Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re covering drones, urinals, daily fantasy, and more.
Your letters:
Steve:
Should Leonard Fournette get himself intentionally suspended either this year or next to tank his stock and sit out? Obviously this safeguards his health, but post-NFL rookie deal, draft stock is largely for ego purposes for players. Fournette, playing a dangerous position with a short shelf life, should focus on maximizing long-term earnings, by not only sitting out, but by trying to go late in the draft to a team with a good O-line. That way he’ll have a great rookie-deal performance, and can then sign somewhere else for big money. What do you think? Should Fournette offer Paul Finebaum autographed jerseys for $4?
No, because even with the rookie cap, your guaranteed money as an NFL first-rounder is still going to be over $6 million, which is relatively low compared to some veterans, but still an immense amount of money for a 20-year-old to leave on the table, especially for running backs, who rarely get big contracts from smart teams anymore. Also, players like Willis McGahee and Todd Gurley have gone in the first round after getting hurt anyway, so the price of injury isn’t necessarily all that steep for a stud like Nick Chubb, who has now has an entire fall and winter to rehab and work out and have scouts drool over the potential “bargain” of securing him late in the first round. Nick Chubb will be the murder house of all 2016 NFL Draft prospects (CORRECTION: Or 2017, since when that is when he will be draft eligible because the NFL is dumb).
All NFL players can only become unrestricted free agents after four years of accrued service, regardless of draft position. If you’re an undrafted free agent, you automatically get a skimpy three-year deal, and then you’re an RFA for a year after that, so you’re not exactly circumventing the system by not getting drafted. There are far too many risks involved trying to angle for a contract that’s FIVE YEARS down the road. You may as well bust your ass to secure a lucrative first-round deal before then.
Is it fair that a gifted player like Fournette is staring down a system that uses up his ability BEFORE he can maximize his market value? Probably not. This is the same thing that happened with Jadeveon Clowney a few years back, where people argued that he should sit out the season, and then he coasted through one more year at South Cackalacky, and then everyone questioned his motor, and then he went no. 1 anyway, and then he kinda sucked. And there’s no telling if Clowney’s career arc will have a future impact on how scouts view dudes like Myles Jack who drop out early to prep for the NFL. They are fucked either way, because they can either a) get hurt and have scouts question their durability, or B) sit out and have scouts question their heart.
There are few good choices outside of simply playing college ball until you are fully eligible to be drafted and hoping that nothing awful happens. That’s the best choice given the current system, and there’s little financial incentive for either the NFL or college ball to do much about it, even though the current setup doesn’t give big-time college players OR coaches (who have to take new jobs prior to bowl season) an incentive to see a season all the through to the end.
In a perfect world, Fournette could simply declare for the Draft whenever he pleased. Failing that, the NCAA could make it legal for players to accept booster gifts and have agents, and let those agents negotiate a percentage of royalties from merchandise and video games and shit. You don’t NEED a structured pay system for college athletes if they simply legalize all the under-the-table shit that’s illegal now. If that were the case, then Fournette could happily spend one more year at college driving around in an agent-financed Benz and working a no-show job at Jim Bob Spittoon’s Baton Rouge Car Dealership. That shit should have been legal AGES ago. And if it consolidates power among the wealthiest fan bases like Texas, then all the better. PEOPLE LOVE DYNASTIES! Or so sports talk radio has been telling me for 30 years now.
Kyle:
I told my friend that if I were to take my driver onto a long stretch of straight and flat highway, I could drive the golf ball a mile, including bounce and roll. He thought I was crazy. What do you think? Is this a possible feat?
No, because the ball would eventually roll off to the side of the highway and slow down in the dirt. If you’re imagining a flat highway of infinite length AND width, then obviously the ball is going to have a chance to go farther, especially if the asphalt is fresh and black. God, I would love a whole planet made of fresh blacktop. I would pop 2-inch bike wheelies on it all day long.
But even on a planet made of blacktop, your little golf ball would probably come to a stop well before going a mile, because a) air resistance would still slow it down, b) your sorry ass would shank it, so it would eventually veer off and go sideways, and a) you are not an 80-year-old man on a golf course. An 80-year-man on a golf course has special Grandpa Golf Strength that allows him to tap the ball and have it roll 250 yards directly down the fairway. Your grandpa is a cagey vet who GRITS his way to the center of the fairway, while you slice the ball 600 yards over into a nearby canyon. It’s not right. Old people shouldn’t be allowed to be good at anything.
One more thing: According to this site, legendary poker player Amarillo Slim once hit a golf ball over a mile on a frozen lake:
Some of his more famous side bets have included playing golf with a hammer against Evel Knievel, and wagering $1 million that he could hit a golf ball over a mile.
Now, is that a lie? PROBABLY. But look at how old that sly coot is. He might just have that Grandpa Golf Strength in him.
Brent:
Let’s say you had to choose one of the following punishments: (1) For a period of one year, you have to take EVERY shit in full public display. Like if it’s at home, the family has to watch you in the act. Everywhere else: There are no stalls/doors/anything. You sit there, and people watch you go about your business. Or (2) the full list of everybody you’ve EVER mentally used for masturbation purposes (ex-girlfriends, coworkers, neighbors, celebrities, Tim Tebow) is put on permanent display, like on a website or memorial wall or something. Which one is worse?
Whoa. hey, there’s a big difference between a website of your imaginary conquests and a memorial wall. A wall is NICE. If you etched my named into a wall that commemorated “History’s Greatest Poopyfaces,” I would still be flattered.
Nevertheless, the obvious answer here is that I would have to choose shitting in public for the rest of eternity. It’s a horrible fate, but still the better option by far. Everyone would feel AWFUL for me if I had to drop a big growler in front of the whole world twice a day. They would empathize. That wouldn’t be the case with a Fapper Memorial. No one needs to know about all the Slaughter videos that I watched pantsless back in the day. And what about the time my one friend Dave wandered into the fantasy for a second? Does he go on the wall? DAVE CAN’T KNOW, MAN. All of my relationships would be destroyed. It’s a greater indignity than openly dropping anchor.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve helped myself to myself in public, which I’m sure has NO GREATER PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANING OF ANY KIND. Ever have one of those dreams? Let me tell you something: You will never be more glad to wake up. “Wait, I didn’t actually go to town on myself at that cocktail party, right? PHEW.” So much relief.
Austin:
Are model/remote-control-airplane enthusiasts pissed off or excited that drones are currently so popular? Do they think people flying drones are stupid poseur dicks who just don’t understand RC flying?
As someone who has crashed and broken a hobbyist drone, I can tell you that I AM a stupid poseur dick. However, I think the majority of drone fetishists out there are dudes who were already into RC planes and little balsa-wood model helicopters and shit. I went to a drone fan meetup for GQ, and it was all dads who liked using drones for gardening and stuff. Drones are simply the next iteration of an existing hobby, and they attract lots of old dudes because they combine two very popular Dad Pursuits: old-man toys and amateur photography. The only thing dads love more than flying drones around is lecturing you about proper photography lighting. Wait until drones can actually map out driving directions for strangers. It’ll be like the Dad Perfect Storm.
My dad visited this weekend and brought my kids a toy RC helicopter to fly around. Did he ever let them fly the thing? Of course not. He wanted to fly it the whole time, and when he wasn’t dicking around with it, he was fighting ME for the right to the remote. YOU KIDS SHOULD WATCH AND LEARN FIRST. We crashed the helicopter 87 times, then we sat down with the instruction manual and skimmed it. “Now, wait a second. Says here to turn the switch to ON! But I did that already! Something’s not right here, dammit.”
Then we crashed the thing 87 MORE times, and then finally read the manual in full. By that time, the kids had already learned to fly it far better than either of us.
Michael:
At what age is it no longer acceptable for a kid to piss at a urinal in public with his pants down to his ankles? I don’t trust my 5-year-old to keep his pants up without pissing on them. He has enough trouble as it is. But we were at a baseball game last week, and it felt damn odd to see him there with his pants all the way down in a crowded stadium.
Yeah, but he’s five. When you’re that young, you have to stick your dick WAY out to make sure it reaches over the lip of the urinal, especially if the low urinal is a touch high. I’ve had my 3-year-old stand on my shoes so that he can reach over the urinal lip. It’s a very tense 10 seconds of urination. Then he puts his hands ON the edge of the urinal, and I die inside.
I think any boy under the age of eight or so is allowed to do the full pant-drop. Pulling it out through your undies or over them is a difficult technique that even I manage to fuck up every now and again. OOPS I HIT THE WAISTBAND OH GOD. By the time a kid is in 2nd grade or so, he’s better at handling his junk, and he’s self-conscious enough to NOT want other people to see his butt in full. Prior to that, it remains the funniest thing on Earth. “Look at my butt! That’s my butt!”
By the way, I’m not much of a father, but I do know that the most important thing to teach a boy is to look where he pees. If you don’t teach them that, they’ll piss everywhere. You gotta FOCUS.
HALFTIME!
Ryan:
Suppose it comes out that an active player (let’s say A-Rod) won a million bucks on his sports’ daily fantasy during the regular season. Does he get the Pete Rose treatment, or does he appear in the next commercial in full uniform to show that really anyone can win?
No, because the leagues are in bed with the daily fantasy sites, which are supposedly “not gambling” sites, which makes it okay! This is why Maurice Jones-Drew could be a big fantasy player WHILE he was an active NFL player and not have the NFL come down on him hard for it. If the NFL is actually involved in the gambling, and MJD is helping to sell the product, then the NFL is fine with it, and they can pretend that there’s no danger of a player “fixing” a game for fantasy-related purposes, even though a player easily could!
When Pete Rose calls a bookie and puts a bunch of straight-up bets on baseball games, that looks awful because most of us are NOT degenerate shitbag gamblers. It’s real easy to look at Pete Rose and be like, “That guy’s up to some shady shit.” (And he was!) You can make that guy an outcast. You can make him the boogeyman. By contrast, if MJD is participating in a fantasy league that millions of people join “for fun,” then it doesn’t seem as shady, because he’s just like you. There’s not that much of a difference between the two forms of gambling, and daily fantasy blurs the line even more. My guess is that all this DFS shit will be illegal within two years, and leagues will quietly forbid players from participating*.
(*I think many athletes refrain from participating in fantasy leagues already because fantasy football is for NERDS, and they pride themselves on being real athletes and stuff. They’re dicks like that.)
Will:
My wife was traveling cross-country with our three kids, ages 2, 4, and 6. She stopped at McDonald’s to pee and was forced to bring all three into the stall with her; she instructed each to stand still and proceeded to pee. My 2-year-old became fixated on a French fry on the floor and kept reaching for it; my wife put her foot on the fry and continued to pee. Upon completion, she had to help the 4-year-old pee, only to hear the 6-year-old yell, “Mom, Sally just ate a French fry!” To this day, I get in trouble for not being there.
I’ve now stopped trying to prevent the consumption of floor foods. If the kid wants to risk eating a Cheerio that was behind the couch for a month, that’s on them. NATURAL CONSEQUENCES.
By the way, if a child gets food on the floor now, I’ll often just eat it myself, because I’m too lazy to take it all the way over to the trash. My wife is the same way. Last week she ate a piece of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from 2006. That’s the gamble.
R:
I’m a petite woman who often farts in public. I do this assuming that the smell will be blamed on almost anyone else nearby because I don’t “look like” someone who would rip ass like that. Am I correct in believing that people probably wouldn’t pin farts on me unless there was no one else around?
SO IT WAS YOU. YOU MONSTER.
Listen, I can’t deny you the right to exploit societal double-standards for flatulent gain. Men are gross, and so men are presumed to have dealt it first. Fair enough. But if you ever try to pin a fart on me, I AM CALLING YOU OUT. The fact that you show no remorse for your actions merits an eight-week suspension from all elevator usage. SO SAYS THE FART COMMISH.
[Bangs gavel.]
[Farts.]
Dan:
How long can a glass of water sit out before it’s undrinkable? If I wake up hungover, and there’s a glass of water next to me, I’m probably drinking it regardless of how much dirt, dust, and insect parts have settled in there over the past week.
If you’re that special kind of hungover that feels like all the liquid has been sucked out of your digestive system, then ANY water is acceptable water. But under normal circumstances, a room-temperature glass of water is undrinkable if it has ANY visible stuff in it, like bugs or grass or little bits of poop or a thin film of slugs across the top. NOT POTABLE.
Chris:
So I’m sitting at work and unexpectedly coughed a loogie right onto my keyboard. It’s stuck between the keys, and I can’t get it out; now that it’s hardened, a few keys aren’t working. Do I need to get IT to fix it for me? Or do I just power through, banging on keys to get them to sporadically work and not telling anyone how disgusting of a human I am?
Power through. How are you gonna explain that to IT? I’d rather die. You may as well masturbate in front of the poor guy. Instead, go find a sharp knife and chisel that booger crust away, then turn the keyboard over and shake it into a trash can. Failing that, get one of those cans of air-powered keyboard cleaner and blast away at the crevices. That spray can is tremendous fun. Sometimes I turn it on myself to get a blast of cool refreshment. TASTES LIKE FREON!
If the keyboard is still broken, then you can probably call IT with the confidence that you’ve cleaned enough booger-rock away for it go unnoticed. Just say, “Uhhhh, it broke for some reason,” and then ask for a new keyboard. They won’t know your repulsive nasal afterbirth was the cause. They’ll just assume you were looking at porn.
John:
What major sport is the most rewatchable? Last weekend, I watched Kobe put up 81 on the Raptors when NBATV re-played that game, and it was pretty enjoyable, even though I can’t stand Kobe, because I just got to be amazed by what he was doing, and the fact the outcome of the game was already well-known didn’t matter too much.
That would be an ideal ESPN Classic game to watch, because Bryant made history through the entirety of the game, so you’re re-watching it to get a closer look at how he accomplished that insane feat. In general, if you are a functional adult, the only reason to watch ESPN Classic is if they have some historic game on and you feel like watching the few “live” moments that built up to the Flutie Hail Mary/the ball going through Buckner’s legs/the Laettner shot. I would never watch any classic game from start to finish, regardless of sport. I know HARDCORE FANS say they do this, but I think they’re all lying and just want to sound even more diehard than they are. I WATCHED THE FACKIN’ BIRD STEAL GAME 90 TIMES, WITH ADS! Bullshit. You watched the end and then caught up on new episodes of prestige TV. That’s far more efficient. If I’m watching any old sports, it’s gonna be old World’s Strongest Man contests. They age beautifully.
Keith:
I work as an anchor at a small-market news station. I was recently discussing interview gaffes with a co-worker, and we were wondering what places we could get hired if we showed up to a job interview wearing a football helmet. Sure, Subway would hire me in a heartbeat, because their standard for employment barely exceeds that standard for defining whether a person is alive. But, how padded would my resume need to be for me to get hired at a decent TV station? (Note: All questions about the helmet during the interview would be deflected. “Why are you wearing a helmet?” “Oh, my co-workers ask me that all the time.”)
I would wear one to my NFL combine interview. Coaches would be DAZZLED by my passion.
COACH: “Why are you wearing the helmet, Drew?”
ME: “Gotta be ready to step up.”
COACH: [Bumps my draft grade up two rounds.]
Apart from that, no other place on Earth would hire you for anything. They would just assume you’re a stoner pulling a prank on them, and then they would throw your ass out the door. “You think this is funny, son? GET YOUR ASS OUT OF MY OFFICE.”
Dan:
If TV had never been invented, would the NFL have become even remotely as popular as it is, or would it have remained a league overshadowed by baseball, college football, and boxing?
Well, it was the advent of television AND gambling that caused the NFL to explode, so it still probably would have grown in popularity without one of the two, albeit at a slower clip. As it stands now, football is a shitty sport to watch in person BECAUSE of its popularity on TV. Everything about the game is set up to accommodate the viewer at home. It’s like sitting in the studio audience for a late-night talk show, with a camera in front of the host’s face the entire time. You are the scenery. Your enjoyment of the proceedings is a low priority. Much more important that we stop the game so ESPN can cut to Boomer in the halftime studio to tell the TV audience about what’s coming up on the FartDuel Halftime Show.
Without TV, a live NFL game would obviously move faster, but it’s still not as good a live experience as going to a hockey game (the best live sport) or a basketball game. My guess is tha, without TV, the NFL would be about as popular as baseball and basketball are right now. And college football would be MORE popular then the NFL, because college games are big-ass parties.
Michael:
Why have two doors and not let the world use that second door? Is this not a fire hazard?
It’s for ventilation, right? If they have the air on, they don’t want both doors to open. Ever unlatch the locked door and use it anyway? You’ll feel like a REBEL.
Gethan:
I pretty much never wash fruits before I eat them (unless they are visibly dirty). Am I going to die?
No. The dirt is the healthiest part! My wife says you have to wash the apple to get the pesticides off, but come on. Five seconds under a running tap isn’t getting rid of the DDT on my honeycrisp. That shit is watertight. When she isn’t around, I just eat unwashed fruit like a filthy savage. She’ll never know until the day I get pancreatic cancer! I WIN!
By the way, there are certain produce items you really HAVE to wash, like loose lettuce and leeks and any other vegetable that has dirt stuck between its layers. Ever eat a gritty salad? It’s horrible. There’s no point in ever buying unbagged lettuce anymore. I’ll pay the 10-cent premium.
Email of the week!
Daniel:
When I was in school, we drove down the coast to San Diego. Obviously those of us who had finished our driving duties bought a handle of vodka and get pretty drunk, and then we went out in San Diego that night. Needless to say we were pretty hungover the next day, but we managed to drag our asses to the big zoo. We stumbled around for an hour or two in a haze, and wound up at the hippopotamus tank. All of a sudden people start gasping and laughing, and we are snapped to attention. The hippo’s tiny tail is twirling like a helicopter blade and everyone is pretty impressed. And then the shitting starts. An unbelievable stream of shit. And the spinning tail is chopping it into pieces and throwing it EVERYWHERE. All over the glass, and 360 degrees around the tank, the walls, the trees. A huge chunk even lands directly on the hippo’s head. This lasts for at least 45 seconds. The audience is just in shock. I look over, and my buddy has this look of absolute bliss on his face. I have never seen such joy.
Gotta be nice to be a hippo.
Drew Magary writes for Deadspin. He’s also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter@drewmagary and email him at drew@deadspin.com. You can also order Drew’s book,Someone Could Get Hurt, through his homepage.
Lead photo by AP.