to come back from a 30-point deficit. No shit, you ran out of time, Vince, the point of the game is to score more points within the allotted amount of time.
Football hardos love to complain about participation trophies, but hold this dude up as the gold standard of competitors. I can’t stand this kind of mentality because it makes failure literally impossible, and not only is failure eminently possible in real life, but learning how to deal with it is one of the most important ways we grow as people. This attitude explains so much in our society when people are simply unwilling to accept that they can lose or be wrong or imperfect.
One Song: “Texas Hold ‘Em'“ by Beyoncé
Lindsay’s relationship with football is through halftime shows. So, when I told her this week’s theme was football, she requested Beyoncé, who has performed three NFL halftime shows, including a Christmas Day game this year.
In the Bahamas, I wanted to watch the Celtics Christmas Day game, she wanted to watch Beyoncé’s performance, so we compromised and got dinner at the Baha Mar “sports bar,” The Swimming Pig. Dinner was only $175. Lindsay still had to watch on her phone.
One Movie: Friday Night Lights, Peacock
I was going to choose Rudy because I heard an interesting story about it recently, but I’ve never actually seen Rudy. Instead, it’s Friday Night Lights because, on the insistence of my former boss, Brian Medavoy, I listened to director Peter Berg on SmartLess this week. (Share this newsletter with him, Brian lol.)
He didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Friday Night Lights, but he did discuss how he fully immersed himself in the research for that movie. He moved in with a family in a Texas football town, went to school with their player son, and shadowed the team at practice and games. There’s a reason why Friday Night Lights feels psychotically authentic, and it’s that Peter Berg is, well, maybe a little psychotic. But, like, good psychotic.
Bonus One Podcast: SmartLess is a podcast by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes. I’m pretty jaded about Hollywood but all three of these guys are so entertaining it makes Hollywood shop talk fun.
One Book: “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” by Michael Lewis
It’s interesting that the meticulously researched and sourced “Moneyball” and the “trust me bro” white savior fan fiction, “The Blind Side,” were written by the same person. The book tells an interesting story about the evolution of the Left Tackle position into one of the most important positions in the game today. (They protect a right-handed quarterback’s back, or “blind side.”)
But the anecdotal heart of that narrative is the story of Michael Oher, a five-star Memphis recruit who was bouncing around foster families and struggling in school when he was invited to live with the Tuohy’s, a wealthy white family involved in Oher’s private school community.
The Tuohy’s version of events is basically that they saved Oher, introduced him to football, and because he was so grateful when he became great, he committed to their alma mater, Ole Miss (where they just so happened to be boosters).
Oher’s version, partially revealed thanks to an August 2023 lawsuit filed against Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, is that they immediately put him under a conservatorship as a condition of living in their home that gave them substantial control over his decisions and future earnings. Between the book, the movie, and Oher’s eight-year NFL career, he alleges that the Tuohy’s pocketed millions through their supposed benevolence.
I’m not saying Lewis is a racist, but I am saying he’s an incompetent boob who had two distinct stories in front of him and chose to accept the rich white people’s at face value without performing an ounce of due diligence on the poor Black kid’s. I haven’t seen the movie adaptation, but by all accounts it’s even more absurdly white savior-y than the book.
You went 1 for 2 on ID’ing the hateable guys. Michael Lewis checkkkkk Tom Brady whiffffff. <3