2025-12-09 04:49:42
The video of any great goal is a rich text that offers the viewer countless details to plunge into and enjoy. One of my favorite aspects are the players' reactions. There's so much to read into the body language of a scorer and their teammates after the ball hits the net: their thoughts about the feat, their intentions, their perception of the moment's importance, how they feel about themselves, how they feel about each other.
One of the more interesting situations is when the pass that set up a goal was the play's true star, and looking out for how or whether the scorer goes about acknowledging that fact. I've seen all kinds of reactions in situations like those—from big-headed goal-getters who hog the spotlight after merely tapping in a sensational through ball, to grateful scorers who make a bee-line to the assister, imaginary shine rag in hand, to share the joy and glory together. What I can't recall seeing, however, was a response quite like Phil Foden's on Saturday after Manchester City's third goal in a 3-0 win against Sunderland:
2025-12-09 02:11:00
It is once again time to get mad about a College Football Playoff bracket. Every year ESPN and its TV show, made by a committee that talks ball while on break from planning the Human Instrumentality Project, design a 12-team playoff seemingly beholden to no rules, no standards, nothing that could pin them down with any consistency beyond a love for good Q ratings. It doesn't particularly matter what specifically has people mad this year, as it always boils down to the same thing: There are no clear guidelines to determine who does or doesn't get into the playoff, and therefore they can just kinda make it up as they feel like it.
This time around, Notre Dame got the short end of the stick. In years past, it has felt like they have benefitted from being independent. This year was the first time they were seemingly punished for it. The committee can say they put Miami in because of the head-to-head win over the Irish, but it sure feels like the Canes got in to keep the ACC happy by not completely shutting the conference out. But Notre Dame wasn't alone in griping: BYU also got a raw deal for the crime of apparently not being better than Texas Tech. Meanwhile, a three-loss Alabama doesn't even budge in the rankings after getting drubbed by Georgia. The argument that teams shouldn't be punished for playing in conference championships apparently doesn't apply to BYU. In the aftermath, we still can't even say that the committee has gathered the 12 best teams in football this year.
2025-12-09 01:02:23
Next year marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and the start of the War on Terror. The totalizing and disastrous effects of American intervention in the Middle East followed a familiar trajectory: righteous vengeance and prolonged victimhood; creeping guilt and doubt about the efficacy of increasingly cruel methods; and finally, regret if not outright shame at the destruction invoked in the name of democracy. The racism and xenophobia trotted out against America’s enemies during this time took different forms, though one moniker, that of the narco-terrorist, painted a broad but provocative picture of a Middle Eastern caricature selling opiates to prop up endless violence in the name of revolution. How ironic, then, to learn the term is better applied domestically. It turns out not only was the U.S. government subsidizing war through the tacit approval and use of drug money abroad, but that American special forces operatives were running drugs on the side, sometimes utilizing military equipment and vehicles, while also pocketing millions of dollars in discretionary funds, all without any greater or noble purpose than boredom and greed.
Investigative journalist Seth Harp’s book The Fort Bragg Cartel charts a pattern of suicide, homicide, overdoses, and rampant drug dealing at the titular military installation in North Carolina, which serves as a microcosm for a far-reaching dilemma of reckless behavior, violence, and addiction within American special forces organization like the Green Berets and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Harp, who served a tour in Iraq in the mid-aughts, teases out the minutiae of Fort Bragg’s founding and importance to the training and deployment of special forces soldiers who quickly became the hidden but extremely well-funded offensive arm of the U.S. government. What exactly has the government accomplished after such a prolonged series of occupations? What patterns and cultures within the military drive soldiers to take and deal narcotics, often to deadly ends?
2025-12-09 00:23:28
The Baseball Hall of Fame in its principal role as the parent company of BondsBeGone International has concluded at long last that the pretense of considering Barry Bonds is no longer worth the bother. In electing Jeff Kent (and good for him, I guess) while banishing Bonds, the person most responsible for elevating Kent from really good to plaque status, to the Phantom Zone yet again, the Hall has repeated what it thought we all understood—that Bonds has now been relegated to "He Whose Greatness Wins Awards For Others But Never Himself." The only way this can be made more obvious is if Rich Aurilia is inducted in 2029.
Kent received 14 of the available 16 votes for induction, cruising into Cooperstown, while Bonds again got fewer than five votes and has only one more ludicrous chance to get in, in 2031, before he is banned for good. And while Kent's career is to be noted with a whistle of admiration, one wonders if he didn't stand on the shoulders of Bonds to make his bones. The Athletic's Grant Brisbee attempts to square the circle: "It’s not fair to Kent that his induction is tied to Bonds’s continued omission, but if there wasn’t a way to untangle them before, there certainly isn’t now. It was a cruel coincidence that they were on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee’s ballot, and then Kent had to go and get elected."
2025-12-09 00:02:09
Treat yourself to our Monday crossword. This week's puzzle was constructed by Aidan Deshong, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Aidan is a college student originally from Los Angeles. He isn’t a huge sports fan, except for golf, which he thinks is the best thing ever. (Crosswords are a close second.)
Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE.
2025-12-08 23:48:47
The last time I wrote about the Colts, it was following last year's season-ending fumble/trick-play-meltdown combo that took them out of the playoff picture for good, and I promised you that "this will be the last time you have to think about the Colts this year." I secretly intended that promise to hold true for more than just that season: They were stuck in quarterback limbo, and their coach and GM hadn't proven they could oversee a winning team, and their owner was a coot. But these aren't your father's Colts anymore! Because he died.
Jim Irsay reupped Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard before passing away, bequeathing them, perhaps unwelcomely, to his daughters and new primary owners Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Foyt, and Kalen Jackson. The Colts signed castoff Daniel Jones to provide some baseline competence until they could figure out if Anthony Richardson actually sucks (he does) and they could draft a new QB. It felt like 2025 was already a lost season: not bad enough to be funny or amass high picks, not good enough to compete.
