As a podcast that covers both sports and non-sports, the last thing you want to do is get caught up in what some in the industry call “A Truly Sad Week in America and the 2005 NBA Redraft Scenario.” is. ” The freedom to talk about what you choose is also inherently the freedom to do something horribly wrong and embarrassing. In fact, this week has been a really frustrating week in America. I went into this week's episode with a lot of trouble, even by the lofty standards I've personally set myself, even by the lofty standards of recent years. time. There's a very real possibility that it'll end up on a podcast and lead to an episode that's half me getting mad about creeping fascism and half well-intentioned musings on which teams are likely to trade for their quarterback. Ta.
But thanks to Drew's enthusiasm, a great guest appearance from The Athletic's Alec Lewis, and the glitz and glamor of the impending NFL Draft, which one pundit hailed as “the Burj Khalifa of brightly colored bullshit,” I am happy to report that the results were positive. For a long time, I thought it was something I wasn't really interested in, and never talked about anything I didn't like. We also talked a little bit about pajamas at the beginning of the episode, but mostly it was about soccer.
The various issues and contradictory decision-making processes behind the draft, which are also the subject of Alec's excellent article on the current state of the draft, are honestly hard to know. But contrary to draft-related speculation, you can at least trust that the officials aren't lying about everything strategically or just out of habit. Alec's story lies between modern best practice and folklore, romance and tradition in a sport that is institutionally and constitutionally averse to the former, obsessed with the latter, and where the final say belongs to the most powerful. It highlights how the NFL's decision-makers overcome these conflicts. This country has certainly produced some self-funded rich people. We talked about how difficult a general manager's job is and how difficult that job is in terms of managing the entire organization all the way up to the owners. Also, there are externalities that affect all of this, and the classic dumb guy problem that's always present in the NFL, and all of that variance and uncertainty, let alone being able to say, “I'm not.” We also discussed the challenge of recognizing people. I don’t know.’ In a culture like the NFL.
There was also some talk about the actual draft, most of which revolved around the question of why teams would trade up when the data shows they shouldn't. This inevitably points to the Vikings if you're paying any attention to the draft, but it also points to one of the more interesting complexities about the draft: the quarterbacks are actually different. In some cases, flipping the script is not only the right thing to do, but sometimes it's the only way for your team to make the leap.
That was a lot of content, so I only had time left for one Funbag question. Fortunately, it's a good one, and it solved one of the longest running and most controversial questions in culture. That being said, if you really want to take a photo, are you allowed to have Edgar Martinez take your photo as a father? Given the other questions that were occupying my mind regarding this matter, I felt very happy and blessed to be able to think about it seriously.
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