Friday Recap: Sideline Integrity, Joshua Dobbs Breakdowns and Feature Pieces

There were a bunch of excellent feature pieces produced this week highlighting football personalities and we got good Joshua Dobbs content. And the story of the day might be Charissa Thompson.

I was worried that these Friday recaps wouldn’t be all that fun for people, but I’ve been getting really good feedback, especially on the external stuff I enjoyed. That’s great to hear, so I’ll keep this going.

Video and podcasts are hopefully demarcated as such. Items behind a paywall marked with ($).

Stuff I Wrote Or Coerced Someone To Write For My Website

• My game review of the Vikings-Saints game

• I went over the supporting cast differences between the Cardinals and the Vikings and also ranked the league’s supporting casts in the process ($).

• Luke Braun went over Jalen Nailor’s one-catch game in his return from injury and why he got so many snaps but not so many targets ($).

• I also recapped the Chargers game against the Lions for Bolts from the Blue and previewed the Packers game

• Podcast/Video: the Minnesota Football Party discusses the sustainability of Joshua Dobbs

• Podcast/Video: Broncos preview and Anthony Barr talk on the Minnesota Football Party

• Podcast: Review of the Saints game, a discussion of the Anthony Barr signing and vegetarian Thanksgiving

For people in Denver, we’ll have a live show tonight at 7:30 PM local time at the Dam Grille.

Work I Liked (Sports)

• There were two great pieces on Brian Flores I read this week. This first one from Alec Lewis goes into his approach as a coach ($) and this second one from Matthew Coller at Purple Insider that manages to weave a story about Flores’ history into a discussion of his defensive philosophy ($).

• While you’re at it, watch this video from MatchQuarters on the “Non-Traditional Tampa 2” that Brian Flores employs.

• Lewis also wrote this piece on Joshua Dobbs ($) that I very much enjoyed.

• Video: On the video front, this breakdown on Dobbs from Benjamin Solak at the Ringer was great.

• Video: This breakdown from Chase Daniel was good, too.

• This is a truly phenomenal feature piece on Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel. I highly encourage a read.

• There was a lot of discussion on the comments made by Charissa Thompson on how she would “make up” sideline reports early in her career. She released a statement saying she “chose the wrong words” to describe the situation and that she would never make things up but that is frankly difficult to believe. The reason members of the media care about it so much is well-captured by Richard Deitsch at the Athletic ($).

Work I Liked (Non-Sports)

• You might remember the incident of a Senator from Oklahoma challenging a union leader to a fight or former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy elbowing another congressperson in the kidneys but the larger question is — is this uniquely a conservative issue? Mother Jones has a good piece on it.

• Video: This video on whether the FairPhone is really fair is also (unintentionally?) a great video on the inevitable realities of attempting conscientious consumption in capitalism

• Video: Ethan Chlebowski’s video on cheese ratios for mac and cheese is extremely my shit

• Adam Johnson at The Column has a piece documenting and quantifying media bias in coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.