Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, through here. Drew is out this week and Ray Ratto is pinch-hitting, which is to say fouling the franchise.
The NFL and DraftKings/FanDuel have generally been pretty savvy and always been very cynical in their hostile takeover of our brains, but the Amit Patel story reminds that there is always more than one way to bleed a bettor.
Patel is the serial nincompoop and former Jacksonville Jaguars employee who embezzled more than $22 million from the team, and its mustache-rack-in-chief Shahid Khan, and blew it on sports bets. Patel pleaded guilty to charges of excessive fun on the company dime and was sentenced to six-and-a-half years at a prison in South Carolina. He was also sued by the team back in July for $66.6 million—we see what you did there, you clever lads. Now, Patel is taking his turn at bat in the bottom of the second inning by suing FanDuel for $250 million, with the claim that the company preyed on his gambling addiction by continuing to prime the pump. They did this by giving Patel $1.1 million in credits, trips to the 2023 College Football Playoff championship game, tickets to The Masters in 2021 and 2022, and the Miami Grand Prix as part of an ongoing scheme to “create, nurture, expedite, and/or exacerbate his addiction with the only possible outcome that he would ultimately hit rock bottom.”
So far, so good, so much like your standard gambling story only without the broken thumbs. But there’s more.
According to the filing, the news of which was broken by ESPN’s gambling snoop David Purdum, Patel’s VIP host at FanDuel, Brett Krause, “communicated with Patel as many as 100 times a day between 2021 and 2023, on several occasions contacting Patel on days he was not gambling to find out why.” Krause acknowledged on numerous occasions that they were breaking anti-money laundering protocols, and that Krause “moved certain texts with Patel to his personal phone ‘to avoid detection by FanDuel’s compliance personnel,’ and instructed Patel to fabricate dialogue on his FanDuel phone.”
Now rolling docu-dramaturgy is very much a taste-of-the-beholder kind of thing, but this seems like the kind of story that, no matter who wins what, everybody ends up a loser. Which, I guess, is the whole idea of this gambling boomlet in a nutshell. With a little planning, Shahid could have made a call to FanDuel and said, “This isn’t good for any of us. Can we just set up a way to keep this guy betting, put the money he’s stealing into a continuous loop so that he’s embezzling the same money over and over again, you keep say 10 percent of the losses for overhead, and nobody has to go to court ever? You guys don’t get dinged for honeying up the mark, I don’t keep losing actual money, none of us are paying lawyers to piss off a judge, and when the guy finally gets tired of getting brained on three-game parlays, we can hammer him.” There is a world in which FanDuel, knowing a partnership with the NFL is worth its weight in unsanctioned trips to the Miami Grand Prix, takes this offer and nobody is ever the wiser.
Instead, we live in this one. And in this one, we have a guy doing a triple deuce, more than $300 million in lawsuit claims, bad pub for FanDuel, bad pub for Khan (I mean, beyond his association with the Jaguars), and three prison meals a day for Patel as a reward for thinking that betting the NFL is a good idea.
Now, we don’t know the specifics of how a scheme like that would work in actuality. We aren’t masterminds, criminal or otherwise, but Khan’s not a moron, and the FanDuel guys know they live on repeat customers, and Patel will upon release find that work will be somewhat harder to come by. It all becomes a cautionary tale, albeit one that you can avoid by either not betting at all or knowing who you’re betting with. Gambling is money management, nothing more, and if you know the same money managers we do, you’ll discover soon enough that they’re both not your real friends and a lot less fun than they seem, which is to say they’re undertakers with splashier ties.
But in rebuttal and in the spirit of forgiveness, the money move toward UNLV against Syracuse has already jacked that number from 4.5 to 6.5. It may get to seven before kickoff. Fade with caution.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
It’s the first bye week of the season, which means there are two fewer games to choose from. The lousy part of this deal is that the Lions are one of those teams. That sucks about 35 percent of the fun out of the weekend right there, so you’ll have to find your five-play (as opposed to … OK, you can see the joke walking up Broadway already) elsewhere. The MLB playoffs reach the Teams You Want To Watch stage on Saturday, with Some Teams TBD playing in Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, and the Law Of Diminishing Returns states quite clearly that playoff games are by definition better than regular season games. This also applies to the WNBA semifinals, where Mark Davis’s Las Vegas Aces are trying to stave off early eradication at the hands of the New York Liberty and their unsettlingly devoted fans (Libertarians? Librettos? Libertines?). And the new NHL season starts Friday, with Buffalo and New Jersey playing a back-to-back in Czechia as part of the Bring Amit Patel Back promotion. Not to say that the Lions would’ve delivered something more worthy of your time than that, but they’re still your best entertainment value.
Four Throwgasms
Bills-Texans: Buffalo is starting to give off that egalitarian We-Love-Not-Having-The-Wide-Receiver-Diva energy, but that sort of thing doesn’t last forever, and Stefon Diggs wasn’t exactly a detriment as a Bill. But that feeling is likely to last at least this one more week. Last year’s Flavor Of The Month, C.J. Stroud, is hitting the sophomore wall that silently awaits Jayden Daniels. The Texans still defend well enough, but Allen is a rhinoceros in human form and is only that pointy forehead thing away from being a full-on danger to society.
Jets-Vikings: If only because we are waiting to see how the talk-show meltdown artists strain to explain the Robert Saleh–Aaron Rodgers relationship after Rodgers walks off the field after a three-and-out and urinates on Saleh’s play sheet. At some point, the Sam Darnold Moment has to wear off; it started to show some signs of tarnish in the second half against the Packers last week. But with all due respect to our absent Comrade Skol … err, Magary, the Vikings might be better but the Jets will be more fun. Especially for train collision aficionados.
Three Throwgasms
Buccaneers-Falcons: Yes, this looks like a stinker on first review, but consider that this is an indication of what the rest of the schedule holds for you. In other words, not every game can be a one-‘Gasmer. Both teams are lucky this is a Thursday game, and therefore concealed discreetly behind the Amazon paywall, although watching Al Michaels shoot double birds at Kirk Cousins just on G.P. might be worth a peek.
Saints-Chiefs: Everyone loved Derek Carr for two weeks, or until the Saints stopped putting up 40-burgers; nobody loves Patrick Mahomes because the Chiefs haven’t even hit 30 yet. They’re even tearing holes into Travis Kelce for being too Swiftcentric, even though he had seven catches for 89 yards a week ago. All are casualties of the NFL’s new Offense Is Dead movement. Andy Reid seems to be finding contentment in barely getting by each week, and if I hear him say “Great Googly Moogly” to the actor playing the team’s groundskeeper one more time, I’m going to hire someone to steal his late-model Oldsmobile.
Browns-Commanders: You love Jayden Daniels. You hate Deshaun Watson. The result of that confluence will be a giant fog bank over Northwest Stadium that obscures the action. At least you can finally commit to memory the idea that Brian Robinson is “the good one,” and not Bijan Robinson.
Giants-Seahawks: Recommended only because we are testing out a theory that Geno Smith, DK Metcalf, and Kenneth Walker III can be as good against a bland team as they were against the Lions on Monday night.
Two Throwgasms
Ravens-Bengals: If it doesn’t snow, this is only borderline endurable. These are two teams arguing amongst themselves whether their competitive windows have shut.
Cardinals-49ers: It’s hard to take a team seriously when it scores 41 against the Rams and two weeks later allows 42 to the ‘Mmanders. But since it’s the Cardinals, you will never have to face the existential conundrum about when to take them seriously. The answer is always never.
Raiders-Broncos: Having the freedom to refuse to watch Gardner Minshew vs. Bo Nix is why we fought World War II.
Packers-Rams: This is the Has Sean McVay’s Time Come And Gone game, and to be totally truthful here, we’re not that invested in the answer.
Cowboys-Steelers: When a team’s best offensive weapon and your most watchable player is your kicker, you are what we in the medical community call “we’ll give the news to the surviving spouse.” Friends and neighbors, we give you Brandon Aubrey and Chris Boswell in the game that will finally settle the question “First to nine field goals?”
One Throwgasm
Sabres-Devils: Yep, both those games will be better than what comes below, even if you hate hockey.
No Throwgasms Whatsoever:
Panthers-Bears: I’d rather watch Dan Campbell reading Colleen Hoover to a squirrel.
Colts-Jaguars: Win this one for Amit!
Dolphins-Patriots: I’d rather watch a squirrel reading Colleen Hoover to Dan Campbell.
Pregame Song That Makes Me Wanna Mute Everything And Everyone In The Vicinity
Yes, we know that Comrade Magary prefers to metaphorically propel himself through a cinderblock wall to establish his football-watching bonafides, but as we have said before, why collide when you can collude? This touching little ditty from the long ago, “Easy Life” by The Bodysnatchers, works perfectly well for our purposes here. Not everything is a turgid, guitars-forward goth hell-anthem, and more to the point, Drew’s not here to make sure that everything is.
A cheesy organ, a backgrounded tenor saxophone, a properly banging backbeat and Rhoda Dakar out front will get you through the first half of Dolphins-Patriots, and the second half of this epic suckmonster of anti-fun will be helped by Toots and the Maytals’ “Do The Reggay,” a mellower interlude to help you forget that you’re watching De’Von Achane and Bobblin’ Rhamondre Stevenson by choice. Oh, and if that doesn’t kill three hours the way they should be killed, try this Skatalites classic, “Ska La Parisienne.”
That should do it. And if doesn’t, the first Bron-Bronny practice game is tomorrow.
Fire This Asshole!
Is there anything more exciting than a coach losing his job? (Substitute Author’s note: Yes, lots of things.) All year long, we’ll keep track of which coaches will almost certainly get fired at year’s end or sooner. And now, your potential 2024 chopping block, with the acknowledgement that it’s actually hockey season and coaches don’t get fired this early unless they work for that six-ball in the side pocket David Tepper:
Lindy Ruff
Martin St. Louis
John Tortorella*****
Peter DeBoer**** (five times already; play the percentages)
Patrick Roy****** (for calling the owner an asshole in a postgame interview session or some other goofy nonsense)
Kris Knoblauch (shouldn’t have lost Game 7 of the Final there, Scooter)
Paul Maurice (just a tester to see if you’re still reading)
(*potential midseason firing)
Eric Adams’s Lock Of The Century: Ravens -7 at home against Commanders
Artık bir sürü suç işlemek yasa dışı mı? Bana söylediğin bu mu? Ruhumu ve hayatımı Fenerbahçe’ye hizmet etmeye adıyorum. Tabii ki Galatasaray’a hizmet etmemi tercih etmezseniz. Favori takımınıza bağlı.
Great Moments In Poop History
We’re going to tell you a secret here—there aren’t any. It’s all the same story, failure to achieve commode docking, told a hundred different ways, which is why this five-year-old evacuation primer from The Athletic’s Jayson Jenks will simply have to serve as your excretory romcom for today. And if you haven’t the stamina to read 1,680 words on duty-meets-incontinence, you can take the easy way out, pun very much intended. And if you do have a hilarious story about voiding in front of a bear cave and running bare-arsed through a thicket of thornbushes and poison sumac, let Comrade Magary know upon his return. Please. We’re not kidding. Fill his inbox with all your tales of the outbox and leave us out of it. He loves that stuff. The lot of you sicken us.
And Now Let’s Go Down To The Sideline And Check In With Charissa Thompson
“Drew, I just talked with Falcons owner … ohh, what’s his name. It was right on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, I talked to whoever it was as he came off the field at the end of the half and he said, ‘What the hell are you doing here? They put you on this game? Seriously? Jesus on two sticks, C-Dog, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. I know the schedule blows this week, but if I wasn’t such an attention junkie, you’d have to nailgun me to a chair and staple my eyelids open to watch it. Did you piss off a boss? Are you in the last year of your deal? Is your agent working the phones for you? Who can we talk to for you? I worry for you, Charissa. You deserve better than this. Please take care of yourself.'”
Thank you, Charissa.
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Candlestick Chronicles by Cooperage Brewing, because who doesn’t want to be reminded of the shittiest football stadium since the perfection of concrete while seeking out temporary blindness in the middle of the afternoon? It will really go down well during the grimmer stages of Cardinals-49ers, which will roughly cover the period between 1:05 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. PT.
Gameday Movie Of The Week For Dolphins Fans
You’ve seen the Dolphins, right? You know their whole season has utterly cratered, and they are plowing through backup quarterbacks at such a rate that they could clean out the CFL by Hallowe’en, yes? “Hey look, it’s Cody Fajardo!” So what movie do you want to see? Something long and awful, right? Maybe The Cove, that documentary about Japanese dolphin hunting. That seems interesting and depressing enough.
Well, we can’t help you there. We never saw it. Besides, movies are nothing but two-hour time thefts that make you regret your own vision, but here’s a perpetual video loop of the Nosferatu remake trailer, the distraction you deserve.
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
“Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is another nail.”
Substitute “the NFL Draft” for “marriage,” and you’ve figured out the whole football scam.
Enjoy the games. On second thought, don’t enjoy the games. They don’t deserve you.
