Hey let's talk running backs today… ACC returns just 1 1,000-yard rusher (Shipley) and just 3 RBs w/100+ carries who averaged 5+ y/rush (Shipley, Jordan & Benson). Still, some upside with a number of other backfields, particularly if a few teams have real OL improvement… 🧵
Among teams with at least 90 designed runs vs. top-40 defenses (by SP+) last year, only Michigan had a better yards/rush than Louisville (6.0) and no team had a higher rate of 10+ yard runs than the Cards (19.1%).
But what does the Lville ground game look like w/o Malik? Overall I'm not worried, but red zone is a ?. Over past 2 years, Malik had 41% of Cards' RZ carries & 65% of their RZ TDs. He scored on 1/3 of his RZ runs. That's pretty ridiculous.
Louisville ranked 2nd in yards/designed run vs. top-40 defenses last year. FSU was third (5.78) and Pitt was fourth (5.74). Flip side: NC State (3.09), BC (3.23) and Wake (3.44). Virginia had just 54 carries vs. top-40 Ds but avg woeful 2.41 per.
Returning specialists BC: K, P* Clemson: P Duke: K, P FSU: K, P GT: K, P Lou: None Mia: K UNC: P NCSU: P* Pitt: K, P* Cuse: None UVA: K, P VT: P WF: K, P *part-timer returning
The ACC was NOT a good OL league in '22. Per PFF, highest graded run-blocking unit was Duke at No. 37. The highest graded pass-blocking unit was NC State at No. 31. Meanwhile, GT, Virginia, VT & BC were among the worst OLs in the country.
On the plus side, if you're a believer that experience = improvement on the OL, the ACC has six teams — BC (96%), UNC (83%), Clemson (81%), GT (77%), FSU (76%), UL (71%) — returning at least 70% of last year's snaps. For Clemson, in particular, I think this is big.
Why do I say that re: Clemson? For 1, it's also Year 2 under a new OL coach, and the returning production should show real results. Second, the depth should be outstanding. Third, Klubnik's happy feat were a big issue for him. Solid OL play is critical to comfort in pocket.
More on Clemson: Last year was actually a big improvement. Tigers led ACC in non-blitz pressure rate (20.9%), 3rd in avg time to first pressure (3.1 sec) and 3rd in blown block rate (22.3%).
Anyway, let's do it again for 2023. Will post groups sporadically over the next few weeks as I have time to dig into the numbers. Part of the analysis is last year's stats, part my educated guesses for 2023. None should be bookmarked to taunt me in December. Let's start with DBs.
BC was hounded by big plays in the passing game last year when 16% of dropbacks resulted in an explosive play. Eagles were OK overall (4th in ACC in adj comp%, 6th in pass play success%) the big plays translated into a league-worst 59% of plays going for a TD or first down.
Clemson was 2nd in pass play success%, 4th in expl play%, 3rd in pass DEPA ly. Struggled a bit vs deep ball but return a really solid, veteran group led by Nate Wiggins (39% comp, 8.2 raw QBR & 2nd-best contested catch% in ACC). Keep 👁️ on S. Jones, too. Sneaky good last year.
Duke's pass D was the 1 real criticism last year. Blue Devils ranked 13th in ACC in success%, 11th in pass DEPA & 12th in adjQBR. Good additions via the portal for '23 in Blades & Jones and the depth should better. On a team primed for regression, this is a growth area.
An interesting exercise from our pal @BudElliott3, looking at possible ceilings and floors for ACC QBs… What's really wild is the ranges he comes up with…https://t.co/Vgc07WvYP0
I don't necessarily agree on all… but the reason for a lot of it is what happened in 2022.
I had a fun conversation with a friend of mine the other day about “Top Gun: Maverick.” I saw it in the theater shortly after it was released, and I loved it. It was the type of genuinely exciting, popcorn flick that absolutely needs to be seen on the big screen and that so rarely gets made anymore outside of the Marvel movies.
On the other hand, it was still a popcorn flick. The dialogue was superfluous, the characters were cut-and-pasted from the first movie, and the plot could essentially be boiled down to an early level of a first-person video game about flying. This was not high art.
And yet, “Top Gun: Maverick” is a nominee for Best Picture. That’s crazy, right?
On the one hand, comparing what went into making “Top Gun” with something like “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” or “Banshees if Inisherin” underscores just how light “Top Gun” is. There’s no depth to it, no deeper message it wants to convey. It’s largely what a really good algorithm might’ve written in that it hits on all the elements of an enjoyable movie without actually having any feeling behind them.
On the other hand, as my friend argued, you unquestionably feel something watching “Top Gun.” It was exhilarating. It was the type of movie where, cliched as it sounds, people stood up to cheer. How rare is that these days? And isn’t the point of a movie to make you feel something?
That’s the case my friend wanted to make. Just because the feeling evoked by “Top Gun” wasn’t sadness or introspection or existential dread doesn’t make the feeling evoked any less significant. Indeed, the feeling of watching “Top Gun” in the theater for the first time might be far rarer than anything the other Oscar movies delivered this year.
So, is it reasonable for “Top Gun” to be a Best Picture nominee? My sense is its presence on this list is as much about gaining a wider audience for the awards show as it is about the movie’s actual quality. But that it forced me to consider what art really is on the big screen probably supports its inclusion either way.
As for other movies that got some serious buzz in 2022, I’ve spent the past few weeks playing catch-up on all I missed throughout the year, and I have thoughts below.
Of note: Movies I have no intention of seeing:
Avatar: The Way of Water – I’ve never seen the first one. I’m not going to see this one. I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything.
All Quiet on the Western Front — I’m sure it’s great, but I just don’t think I have it in me to watch a 3+ hour German war movie. I’ve got to draw a line somewhere.
The Whale — Tom Hanks in “Elvis” was enough “actor in a fat suit” for me this year.
Movies I plan to see in the near future and may write about then:
Triangle of Sadness — Finally someone is speaking out about how awful rich people are. Oh, I’m being told that’s literally what 70% of all new shows and movies are about…
The Eternal Daughter — I need to see it to be certain it’s not just a fake movie from an episode of “Seinfeld.”
Women Talking — Assuming this is just an episode of “The View” but I’ll give it a shot when I can see it on a streaming service for free.
Babylon — This looks like if they remade Leo’s “The Great Gatsby” but, you know, good this time.
Moonage Daydream — I love Bowie but I also have to be in the right mood to go through a Bowie looking glass. And by that I mean I probably need to secure some edibles.
RRR — People seem to love it, and I’ve chosen to pronounce it only in a pirate voice.
Decision to Leave — I’m assuming this is Tim Robinson in a hot dog suit for two hours and I’m very excited to see it.
The Fabelmans — It’s about time indie director Steven Spielberg gets some national recognition.
Aftersun — I enjoyed “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” so I’m looking forward to this sequel which I’ve not researched at all.
Empire of Light — I have nothing funny to say about this. I actually don’t know a damned thing about it.
“Tár” opens with fictional conductor Lydia Tár being introduced on stage for a conversation with NPR’s Adam Gopnik. During their conversation, he poses questions about the role of a conductor, and how different conductors can alter music through their own interpretation of the creator’s intent. Tár’s true muse is Mahler’s Fifth, which she says, unlike all of his other work, remains mysterious beyond a dedication to his new bride.
This, to me, is the mission statement of a movie that virtually every criticism I’ve read has missed. In “Tár,” critics want to see a treatise on cancel culture or misogyny or #MeToo or power dynamics in relationships or classism or political correctness or… you name it.
All of this is in the text of the film, too. But while “Tár” appears to want to broach these subjects through the gradual fall from grace of its title character, it always wades into the water only to turn back without making a real statement.
It’s why the film has been cast as both a comment for and against cancel culture; a biting criticism of Gen Z’s culture of feelings or a cynical satire of an older generation’s “fuck your feelings” mantra. It argues for separating art from artist, then shows us an artist who seems very much worthy of our disdain and never asks us to root for her. To know what the movie thinks about any of these issues is to fill in your own blanks.
All of this would be interesting enough, I think, if that’s where this ended: As a conversation about the film’s true intent. But what I think is missing is something far more obvious than the subtext so many want to apply to it.
I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but I would simply say that there is a lot on the screen that begs the viewer to ask questions about what they’ve just seen. There is so much that simply doesn’t make sense as objective truth, and as a result, an ostensibly political movie actually plays as a ghost story, a whodunit, a psychological thriller, a twisty mind-game — and yet almost none of this seems to be discussed in most of the reviews of the movie I’ve seen, save this one, which astutely leans into the less political but very clear signals the movie offers.
I watched it with my wife, who upon its conclusion assailed the film as “boring.” That’s perhaps a fair review, too, and one I probably shared to an extent in the immediate aftermath of a movie that offered no clear conclusion. But the more I thought about it and read and dug in… the more I fell in love with all it offered — from what was on screen and, more importantly, what wasn’t.
What is “Tár” about? I think it’s like Mahler’s Fifth. It’s about everything or nothing. It’s what you want to see in it. It’s a mystery. It is, like a great composition of music, something that exists entirely within the context of how the conductor chooses to interpret it, and in this case, we are the conductor of our own orchestra.
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (Showtime, 3 stars)
What a weird, fun, hilarious, strange, interesting, philosophical ride this movie was. How to explain it? No, it’s better not to. It’s inexplicable. It has so much to say in so many strange ways. No one has ever taken the literal idea of an everything bagel to its logical conclusion, but this movie does. No film has ever made better use of a butt plug joke. This is like the most elevated “Rick and Morty” episode on steroids. It defies convention at every turn and I absolutely loved that. Was it all executed perfectly? I don’t know. I have a sense that it’s a movie I’ll enjoy more upon a second viewing because, honestly, I spent most of my initial watch just wondering how the hell someone came up with all of this.
Oh, and Biff Wiff is in it. I am a huge Biff Wiff fan since learning of his existence in Season 2 of “Dave.” I would really like to read a 10,000-word feature on Biff Wiff’s life.
The Banshees of Inisherin (HBO Max, 4 stars)
There’s a rich tapestry of “Hollywood doesn’t make anything original anymore” complaints these days, and usually, I’m inclined to agree. But boy, this year’s crop had some genuinely surprising narratives and unique ideas — with “Banshees” right near the top of the list.
It’s not that the story itself is entirely inventive. It’s an elegy of male friendship, which shouldn’t feel so surprising, but that’s a topic that is so rarely examined in popular culture.
Every performance in this movie is riveting — so much so that it’s easy to overlook Barry Keoghan or Kerry Condon in supporting roles — and the cinematography is just breathtaking. But it’s the friendship — or lack thereof — at the movie’s core that unveils so much depth and humanity.
Most reviews have focused on the wonderful performance of Colin Farrell as Padraic, and for my money, Farrell absolutely deserves the Oscar for best actor. He’s amazingly expressive, funny and sympathetic. I say this as someone who’s never been much of a fan. (Farrell’s typical style that’s akin to if a homeless guy could be a d-bag has always rubbed me wrong.) And indeed, the movie’s point of view asks us to largely view Padraic as our avatar, the jilted friend who’s desperate to find something of substance in his life.
Brendan Gleeson’s Colm largely takes a backseat, because we’re meant to find his explanation for ending this friendship confounding, frustrating, mysterious. But I think that serves to overlook what truly makes this movie special, because the tragedy of Colm’s life — a true Greek tragedy of self-inflicted misery — is so significant, too.
The setting and backdrop for the movie are essential here. The largely desolate island in Ireland allows for a close examination of loneliness and determination to find meaning in one’s life when, in fact, significance is a rare commodity. That this despair is examined against the backdrop of war — always seen in the backdrop, but never infringing on our characters’ lives — only underscores how insignificant our these men are — except to each other. And the fact that the movie’s climactic event occurs as a matter of pure happenstance — a series of choices resulting in a tragedy that couldn’t have been foreseen — effectively offers a reminder that, whatever meaning there is in life, it’s typically thrust upon us rather than hunted down.
This movie has little in common with “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” in terms of its production. “Banshees” is small and quiet, where “Everything” is, as the title might suggest, immense. But they share the same DNA at their core, about how we find meaning in life when, by all practical measures, our choices are meaningless — either because we’re small men on a small island in the middle of nowhere or because we’re small women in an infinite universe where anything that can happen already has. In a macro sense, the message of both movies is clear: We don’t matter. But each movie is far more interested in a micro view, where our choices matter to those we surround ourselves with, and value and significance are not determined by the universe, but what we choose to care about.
Causeway (Apple+, 2.5 stars)
I could list about a dozen somewhat glaring flaws with this movie — from the weirdly inconsistent use of the New Orleans setting to the significant lapses in plot development — and yet, I can’t say it wasn’t a suitably enjoyable viewing. It is, in a sense, the alternate narrative of “Banshees” — the start of a friendship and the pitfalls that accompany that delicate time. Like “Banshees,” it’s a small movie, almost entirely driven by quiet scenes of dialogue between two characters. Jennifer Lawrence is fine, given what she has to work with, but it’s Brian Tyree Henry who really shines. I’d watch Henry in pretty much anything, but his ability to play both detached but caring observer and wounded tough guy — hard and soft together — is his wheelhouse, and he nails it here. The movie checks in at a brisk 94 minutes, which is both a blessing (it’s an easy watch given the limited payoff) and a curse (it feels like there’s a lot more character development that could’ve been done here).
Nope (Peacock, 2.5 stars)
I really liked “Get Out.” I thought “Us” was interesting and ended on a particularly disquieting note that I found to be poignant and unnerving enough to make the movie feel bigger than it might’ve actually been. But “Nope” is just… fine. It’s a movie that’s perfectly watchable, reasonably suspenseful (though never actually scary) and moderately interesting, but it falls short of Jordan Peele’s previous work in that it never really amounts to much of anything. It feels like there should be deeper symbolism within the narrative, something more meaningful than just “people fight an alien” and yet it never really comes through. There’s tons of set up but no real payoff. Even the movie’s grand conclusion feels unearned — just a sort of a deus ex machina. There are fun characters here that never really get developed, motivations largely left unexplained. In short, “Nope” is more of an interesting idea than a fleshed-out world.
Elvis (HBO Max, 1 star)
I have no comprehension of why this movie was reviewed so glowingly other than reviewers were simply happy to see a music biopic that didn’t feel like every other music biopic.
I’m not a fan of music biopics in general. “Dewey Cox” pretty much ruined the genre by so perfectly skewering the blueprint that it’s hard to take any of them seriously. So, I suppose it’s reasonable to suggest that Baz Luhrmann wanted to do something different. In that, he succeeded. It is different.
It also lacks any sense of narrative focus and essentially feels like a two-and-a-half-hour montage scene.
Austin Butler is getting real buzz for his portrayal of Elvis, which may be good, but it’s hard to tell given that, aside from the music, he doesn’t really do anything besides sweat a lot.
I’ve never seen a Tom Hanks movie in which I didn’t enjoy Tom Hanks’ performance (even “Joe vs. the Volcano”) but I genuinely hated watching him here. And the decision to build the narrative around Col. Parker’s point of view is utterly perplexing. Why? Would you make a Batman biopic through The Joker’s point of view? (Actually, that’s kind of an intriguing idea. Never mind.)
I get the need to do something with Elvis beyond the typical “Behind the Music” style rise and fall narrative. But this has no narrative at all. There’s almost nothing explaining Elvis’ inner drives beyond what Col. Parker tells us as an unreliable narrator. It’s a fever dream based loosely on facts about Elvis’ life. Even the music doesn’t get a true chance to shine.
Perhaps there’s something to be said about “Elvis” as a piece of art. As a movie, however, it’s a total mess.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Roku, 3 stars)
No this was a good music bio. OK, in fairness, it wasn’t exactly a biography. I’m sure there were some tidbits of Weird Al’s real life in there, but this was essentially a parody of parody, and it worked on every level.
The satire of a stereotypical music bio wasn’t as overt — or quite as damning — as “Dewey Cox,” but it did hit on many of the main tropes of the genre, while never straying too far from the silliness that ultimately has made Yankovic a star for four decades.
“Weird” is all the fun of an old-school Zucker Brothers satire — sharing more DNA with something like “Airplane” or “The Naked Gun” than with a true music bio, from the zany slapstick comedy (Weird Al killing Pablo Escobar) to the wonderful celebrity cameos (excellent use of Lin Manuel Miranda).
And unlike “Elvis,” which had, you know, a real music library to pull from, “Weird” actually celebrates the songs in a far more enjoyable way than Lurhmann does in his movie.
But the best part of “Weird” is the lead performance from Daniel Radcliffe, who is genuinely brilliant. He plays the whole thing straight — a la Leslie Neilson in “Naked Gun” — which allows the comedy to work so much better. But the pathos, as silly as it is, still feels earned. And I’d have given him an Oscar just for his delivery of the line “Hard pass!” in the pool party scene.
“Weird” actually reminded me a bit of “Top Gun: Maverick” in that it is the type of movie you just don’t see much anymore — something fun, light and cool. It had the same irreverent, silly, disarming, fun, charming and underground vibe that so much old-school comedy — National Lampoon’s stuff, “Caddyshack,” “Kentucky Fried Movie,” etc. — had… a veneer of cool laid overtop a fully nerd-based core.
If “Elvis” was a tribute to the artistic pretense of its creator, “Weird” was the exact opposite. It was an homage to all the underground comedy nerds that have kept Weird Al relevant for all these years.
The Menu (HBO Max, 4 stars)
I watched this within a few days of finishing Season 2 of “White Lotus,” a show I genuinely liked, if didn’t always find myself entirely invested in. Still, it served as a fine precursor — or, perhaps in this case, amuse-bouche — for “The Menu.”
Both “White Lotus” and “The Menu” (as well as a lot of other media out in recent years) is intended as dark comedy taking aim at wealth and privilege. Both succeed in their own ways, but what “The Menu” does so exquisitely is execute that satire in an utterly original way, while also saving some of its most pointed barbs not for the ultra-rich but for the bourgeoisie who feign their own inclusion in the elite class by mimicking many of the worst behaviors of the rich and entitled. In other words, it made me squirm worrying if I do that, too.
Ralph Fiennes is absolute perfection in the lead role, playing a role that asked him to appear both utterly crazed and yet entirely buttoned-up. Anya Taylor-Joy, whom I loved in “The Queen’s Gambit,” is equally mesmerizing here, too. And smaller but utterly wonderful performances from Judith Light, Nicholas Hoult (who is brilliant playing utterly detestable), John Leguizamo and Hong Chau all round out a fantastic cast.
It’s rare to find much that feels truly original in Hollywood these days, but “The Menu” is unlike anything else out there. It’s biting satire that takes its subject matter seriously and delivers an eloquent treatise not on food, but on food culture. It could easily serve as black comedy, genuine food porn, gothic horror or biting satire. It was all of it. It was a film filled with genuine surprises, real depth of character, and an absolutely perfectly executed finale.
“The Menu” was my favorite movie of the year, and it wasn’t particularly close. I predict, too, it’ll hold up as an utterly re-watchable tale that will continue to unveil more depth and humor upon subsequent viewings, too.
She Said (Showtime, 3.5 stars)
I was dubious going into this movie. For one, I’m rarely a fan of journalism movies for the same way I’m guessing a lot of doctors don’t watch “Chicago Med.” To see your profession dramatized is to see your profession lose the nuts and bolts — which is really everything. Worse, I assumed this could be simply a Hollywood movie congratulating itself for Hollywood finally taking women’s complaints about Harvey Weinstein seriously. At best, I figured, this would be “Spotlight” redux.
In some ways, all of those concerns turned out to be a little bit true. I’m not sure the movie covered any new ground. It certainly ignored some of Hollywood and, in particular, The New York Times’, roles in allowing Weinstein to prey on women for so long. And, of course, no movie worth watching will every truly show journalism as it actually is (example: I doubt the real Megan Twohey was making critical reporting calls while walking down a busy NYC street).
But that’s nitpicking at a movie that was absolutely stunning.
Carey Mulligan and, in particular, Zoe Kazan, depicted actual reporting better than I think I’ve ever seen dramatized in any film or television show before — the struggles, the monotony, the failure again and again and again. In both of them, I saw so much of other journalists I know. They absolutely nailed the roles — Mulligan as the more established and cynical veteran, Kazan as the sincere believer. Both deserve genuine Oscar buzz.
More importantly, the movie was never about Weinstein, per se. He was a plot device, really. The movie was instead an examination of the victims, of the impact Weinstein’s actions had on their lives, the grief and chaos and turmoil that lasted for decades after he assaulted them. It was as much a film about grief as it was about sexual assault or journalism or #MeToo. And because of that, the movie’s climax, as witnesses agree to go on the record and the story finally comes together, has such a genuine emotional payoff that far exceeds anything you could expect from a story that most viewers already knew well.
Of course, my bias here is for the journalism aspects of the film, and on that note, “She Said” belongs among the genuine great movies about reporting. It may be the absolute best.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix, 3 stars)
Here’s the seemingly ubiquitous review of “Glass Onion,”: It was good, but not as good as the first one.
Alas, “Knives Out” was such a thrill in part because of some spectacular performances (including Chris Pine and Jamie Lee Curtis playing against type) and wickedly sharp dialogue but also because it had been forever since we got a genuinely sharp whodunnit that didn’t feel like an overt regurgitation of something we’ve seen 1,000 times before. As good as “Glass Onion” might’ve been, it was invariably going to feel derivative in a way “Knives Out” didn’t.
I genuinely enjoyed the performances and dialogue again this time, and while the satire of rich privilege was brilliantly executed in the original, I actually preferred the send up of disruptor culture here.
But in the end, my real gripe with this installment was something the movie seemed to lean into: The simplicity of it all. I love a good murder mystery. I watch too much “Dateline.” And while I don’t typically obsess over the “who” in most whodunnits, the payoff in this one felt sort of… thin. Again, the movie readily admits this and tries to use it to its advantage, but I’m not sure it worked as well as it could have — at least for me.
On the flip side: Any and all jokes about Jeremy Renner’s hot sauce earn a solid stamp of approval.
Death on the Nile (HBO Max or Hulu, 2.5 stars)
As I noted on “Glass Onion,” I love a good murder mystery, and I’m usually a fan of even rudimentary Agatha Christie remakes. In this case, Kenneth Branagh does a fine job here injecting some new energy into a well known story, and the scenery, set design and wardrobes are all fantastic. (Gal Gadot dressed to the nines is always worth tuning in for.) Branagh, himself, plays Poirot with at least moderate depth of emotion (even if it doesn’t always feel earned) and the denouement played nicely whether you’re well aware of how the story ends or a first-time viewer. Was it something special? No, not close. But it was an enjoyable enough way to spend two hours.
X (Showtime, 2 stars)
This movie got some serious buzz as a brilliant homage to ’70s slasher films, and it certainly attempted to mimic the aesthetic. But it played as more stylized horror than as a horror movie with something interesting to say about repressed sexuality, religion or, most significantly, the marginalization of old people. It hinted at interest in all of those topics, but largely left motivations and depth aside in favor of getting the look and style of the ’70s right, then leaning into a “aren’t old people weird and gross” crutch that was far less interesting than the premise the movie might’ve been built around. It’s odd, too, that the film really takes its time building to the real gore, and yet in that time offers so little in the way of character building. It was fine, but frustrating that it could’ve been so much better.
I read a lot of journalism because I feel like it’s impossible to be good at something if you don’t also spend a lot of time studying others who do that thing well. And, since I read a lot, I’ve made a habit of, each December, putting together a list of my favorite stories I’ve read during the past year.
As for 2022, I struggled to narrow things down to 10 (and, as a result, my top 10 actually includes 12 stories) so here’s the list along with a bunch of honorable mentions.
Happy reading!
Honorable mentions:
No story felt more personally written for me and my “old man yells at cloud” sensibilities this year than Leslie Stein‘s New Yorker treatise on these damn kids and their Nirvana t-shirts.
December offers a truly endless supply of lists, most of which are simply opportunities to remind yourself that, oh yeah, “Severance” was a thing I watched in 2022. This one, however, was actually insightful, funny and thought-provoking: Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things I Learned in 2022 in Medium.
And from Tom’s list, I found my way to this piece, which I hope will make me a marginally better person in 2023: Adam Mastroianni‘s Substack piece, “Good conversations have lots of doorknobs.“
Speaking of thought-provoking, I enjoyed Jason Kehe‘s “Of Course We’re Living in a Simulation” from Wired. I’ve done a rather embarrassing amount of reading on metaphysics and the possibility we are, indeed, all part of a simulation, including a book Kehe mentions in his piece, “Reality+” by David Chalmers. But if I’m going to recommend one item from my long list of “what does it all mean?” research, I’d suggest “A Trip to Infinity“ on Netflix, which was completely mind-bending and yet entirely accessible.
I’m biased when it comes to my favorite sports story of the year, because I know what a passion project this was for my pal Dave Wilson, who dug deep into the magical season at TCU.
I sometimes worry that stories like this one — Madeleine Aggeler’s “In the Court of the Liver King” for GQ — do just enough to glamorize the subject while intending it to be something of a circus freak show that they add credibility to something or someone who doesn’t deserve it. Still, I can’t argue that this wasn’t a fun and ridiculous read.
I’ll write more on the topic of government agencies that have long since exceeded their value with my top story of the year, but this piece from Darryl Campbell in The Verge on the utter misery of working at the TSA is an exceptional example of well intended government bureaucracy going awry.
My pal Tommy Tomlinson says a story should have two central points: 1.) What’s it about? And 2.) What’s it really about? What I loved about this piece from Kelsey Vlamis in Business Insider about a mountain climber’s fall on Denali has a genuinely engaging narrative that also asks the deeper question of what we owe to a complete stranger in moments of great stress.
Honorable mention, Part II: What has become of our society?
I found myself reading less than usual this year. It wasn’t intentional, but more a byproduct of the fact that so much of the best journalism was about stuff I simply lacked the emotional bandwidth to consume after years of stress and anxiety about politics and pandemics and — well, everything. I think, of all the divisions in our country right now, one of the most problematic is the one between the people who have found meaning in the fight and those of us who are simply exhausted by it, and want to find some small sense of normalcy again.
It feels like land mines are hidden around every corner by folks who have found an identity in culture wars, political crusades, conspiracy theories, cancel culture — on and on and on — and I, for one, am just tired of being eternally vigilant. I think about movies like “Das Boot” or “Jarhead,” where soldiers are damaged less by those rare moments of genuine stress and more by the ceaseless need to be prepared for disaster for weeks and months and years. We all deserve a break, but there never seems to be a means of escape.
As such, I found myself reading a lot this year about the people who have been victimized, in one way or another, by this endless war on… what, exactly? The specter of potential danger? The threats of an unseen enemy? The belief that the very survival of our family and friends and country depends on us, individually, fighting endlessly? The fallout of those battles is everywhere, as these pieces showed.
I think Senator Chris Murphy oversells what government can — or should — do to address the problem, but his essay in The Bulwark on the epidemic of loneliness in our country hits on what may ultimately be the defining issue of our time.
This piece in the New York Times from Campbell Robertson feels so insanely tragic: A Kentucky man goes down the conspiracy theory/end times rabbit hole, builds a bunker under his house, and then sees his daughter murdered by another man obsessed with the end times and the need to secure his own safe space when the inevitable civil war comes.
Becca Rothfield‘s piece in The New Yorker certainly isn’t the first to address “the Shaming Industrial Complex,” but it’s yet another reminder that the cost of making ourselves feel better is often a cruel and unusual punishment for those who’ve made mistakes. As a society, we lack any sense of grace these days.
I’m not an Andrew Yang fan by any means, but his essay in The Washington Post, backed up by boatloads of data, about the price males are paying amid a societal reckoning on sexism and misogyny, is really eye opening.
David Wolman‘s New York Times story on two men who set out for Hawaii to escape Covid-19 lockdowns is yet another example of how the right-wing media’s obsession with conspiracy theories and outrage led to the (likely) deaths of people who buy in to the whole narrative.
Kaitlyn Tiffany‘s essay for The Atlantic was an insightful request for more grace. We all hurt the ones we love… not to mention tons of people we don’t love. We are all flawed. We all make mistakes. But rather than a shared sense of humanity and forgiveness, our current culture often insists we point fingers, cut people out of our lives entirely, and blame, blame, blame.
First off, I cannot emphasize enough what a terrific follow Derek Thompson is on Twitter. Perhaps part of this comes from his work really being in my readership wheelhouse — contrarian, data-driven, thought-provoking, and often with a nice analogue to sports. (In fact, if you’re looking for a pure sports-and-data piece, here’s another exceptional piece from this year on the most amazing statistical achievements in sports.)
As for this story, it hits on something I’ve been thinking about for a while — that imperfection is actually essential to humanity. I starting considering this with regards to replay in college football. I hate replay. Hate, hate, hate it. Yes, it may correct incorrect calls — but the cost, in my opinion, far outweighs the benefits. It slows the game down, priorities tedium over the bigger picture, and asks officials to go against their instincts to make calls with the expressed intent of “fixing” them later on replay.
But Thompson’s piece goes bigger: By determining the ideal blueprint to maximize an advantage, we remove the fun from the entire system. This is true in baseball, clearly, but I think you can see it all over these days when so many things are determined by an algorithm programmed toward efficiency when, at least to a degree, I think most people enjoy the messiness, the unexpected, the chance that, in a chaotic world in which anything can happen, at least one of those outcomes might be something truly remarkable.
The point: Efficiency has diminishing returns, and beyond a certain point, more order equates to less enjoyment.
Holly and Spencer have somehow become the go-to obit writers for complex characters. I had a good relationship with Mike Leach. I liked him. It was hard not to. But he was not a man without flaws, and he was not someone whose life could — or should — be summed up in a neat package. The Channel 6 reckoning with his sudden death this month did a fantastic job of capturing the man behind the character, and it was one of the few truly fitting send-offs to the Pirate.
I included these two stories together because I felt the same way about them when I was done reading them: I had questions.
I don’t mean this as a negative, per se, because obviously I loved the pieces overall. They were challenging and insightful and well reported — and yet I felt each had a clear thesis, delivered a stirring argument in support of it, and yet left me with some follow-up questions I wish could’ve also been answered.
In Rachel Aviv’s piece about a girl who was abused by her mother, escaped that horror, then was thrust back into it when Penn decided it didn’t believe her story, the obvious emotional response is outrage. How could this happen? How could so many people fail to believe this girl? How could Penn victimize her all over again? In fact, the question of how this could happen — and how her mother seemed to escape sincere scrutiny for so long — was so big that I came away wondering what I was missing.
In McKibben’s piece, he includes tons of research to support his opinion, but I think he too often shrugs off the politics of the situation in favor of the obvious “we should be doing this!” mantra. He’s probably right — and I think there’s a huge issue with assuming the status quo is better than an alternative because the immediate expense is large and the rewards come over a longer term. Ultimately, McKibben makes the case that there is no panacea to our energy and environmental concerns, that we have to take the bad with the good, that we must make the leap now, even at great cost, to avoid a far higher bill in the future. Again, I think he’s probably right. But I had so many follow-up questions afterward.
I think that good stories should do that — leave you wanting more. Both of these stories opened the door to stories where I simply wasn’t satisfied with what was on the page. I wanted to live among them longer, to ask my own questions, to dig deeper and deeper until I was utterly comfortable with the narrative.
(And, of note, Aviv’s piece led to a reversal by Penn. Again, the mark of great journalism is creating actual change.)
There’s no magic trick to this story. It’s just a good, old-fashioned profile of someone I knew a little about and enjoyed every new detail I learned. Great writing matched with a great profile subject equates to a great story.
I’ve Always Struggled With My Weight. Losing It Didn’t Mean Winning by Sam Anderson in The New York Times
When I read a personal essay, I’m far less concerned with it being “good” so much as engaging and honest. Thankfully, Anderson hits those notes with ease while still delivering a really well written, funny, emotional and thought-provoking piece that asks some important questions about diet, health and how we manage the very strange relationship we have with our own bodies.
I loved these stories because they approached two very flawed human beings with an empathetic eye that allowed the central figures to feel human rather than the caricatures they often seem to be on cable news.
In Rice and Nuzzi’s piece, the reporting into the most-discussed and least-understood laptop in history is terrific, tracing its origins and custody throughout the entire ordeal leading up to the 2020 election. It reveals a story that is somehow both far more scandalous than Democrats want to admit and far less of a stinging indictment of the Biden family than Republicans want to believe. But more than all that, it’s a tragic story of a guy who has enormous demons — both self-inflicted and as a result of circumstance — that ultimately feels more sad than scandalous.
Similarly, Kruse’s profile of Cawthorn is deeply personal and oozing with genuine empathy. For those of us unwilling to dive into the deep end of the political crazy pool, it’s easy to look at someone like Cawthorn and ask, “How does someone end up this way?” Kruse actually finds answers. He’s become arguably the best political profiler in the country (check out his profile of Rafael Warnock, too) and this piece on Cawthorn ranks among his best works.
I’m a bit biased here, too, in that Paula is one of the best in the business and the person I turn to every time I need to dig into a real investigative piece. She’s done so much unbelievably good work for ESPN over the years, but few stories have matched this one for vivid detail and intense humanity. It’s impossible to read this and not come away outraged, but it’s even more frustrating to know that this was certainly not the only predator allowed to upend lives on college campuses for years and years while escaping any public scrutiny because schools were all too happy to cover up for athletes and ignore women. But the beauty of this story is that it doesn’t allow the evil of the central figure to overwhelm the humanity of the victims. This is, at its heart, a story of survivors, who even decades later, still demand to be treated as people.
In most years, this deep dive into the money-making enterprise of hospice care would rank as the story that made me angriest, but our No. 1 story this year had that title on lock down. Still, this was an exceptionally reported piece that showcased what an absolute scam many hospice providers are and the impact it has on both your tax dollars and, far worse, the folks being scammed into signing away their rights in hopes of (maybe) receiving some kindness from businesses that promise to take care of them.
I noted Chris Murphy’s essay on the epidemic of loneliness earlier, and I think this piece hits so many important notes on why it’s a far trickier topic to address than Murphy suggests. From the piece:
When you’re in middle age, which I am (mid-middle age, to be precise — I’m now 52), you start to realize how very much you need your friends. They’re the flora and fauna in a life that hasn’t had much diversity, because you’ve been so busy — so relentlessly, stupidly busy — with middle-age things: kids, house, spouse, or some modern-day version of Zorba’s full catastrophe. Then one day you look up and discover that the ambition monkey has fallen off your back; the children into whom you’ve pumped thousands of kilowatt-hours are no longer partial to your company; your partner may or may not still be by your side. And what, then, remains?
I’m 44, early middle age according to Senior. My kids are still young enough to want to spend every moment with me. That ambition monkey is loosening its grip, but it hasn’t fallen off. My wife still tolerates me. And yet I felt this story in my bones.
I have a lot of friends — friends from high school and college, friends from work, friends from towns where I haven’t lived in more than a decade, friends whose kids go to school with my kids, friends from… it’s impossible to say quite where. I’m lucky in that sense. And yet there’s an eternal feeling of tenuousness, that the whole enterprise could collapse under the weight of the real world. I have a near constant guilt that I don’t put more effort into these friendships, that I don’t see people more often, that I don’t set aside other things for more nights out for drinks or road trips to a football game or all the things that help keep friendships going, that provide a new set of inside jokes and quotes to be used and reused, over and over. I worry that, too often, when I see friends, we just talk about the old times, and we’ve ceased to have experiences that will one day be the fodder for our conversations about a new set of old times.
We are so incredibly divided as a society these days, and sometimes that feels natural — to isolate from all the people who’ve hurt you, disappointed you, believe something different from you, or just want a portion of your time you can’t afford to offer. And yet, those relationships are the things that sustain us. We need connection. It’s as essential to our lives as food and shelter and air to breathe.
The first thing to say about this piece is that it might be the most detailed investigative story I’ve ever read. But because of that, I’m guessing a lot of people who needed to read it did not. It is long — a two-hour read, according to Pocket, but I’m much slower than that. It’s tough to digest at times, too, because such a huge part of the story is the bureaucratic nightmare that ensued, and bureaucracy is inherently a hard thing to make interesting. But the substance of the story is so relentlessly exasperating.
What’s great about this piece beyond the depth of investigative reporting that went into it is that, much like the Cawthorn or Biden pieces mentioned earlier, it finds its pulse in understanding the people involved rather than focusing on the policy or the rhetoric.
Yes, the policy of family separation was abhorrent. Yes, for some people — Trump and Stephen Miller, most assuredly — the cruelty was the point. And yes, in the final chapter of the story, the gut-wrenching impact of the policy is laid bare.
But where the story mines its best material is in the way it explains the sheer laziness, incompetence and bureaucratic nonsense that allowed all of this to happen.
Long before this was the biggest story in the country, dozens — hundreds? — of people made clear that the policy had no chance at success. And yet on the strength of fear, incompetence and self-interest, it happened anyway. It is an astounding indictment not just of the Trump administration’s morals, but of how insanely dumb so many of his sycophants were and how frustratingly spineless so many of the career bureaucrats were.
There are so many takeaways from a piece like this, including the obvious issue of kids STILL separated from their parents. But I think the three things that have stuck with me most are:
1.) The levers of government are not built to withstand the sheer force of will of zealots.
2.) ICE, as an institution, needs to go. The culture within that department is unfixable.
3.) The situation at the border is legitimately awful and people who suggest it is untenable are not evil or malicious. The problem is that the issue is so deeply politicized that any measures that might actually help are unlikely to be implemented.
We’re caught in a debate between open borders and approaching caravans, and the truth is what we desperately need is a coherent immigration strategy that allows people to enter the U.S., find community, and add value to our society. There’s no easy path to that point, but we can get there if we’d just stop ignoring the obvious in favor of rhetoric.
by David M. Hale 