Thursday, July 24, 2025

Adam Sandler Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Adam Sandler-whose latest project "Happy Gilmore 2" begins streaming on Netflix tomorrow. 

Adam Sandler's Filmography Ranked:

40.Jack and Jill (D-)

39.Zookeeper (D)

38.Coneheads (D)

37.The Cobbler (D)

36.Anger Management (D+)

35.You Don't Mess with the Zohan (C-)

34.Click (C-)

33.I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (C-)

32.Murder Mystery 2 (C)

31.Hubie Halloween (C)

30.You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (C)

29.Airheads (C)

28.Punch-Drunk Love (C)

27.Spanglish (C)

26.Pixels (C)

25.Grown Ups 2 (C)

24.Eight Crazy Nights (C+)

23.Bulletproof (C+)

22.Murder Mystery (B-)

21.Hotel Transylvania 2 (B-)

20.Hotel Transylvania (B-) 

19.The Week Of (B-)

18.The Do-Over (B-)

17.Grown Ups (B-)

16.Little Nicky (B-)

15.Just Go with It (B-)

14.Blended (B)

13.Mr. Deeds (B)

12.Reign Over Me (B)

11.50 First Dates (B)

10.The Wedding Singer (B)

9.Hustle (B)

8.That's My Boy (B)

7.The Waterboy (B+)

6.Funny People (B+)

5.The Longest Yard (B+)

4.Big Daddy (B+)

3.Billy Madison (B+)

2.Happy Gilmore (A)

1.Uncut Gems (A)

Top Dog: Uncut Gems (2019)

After seeing it again in IMAX last year, Uncut Gems has been solidified as a masterpiece to me. The Safdie Brothers-in what sadly could be their final work as a duo-created a chaotic, scuzzy character study about an NYC jeweler (Sandler) whose lengthy history of reckless gambling and taking advantage of everyone around him finally catches up with him as he scrambles to pay back his loan shark brother-in-law (Eric Bogosian) the $100,000 he owes him. Sandler is unreal as a fast-talking hustler piece of shit desperately trying to wiggle his way out of the biggest jam he's ever been in; the gradual escalation of the stakes is a masterclass in building tension and the ending is the type of unforgettable triumph that every filmmaker should be aiming to close their films out on.     

Bottom Feeder: Jack and Jill (2011)

Any issues, of which there are many, with the content of Jack and Jill have been discussed at great length by people that are far more articulate and intelligent than me, so I'm going to bypass addressing them here beyond this sentence. What I will talk about is how brutally unfunny it is. Sandler has had his share of movie misfires over the years, but nothing else even comes close to matching the absurdly high whiff rate of Jack & Jill. The Al Pacino Dunkin' Donuts bit that goes viral every so often is the only remotely funny thing in the entire movie! It's equally embarrassing and head-scratching that a veteran professional comedian was behind something so devoid of laughs.    

Most Underrated: Funny People (2009)

I just revisited this one a couple weeks ago after not seeing since it first came out on home video in November 2009 and to be completely honest, I was somewhat taken aback by how much I enjoyed it. While it's a bit shaggier than Judd Apatow's finest hours as a filmmaker, there's still a lot of laughs, heart and humanity to be found in its story of a superstar comedian-turned-actor (Sandler) who suddenly gets introspective about his life when he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. Sandler does reliably great work as a man who think he has it all until he's suddenly facing death and realizes he has nothing besides money and fame, Seth Rogen is similarly great as the young comedian Sandler's character brings on his assistant/jokewriter after a chance encounter at a comedy club and Eric Bana-who shows up in the latter half of the film as the brash husband of Sandler's long lost love (Leslie Mann) that he's seeking to make amends with 10+ years after they broke up-shows that comedy is a sharp tool in his acting arsenal that has been underutilized during his career.   

Most Overrated: Punch Drunk-Love (2002)

After being really impressed with Licorice Pizza, I thought I'd maybe had a breakthrough with the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. Punch Drunk-Love was the first PTA film I saw post-Licorice Pizza and it didn't take long for me to realize that no such breakthrough had occurred. Sure, it's distinctly weird and well-acted, but it's also brutally slow and uninteresting. We'll see in a couple months if One Battle After Another becomes the second PTA film I enjoy. 

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

2025 NFL Preview: AFC East

 Buffalo Bills

2024 Record: 13-4 (1st in AFC East)

Head Coach: Sean McDermott (9th season)

Notable Additions: DE Joey Bosa, WR Josh Palmer, CB Dane Jackson

Notable Departures: WR Amari Cooper, CB Rasul Douglas, DE Von Miller

Biggest Reason for Excitement: They're Going to Coast to Another Division Title

Here's an unsurprising fact: The Bills have won 5 consecutive AFC East titles, which means that they're the only team to win this division during this decade thus far. If they don't make it 6 straight come January, either one of their rivals put together a miracle season or Hailee Steinfeld cursed them by making a questionable statement about their success. The Dolphins retooled their roster after a disappointing 2024 campaign. The Patriots are in the middle of a rebuild. The Jets are the Jets. This should be the easiest path to winning the AFC East that they've ever had and I fully expect them to have this shit wrapped up by early December at the latest.   

Biggest Reason for Concern: Lack of Splashy Additions

The Bills ended their 2024 season in a familiar position of heartbreak after narrowly losing to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. This marked the 4th time in the last 5 years that the class of the AFC the last 6 years running has eliminated them from the playoffs and the 6th straight season they were eliminated before the Super Bowl. Given they're firmly entrenched as one of the best teams in the AFC and that they have the luxury of having a true star QB's who firmly in his prime at age 29, they can no longer settle for celebrating relatively deep playoff runs every year. The window where titles need to be won is here and if they don't win one now, there's a serious risk of Allen becoming the next Jim Kelly in Orchard Park.

Typically, when a team feels they are within striking distance of a title, they'll make an aggressive roster move or two to attempt better their odds of lifting the Lombardi. The Bills did not deploy this strategy. In fact, their lack of splashy moves is borderline shocking. 

To be fair to them, electing to use the bulk of their available cap space to re-up or extend key players like Christian Benford, Greg Rousseau and Khalil Shakir is a sound strategy that shows that GM Brandon Beane is serious about keeping guys around that contribute to winning. That being said, pretty much running back it with the 2024 roster doesn't feel like a wise move given how serious some of their deficiencies were-particularly in the secondary (they ranked 24th in pass defense last season) and with the depth at wide receiver, linebacker and the edge. Now, they didn't completely stand pat as they brought in Joey Bosa, Michael Hoecht, Shaq Thompson, Dane Jackson, Tre'Davious White, Joshua Palmer and Elijah Moore in free agency. It's just that reuniting with a couple of corners (Jackson, White) that previously left town, kicking the tires on Bosa-whose frequent IR trips over the years have started to really catch up with him as he's coming off a pretty average 2024 season where he registered 5 sacks and 13 QB hits in 14 games, putting a pair of wideouts who've struggled to make a consistent impact (Palmer, Moore) in the pros into their rotation, bringing in an unremarkable pass-rush specialist in Hoecht that won't even be available to play until Week 8 after he serves a PED suspension and crossing your fingers that McDermott's old buddy from Carolina Thompson can turn back the clock at age 31 after playing just 6 games over the past 2 seasons following a broken fibula and torn Achillies doesn't really move the needle much. Right now, at least, it's hard to be convinced that this is a team that's in a better position to win today than they were last season and if they do ultimately fall short in 2025, it's highly likely that their unassuming offseason moves will be a big reason as to why their title drought has continued.            

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Josh Allen Finally Coming Up Big in the Playoffs

This headline is a tad bit unfair as it implies that Allen is responsible for all of his playoff losses, which isn't the case at all. Still, the fact remains is that he's yet to put together a signature performance in these spots (his defense robbed him of this opportunity in the 2021 Divisional Round when he had that insane 27/37/329/4 TD performance at Arrowhead) and the steady respectability he's shown in most of these spots haven't been enough to get the Bills to the promised land. To prove that he's truly one of the best the game has ever seen, he needs a legacy-building run of dominance where he wills his team to a championship. He's come up big in the regular season plenty of times, his dual threat dynamism makes it easier for him to take over a game than nearly any other QB that's ever played in the league and lesser talents than him have done it numerous times over the last 20 years (Joe Flacco, Eli Manning x2, Matthew Stafford). It can and needs to be done this season in order for Allen to live up to the level of greatness that has already been bestowed upon him.  

Bottom Line: 
Everything is pointing to the Bills being near the top of the AFC hierarchy once again and anything short of that would be a major disappointment. 

Miami Dolphins

2024 Record: 8-9 (2nd in AFC East)

Head Coach: Mike McDaniel (4th season)

Notable Additions: S Minkah Fitzpatrick, G James Daniels, TE Darren Waller

Notable Departures: CB Jalen Ramsey, S Jevon Holland, T Terron Armstead (retired)

Biggest Reason for Excitement: Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips Returning

While their offense stumbled a bit for the first time under Mike McDaniel (22nd in scoring offense, 15th in passing offense, 21st in rushing offense, 25th in 3rd down conversion%, 16th in redzone offense), the Dolphins defense did a good job of keeping them in games. Anthony Weaver made his presence be known in his 1st year as DC by elevating this group into the top 10 in the league in several key categories including scoring defense (10th), pass/run D (9th) and red zone D (4th). One of the only areas where they struggled was in establishing a pass rush. They racked up a pretty lackluster 35 sacks across 17 games-which ranked 28th in the league and 16 of those came from just 2 players (rising star DT Zach Sieler, rookie Chop Robinson).

2025 could be a much different story as they're set to get back both of their starting edge rushers in Bradley Chubb and Jalean Phillips. The Dolphins were handed a uniquely difficult hand last season as Chubb didn't play a down all year as he recovered from an ACL tear suffered at the end of the 2023 season and Phillips suffered a partial ACL tear in a Week 4 contest with the Titans, which was particularly brutal after he suffered an Achillies tear that his ended 2023 season after 8 games. During the 2023 campaign, Chubb picked up 11 sacks and Phillips was well on pace for a career high after notching 6.5 in the 8 games he appeared in. Assuming Chubb and Phillips, who are 29 and 26 respectively, can return to form, this group should get an immediate boost. Putting two ferocious veteran edge rushers alongside an interior guy in Sieler that has logged back-to-back double digit sacks seasons, a rotational piece in Robinson who was pretty sensational in relatively limited playing time as a rookie (565 snaps across 17 games) and a rookie in Kenneth Grant who was one of the most productive interior pass rushers in college football during his 3 years at Michigan could be a formula for some serious pass-rushing magic.   

Biggest Reason for Concern: Offensive Line

Offensive line was not a strength for the Dolphins in 2024. Despite having relatively strong continuity with 2 players starting every game (Aaron Brewer, Robert Jones) and another 2 starting 14 or 15 (Terron Armstead, Liam Eichenberg), they surrendered 43 sacks, allowed pretty constant pressure and were generally below average-to-average in the running game. This longstanding weak spot for the Dolphins became even more of a problem this offseason when Armstead-who has been excellent when healthy-retired while Jones and swing tackle Kendall Lamm-who nabbed 7 starts filling in for the oft-injured Austin Jackson at RT-departed for the Cowboys and Eagles respectively in free agency.

Assuming Eichenberg-who has been really bad at every single spot on the line he's been asked to play over the past 4 seasons-is heading to the bench to start the year, the Dolphins will be returning just 2 Week 1 starters from a year ago (Brewer-who was quietly one of the best centers in the league last year and Jackson). Currently projected to fill the other 3 spots on the line are Patrick Paul (left tackle), free agent pickup James Daniels (left guard) and rookie Jonah Savaiinaea (right guard). 2024 2nd round selection Paul marks the biggest concern of the bunch as he's not only being saddled with the burden of replacing one of the most reliable left tackles in the game over the past decade but struggled mightily across the board during his 3 starts as a rookie last year. Daniels brings a different type of concern to the table as he's a solid veteran guard with a pair of major injuries (pec tear in 2020, Achillies tear last season) on his resume at age 27. Savaiinaea has the blessing and curse of being a rookie with a clean slate but belongs to that increasingly large group of lineman coming into the league with a great size/strength combo and no real polish to speak of. To put it mildly, it doesn't feel great to have to entrust this question-mark filled group with the fate of an offense led by a QB with a troubling injury history that is desperate to get its groove back.      

Key to Reaching Ceiling: An Addition by Subtraction Situation Emerging with Their Roster

After an ugly 2024 season that saw them miss the playoffs and finish on the wrong side of .500 for the first time since 2019, the Dolphins decided to shake things up a bit by retooling their roster pretty drastically. Between trade, cuts, lost free agents and retirement, the Dolphins said goodbye to many key pieces from last year's team (Jalen Ramsey, Terron Armstead, Jevon Holland, Jonnu Smith, Calias Campbell, Emmanuel Ogbah, Jordan Poyer, Kendall Fuller, Robert Jones, Kendall Lamm Raheem Mostert, Anthony Walker Jr, Siran Neal). That's a pretty significant degree for roster turnover for a team that's only 2 years removed from winning 11 games.

Amidst all of the moves that GM Chris Grier made to shake things up, it's possible that the Dolphins will be walking into the beautiful sports cliche that is addition by subtraction. As talented as the players they lost were, it became clear about halfway through last season that they didn't have the right mix of guys to be a real contender. Is there a degree of irony that Tyreek Hill survived this necessary retooling and one of the new faces tasked with changing the dynamic of the team for the better is the recently unretired idiot that fumbled Kelsey Plum then released a song blaming her for his own infidelity? Of course, but this doesn't necessarily preclude them from having a better constructed roster/locker room situation. The reshuffling of the decks is going to allow them to see what they have in young guys like Cam Smith, Malik Washington, Patrick Paul, Storm Duck and Jaylen Wright, they were able to land a bonafide star safety in Minkah Fitzpatrick from the Steelers in the Jalen Ramsey trade-which offsets some of the pain of losing one of the best corners in the league and their athleticism improved on both sides of the ball as the roster got younger on the whole-which is good for a McDaniel-coached team that is driven by speed over everything else. Crazier things have happened than a team finding themselves when nobody expected them to do, especially when that team still has plenty of high-end talent on that roster despite all of the great players they cut ties with.        

Bottom Line:

Given their significant roster shakeup and inevitable lingering concerns about Tua Tagovailoa's health, they're the biggest wild card in this division right now.  Anything between a complete flameout and Wild Card berth feels plausible. 

New England Patriots

2024 Record: 4-13 (4th in AFC East)

Head Coach: Mike Vrabel (1st season)

Notable Additions: DE Milton Williams, WR Stefon Diggs, CB Carlton Davis

Notable Departures: CB Jonathan Jones, DE Deatrich Wise Jr., C David Andrews (retired)

Biggest Reason for Excitement: The Hiring of Mike Vrabel as Head Coach

Jerod Mayo got absolutely screwed when the Patriots let him go after leading a hopeless roster to a 4-13 record in his only year on the job. The harsh reality is that it's also true that he was woefully unprepared for the HC gig and it would've been a bad idea to bring him back after the team showed a stunning lack of discipline and improvement on a week-to-week basis under his watch. The other harsh reality surrounding the abrupt end to Mayo's brief tenure as Pats HC is that there's virtually no chance he would've been fired if recent inductee to the Patriots Hall of Fame Mike Vrabel wasn't unemployed in January. Robert Kraft is taking the most heat he's taken by far since he bought in the team in 1994 right now and there was no better way to both inspire hope that better days are ahead and continue his trend of only hiring guys that have previously been on his payroll to coach the team than bringing in Vrabel as HC.

Bullshit jokes and commentary about Kraft's way of doing business aside, Vrabel is the right guy to lead the Patriots in this moment. The final 2 seasons of Bill Belichick's run and Mayo's year at the helm were defined by a lack of structure. discipline and brutal losing that the organization hadn't seen since the early 90's. While I'd argue that Vrabel's reputation has been inflated too much by the Titans unlikely 2019 AFC Championship run, he does have an established track record of being a strong in-game coach and running the type of program that players buy into. If the glowing reports from local media are to be believed, he's already made a great impression in the building and earned the trust and respect of the locker room, which would be a huge thing for a rebuilding team that looked completely hopeless just 6 months ago.            

Biggest Reason for Concern: Their Huge Roster Turnover Not Delivering Results

Coinciding with Vrabel's arrival of course, Kraft had to beat the cheap "allegations" (it's absolute hogwash that anyone would label him cheap after consistently ranking in the bottom 3 in the league in total spending across multiple decades!) by breaking out his check book for a spending spree with the hopes of jumpstarting their rebuilding efforts. The front office braintrust led by returning GM Eliot Wolf and Vrabel's old buddy from Tennessee Ryan Cowden-who spent the past 2 seasons with the Giants-went ballistic with Kraft's money in a way that isn't completely unlike the 2021 spree that saw the Patriots land Matthew Judon, Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Jalen Mills, Kendrick Bourne, Davon Godchaux, Kyle Van Noy and Nelson Agholor. The massive haul of free agents they landed was headlined by Milton Williams, Stefon Diggs, Carlton Davis, Harold Landry, Robert Spillane, Morgan Moses and Garrett Bradbury. High marks were awarded for this class from pundits and rightfully so, they addressed a lot of their biggest needs and in the case of Williams and Davis, landed some of the most highly sought after players on the open market.

Given their bevvy of high draft picks and still heavily flawed roster construction, the party carried over to the draft. Like free agency, they earned high marks for their dedication to attacking needs and getting good value from top to bottom with a class that was topped by LT Will Campbell, RB TreVeyon Henderson, WR Kyle Williams, C/G Jared Wilson, DT Joshua Farmer and EDGE Bradyn Swinson.

Now, comes the part where I question whether all these efforts are going to make the level of impact that the Pats are hoping for. While they had the right idea with these moves and some of the guys they're bringing I either absolutely love (Carlton Davis should be an awesome #2 corner alongside Christian Gonzalez, TreVeyon Henderson probably has the highest floor of any RB the Patriots have drafted into their organization this century, Kyle Williams has a profile that closely resembles the shifty, versatile WR's the Pats coveted during their Brady/Belichick glory years) or have no problem with at all (Harold Landry and Robert Spillane are respectable veteran contributors with fair contracts!), many of these guys are far from safe bets to deliver on the huge expectations that have been placed upon them.

Let's start with Milton Williams, who became one of the highest paid interior defensive linemen (4 years/$104 mil/$63 mil guaranteed) in the league after earning a ring with the Eagles in February. The fact that can't be ignored when looking at Williams impressive numbers from 2022 and 2024 (over these 2 seasons, he registered 9 sacks, 16 QB hits and 16 TFL's) are that he put those up numbers as part of the most loaded, superhumanly talented front 7 rotation in football. What happens when you place a rotational DL who is accustomed to playing roughly 400-500 snaps per season into a higher leverage role with considerably less talent around him? Guess we'll start to get the answer to that question in September.

Then, there's the offensive line trio of Campbell, Moses and Bradbury-who are projecting to be joining returning starting guards Mike Owenu and Cole Strange. Campbell is a particularly interesting case as he's being widely hailed as a franchise left tackle. This assessment has puzzled me beyond belief. The arm length problem with can't be written off as just a silly predraft process story. Playing left tackle in the NFL requires being able to get a firm anchor on the guys that are coming around the edge and I remain unconvinced after watching his tape this past spring that Campbell can do that with any degree of consistency. He may've held up alright in terms of sacks allowed at LSU, but there were a lot of concerning plays (particularly against South Carolina EDGE Kyle Kennard-who was just drafted by the Chargers in the 4th round) where guys got around him with ease and he'll be tasked with going against much bigger/explosive players damn near every week in the pros. He won't be getting eased into the job at all either as the Pats have to take on Maxx Crosby and the Raiders in Week 1 and if he falters in this role all season long, I don't know much more punishment Drake Maye can take after playing behind the Vederian Lowe/Demontrey Jacobs dream team last season.

While they are vets with plenty of starting experience, Moses and Bradbury are similarly shaky bets when it comes to their prospects of helping to solidify of one of the most woeful offensive lines in the league. There was a time where Moses was one of the most reliable RT's in football, but at 34, those days may be behind him for good. He was below average at best with the Jets last year and has the added burden of his once impressive durability eroding after missing 3 games a piece of the last 2 seasons. 

Unlike Moses, Bradbury has never been good in the pros. The NC State product has been the epitome of average through 6 NFL seasons and the Vikings eventually decided that enough was enough after another unremarkable campaign in 2024 and cut him in March. While his cheap contract (2 years/$12 mil) and the selection of Wilson in the 3rd round indicate that this is a short-term veteran fix to atone for the loss of their longtime interior line anchor David Andrews-who retired in late May after being cut in March after 10 seasons in New England, it's awfully optimistic to expect him to do an admirable job of holding down the fort in the interim.

The most highly publicized and already controversial move of the bunch was the addition of Diggs. From the start, this move reeked of trouble as it was basically a forced marriage as the Patriots had a desperate need at WR and nobody else in the league was willing to give him a multi-year deal since he's a 31-year-old coming off an ACL tear. Even if you toss aside the questionable circumstances that dictated Diggs going to the Pats, it just feels like a bad idea to add a guy with his track record of having a shitty attitude to a rebuilding team. If he couldn't stay happy with Bills and Vikings teams that were winning (he was apparently fine with the Texans last year, but he was sidelined for the year before Halloween), what the hell he is going to do on a Patriots team that probably isn't going to contend for a fucking thing? There's also the very real and painful possibility that the ACL tear ended his days as a top-tier WR. He was already trending downwards after a quiet 2023 season and nothing he did last year with the Texans before the injury indicated that he had returned to his All-Pro form. Bouncing back from an ACL tear during a season in which he turns 32 is a tall hurdle that I'm not confident that he'll be able to overcome.

For people that don't live in the Boston area, going in on so many of their roster moves may sound like an insane overreaction. But believe me when I say, a lot of Patriots media and fans are convinced that this team is going to be the 2025 answer to the Commanders and shock the world with a deep playoff run. If this ends up occurring, I'll apologize to everybody for not believing in them and dedicating an absurd amount of time here to shitting all over the majority of the moves they made this offseason. If it goes the other way, however, I'll just attribute the shit that has entered my eyes and ears in recent months as necessary overenthusiasm from people trying to compensate for the soul-sucking pain of enduring the past few seasons of Pats football.        

Key to Reaching Ceiling: Drake Maye Making a Leap in Year #2

Alongside Vrabel's arrival, the primary catalyst for the Patriots being a popular dark horse playoff team pick is Maye. What Maye did last season behind an abysmal offensive line with zero skill position talent around him was astounding. He regularly manufactured plays out of thin air, wasn't fazed by the relentless pressure he was under when he dropped back to pass and never once threw his teammates or coaching staff under the bus for their poor performances. In a season that was full of despair, he provided a glimmer of hope for the future.

Obviously, Maye has the disadvantage of having to learn a completely new system as OC Alex Van Pelt was (understandably) not retained after Mayo's firing despite the good rapport they developed once he took over as the Pats starting QB in Week 6. The man that Maye will be working with in 2025 is the same one that Tom Brady and Mac Jones worked with while they were QB1 in Foxboro as Josh McDaniels has returned for his 3rd stint as Patriots OC. This hiring has proven to be quite polarizing as McDaniels somehow managed to further tank his reputation with his 2nd failed head coaching stint with the Raiders but has an established track record of OC success with this very team that can't be denied.

While I have strongly dismissed and mocked the hiring of McDaniels, he's at least learned enough from his failures to no longer be married to the system he ran with Brady for all these years. He'll take advantage of Maye's strengths as a dynamic QB who is capable of making throws on the run, working the quick game or deep vertical routes with equal proficiency or running RPO's/designed runs and design a scheme that showcases all of them. Whether he'll allow Maye to call audibles or establish a better play calling rhythm than he did in Vegas with Derek Carr is a big mystery, but the fears that he'll force Maye to rigidly adhere to his old system are misguided and frankly kind of ridiculous.

As for what Maye can do to improve, the biggest thing by far is decision-making. The same personnel problems that plagued his final season at North Carolina followed him to the pros, which lead to a lot of forced throws and backbreaking INT's (many of the 10 picks he had in his 13 game appearances last season were really ugly). You don't need to be a coach to deduce why he's crossing his fingers and chucking the ball downfield so much. Playing the desperate, hurried brand of football, he's been forced to play for the past 2 years is going to lead to the development of some bad habits. Assuming the line and WR's improve this season, he'll have the chance to start shaking them and if that happens, the young fella could be cooking with gas in no time at all.

The other big thing is accuracy. While his completion percentage (66.6%) from last year is nothing to sneeze at considering the shitty situation he was in, he had a fair number of easy whiffs-particularly at the intermediate level-that could be cleaned up with a better understanding of timing.

Maye flashed more than enough as a rookie to prove that he has a real chance of becoming a franchise QB in this league. If those flashes start to string together into more consistent productivity, this Patriots team will be starting their journey back to contention sooner than anybody expected.             

Bottom Line:

While they're bound to be a better coached team under Vrabel and improve upon their back-to-back 4-13 seasons, I still don't think this team is talented enough to meaningfully accelerate their rebuilding efforts in 2025.   

New York Jets

2024 Record: 5-12 (3rd in AFC East)

Head Coach: Aaron Glenn (1st season)

Notable Additions: QB Justin Fields, CB Brandon Stephens, S Andre Cisco

Notable Departures: QB Aaron Rodgers, CB D.J. Reed, WR Davante Adams

Biggest Reason for Excitement: Aaron Rodgers is No Longer on the Roster

We finally got to see more than a drive's worth of Aaron Rodgers in a Jets uniform in 2024 and in a development that shocked almost no one, it wasn't pretty. Turns out that Achillies injury really did a number on the 41-year-old Rodgers and took away his ability to extend plays with his mobility and manufacture huge throws out of his ass. Without his signature gift as a QB, he devolved into a middling statue who bared more of a resemblance to late-era Ben Roethlisberger than the guy who took home his 4th career MVP 3 seasons prior. Unsatisfied with their 5-12 finish and realizing that the man they deemed to be their savior was now pretty much completely washed, Woody Johnson elected to part ways with Rodgers in mid- February. This is the best thing to happen to the Jets since their last AFC Championship appearance in 2010 and everybody from Staten Island to Hoboken should be rejoicing that this insufferable stiff is no longer on their team.       

Biggest Reason for Concern: Aaron Glenn's Coaching Prowess

Saturday, January 18, 2025: After the Lions clawed their way back into their Divisional Round matchup versus the Commanders with a quick stop and long TD drive to start the second half and get the Lions back to within 3 points of the lead (31-28), Lions DC Aaron Glenn managed to swing the momentum back in the favor of the Commanders by not realizing that he had too many on the field during a pivotal 4 and 2th on Detroit's 5-yard line. After Dan Quinn accepted the 3-yard penalty and gave have his team a new set of downs, it took only 2 more plays for the Commanders to score a TD and get their lead back up to 10 (38-28). The Lions never sniffed taking the lead again and ended up losing by a score of 45-31.

Jets fans around the world couldn't help but gasp in horror of what transpired during this game. Everybody in and outside of their fanbase knew that Glenn was going to be the next Jets HC as he spent most of his playing career there and their brass was hellbent on hiring him, and he spent 4 quarters puking all over his shoes in what will go down as one of the most shocking playoff upsets of all time.

The reality is that this horrid showing by Glenn just confirmed something that he's proven time and time again: He's not a very good coach. If you were to take out the fugazi #7 finish they posted last season, Glenn had never overseen a defense that ranked higher than 23rd in scoring defense. To break it down more directly, Glenn's defenses finished in the bottom 10 for 3 straight seasons with the Lions before last year's questionable #7 finish. Not ideal! 

Believe or not, the hype around Glenn as an HC candidate actually dates all the way back to his time as the Saints DB coach-a role in which he served in from 2016-2020. I can explicitly remember a Fox broadcast in 2018 or 2019 where the announce team were gushing about him for minutes and stating that Sean Payton believed he was destined to be a great HC one day. Naturally, the legend of Glenn only built up further when went to the Lions and had the honor of being one of the top assistants on a team that went from a bottom feeder to a playoff team in 2 seasons time.

My big theory (outside of the whole Lions turning into the buzziest team in the league thing) as to why became such a hot head coaching candidate despite his pretty horrendous track record as a DC is his personality. He's a charismatic guy who loves football and seems to be able to get players fired up with his passion for the game. In that case, he may actually be better suited for head coaching if his coordinators are up for handling the X and O's (his OC is Tanner Engstrand- a fellow Lions staff transplant who served as Ben Johnson's top understudy over the last few seasons and his DC is veteran coordinator Steve Wilks-who is coming back to the pros after spending the 2024 season in the college ranks following him having the distinct honor of serving as Kyle Shanahan's fall guy for the 49ers Super Bowl Collapse in 2023), but it's still very difficult to buy into narrative that Glenn is some brilliant mind when his track record as an assistant is largely terrible.              

Key to Reaching Ceiling: The Defense Regaining Their Dominant Form from 2022

When Aaron Rodgers got traded to the Jets in 2023, the Jets were coming off a season in which they had one of the best defenses in football. Robert Saleh had this team playing the way he wanted after a brutal inaugural season in which they finished dead last in scoring defense and the physicality and stoutness he instilled in them allowed to post the 4th ranked scoring defense and 2nd ranked passing defense in the league. As seems to always be the case with the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS, things don't go quite planned once Rodgers arrived. In 2023, the defense held quite well for a bit until fatigue finally set in around Thanksgiving after playing roughly 860 snaps per game due to the Zach Wilson-led offense's inability to remain on the field. In 2024, they pretty much completely fell apart once Saleh was fired in early October, ranking in the bottom half of the league in most categories of note. 

The good news for the Jets is that many of the key players responsible for that excellent 2022 campaign are still around (Quinnen Williams, Sauce Gardner, Quincy Williams, Tony Adams, Michael Carter II, Jamien Sherwood, Jermaine Johnson), the new Jets that weren't around for that season (Brandon Stephens, Andre Cisco, Derrick Nnadi) have put together great seasons in the past and this new coaching staff provides them with the ideal opportunity to get back on track. Nearly all of these guys are coming off down years and having to learn a new system adds to the challenge that Wilks and Glenn have ahead of them as camp opens up, but it's hardly an insurmountable obstacle given how well the majority of these guys played in 2023.

The importance of getting this defense back in line cannot be understated. As much as people around the league seem to believe that Engstrand is primed to be next the offensive guru, it's going to take several miracles to turn a Justin Fields-led offense with an unproven RB committee (Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, Isaiah Davis), young tackle pairing (2nd year LT Olu Fashanu, rookie RT Armand Membou) and questionable WR depth chart (Josh Reynolds, Allen Lazard, Malachi Corley, Tyler Johnson, rookie Arian Smith) beyond Garrett Wilson into a unit that scores a lot of points. Fields needs an ideal setup to thrive as a QB and the one that Jets have in place right now doesn't appear to be anywhere close to that. Their best chance of winning this year will be grinding out ugly wins via ball control and winning the turnover battle and none of that is possible unless you have a high-end defense that can make that formula work. If the Jets can make that happen, snapping their league-high 15-year playoff drought could very well be in the cards.         

Bottom Line:

Unless Glenn returning to East Rutherford magically eliminates the deep institutional stink of this franchise, the Jets aren't going to do a damn thing of note this season.  

Predicted Standings:

1.Buffalo Bills (12-5)

2.New England Patriots (7-10)

3.Miami Dolphins (7-10)

4.New York Jets (5-12)

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

2025 NFL Preview Series: Release Schedule

NFL training camps across the league open this week, which means it's also time for me to launch my annual NFL preview series. Here's what the tentative schedule for this year's edition looks like as of now:

This week: AFC East

Next week: NFC East

Week of August 4th: AFC North, NFC North

Week of August 11th: AFC South

Week of August 18th: NFC South

Week of August 25th: AFC West

Week of September 1st:  NFC West

I hope that these pieces are as enjoyable for you to read as they are for me to write. Check back tomorrow for some thoughts on the 2025 Bills, Dolphins, Jets and Patriots that very well could draw a wide range of reactions!   

Monday, July 21, 2025

Movie Review: Eddington


Ari Aster following up his depraved surrealist opus Beau is Afraid with a satirical western set in the early months of the COVID pandemic in 2020 just makes too much sense. Aster already got out of the good graces of many cinephiles with Beau is Afraid, so why not kick the hornet's nest some more by making a film that forces viewers to step back into one of the singularly miserable, bizarre periods in modern history? For better or worse, Eddington is every bit as unapologetically incendiary, bleak and brazen as people would expect an Aster COVID movie to be. 

Eddington takes place in the fictional small town of Eddington, New Mexico in May of 2020. This small desert community has become increasingly divided as they have to deal with the isolation of having to stay at home amidst the lockdowns and wave of national civil unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The most high-profile clash in Eddington comes between the county sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix, who once again shines as a deeply pathetic, unhappy man) and mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). Cross and Garcia have long standing problems with one another that largely stem from Garcia's brief romantic involvement with Cross' wife Louise (Emma Stone) years prior and Louise's mother Dawn (Deidre O'Connell, bringing a similar brand of off-putting lunatic energy that she brought to her role on The Penguin) insisting that the mayor abused her daughter. After a public dispute over wearing a face mask in the town's grocery store, Cross decides to launch a bid for mayor and bring "common sense" back to Eddington. Everybody from Garcia to Louise to Dawn is livid that Cross has entered the mayoral race at the last minute and all of the humiliation, frustration and manipulation that follows Cross's impulsive decision to run for the town's highest office creates a powder keg that quickly explodes in a fashion that nobody in Eddington could've possibly imagined.

What Eddington understands that no other previous movie that centered around COVID has is that the pandemic didn't create new problems for humanity, it just further intensified ones that were already there. Having a deadly virus that forced the entire world to shutdown be unleashed during an era where brainrot, conspiracy theories and performative social media bullshit all brought on by the vast power of the internet was a recipe for widespread chaos that will be damn near impossible to ever come back from. Living in a world like this is every bit as stupid as it is frightening and that's precisely what Eddington conveys. Everybody is so wrapped up in whatever crusade they're currently involved with that they've ended up ignoring that there are larger forces at play here who are coming to make all of our lives worse and we're all too busy going at each other's throats to realize what's being done to us. Eddington may be deliberately depicting an absurdism-spiked version of the reality we live in, but there's a lot of uncomfortable truths that Aster is exposing here that could serve as an ideal jumping off point for how the civilian population can fight back against this vital technological advancement that has taught us all to disregard our shared humanity.               

Given the sheer volume of targets Aster has in his crosshairs, the narrative eventually becomes really fractured in the second half of the film. Even worse, the effectiveness of the satire coincides with the collapse of the narrative, which makes the whole climatic stretch a bit of a slog to get through despite delivering the explosion of cartoonish ultraviolence that a story like this was inevitably going to lead to. I'll fully admit that a rewatch could fix many of the issues I had with the latter half of the film. I've spent a fair amount of time since I exited the theater early Saturday afternoon reading reviews that offered up really fascinating, well-reasoned interpretations of what Aster put on screen. However, at this moment in time, I still feel like Aster's ambitions outweighed the coherence of his messaging and there isn't enough greatness to be found elsewhere in Eddington to distract from this problem that appears to be becoming a pattern in his movies.            

Grade: B-

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Movie Review: The Old Guard 2


Against the uncertain backdrop of the early months of the raging COVID pandemic in 2020, Netflix dropped The Old Guard. At a time where any new entertainment was happily gobbled up by people looking to temporarily curb the combination of fear, boredom and anxiety that was spreading perhaps even faster than the novel coronavirus, the ensemble superhero movie led by Charlize Theron that was based on a graphic novel series of the same name felt like a gift that was desperately needed. The film which focuses on a team of immortal warriors (Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli) working as mercenaries who become aware of the existence of a new member of their unkillable kind (KiKi Layne) and shortly after recruiting this U.S. Army solider to their team, end up engaging in a battle with a pharmaceutical executive (Harry Melling) who seeks to use their immortality to further expand his medical treatment empire, was the rare Netflix original to be well-received AND popular on the daily top viewed movie charts. The Old Guard boasted excellent action sequences, had real emotional stakes and did a good job of exploring the various triumphs and burdens that come with being alive for centuries. For me at least, it remains part of the very small group of Netflix-backed blockbusters that I wouldn't hesitate to call great movies (the Extraction movies are the others).

Fast forward to two weeks ago, The Old Guard 2 arrives on Netflix just shy of five years after the release of its predecessor. The film had quite the rocky road to release as it completed principal photography in September 2022, underwent reshoots last October and was the subject of some not exactly flattering public comments about its longer-than-expected production process by star/producer Theron. In a development that isn't shocking considering its production woes but is disheartening nonetheless, The Old Guard 2 kind of stinks.

I'm not trying to be hyperbolic in the slightest when I say this, but I really believe that The Old Guard 2 is the single biggest original-to-sequel regression that we've seen in recent history. This is one of those evil unicorn sequels that either has no understanding of or no interest in expanding upon (or at least replicating) what made the original work. All of the visceral, crisply edited fight scenes from The Old Guard have been replaced by action so horrendously shot, cut and directed that it wouldn't be acceptable in a Stephen Dorff vehicle filmed in Estonia for $400,000 USD in 9 days, let alone a major Hollywood production. The storyline-which involves the titular band of immortals recruiting their kind's historian (Henry Golding) to help them square off with the bloodthirsty first of their kind (Uma Thurman) and Theron's character's vengeful ex-lover (Veronica Ngo) who was freed from a tomb at the bottom of the ocean after 500 years during the original's mid-credit scene- is rushed and makes very little time for the character moments that made its predecessor to so easy to get invested in. Somebody got the bright idea to take a page out of the one of the most obnoxious chapters of the classic Marvel/DC playbook by electing to deliver an ending that only exists to as a teaser for the next movie, which is particularly shitty here as a third installment is far from guaranteed. The fact that the almost the entire original cast and screenwriter/graphic novel co-creator Greg Rucka returned for The Old Guard 2 makes its failures even more baffling. I guess you could try to pin the blame on director Victoria Mahoney-who had the difficult task of taking over for the great Gina Prince-Bythewood, but that feels like a cop out as the bulk of the problems here most likely came from the executive level when they elected to trap the movie in post for a whole 3 years and ordered reshoots that almost certainly didn't improve its quality.

If Netflix does elect to surprise people and make a third installment, I'll be crossing my fingers that they learned their lessons from what went wrong with this one. As shaky as The Old Guard 2 is overall, the problems here are easily correctable, especially since the performances and investment level of the cast make up 0% of the blame pie for what went wrong here. However, if this really is the end, Netflix deserves a lot of shit for fumbling the follow-up so badly. Building franchises is one of their top goals as a company and yet, they failed to rise to the occasion on one of the rare instances that organic franchise potential emerged from a title in their catalog. Normally, I'd say that this could be yet another sign that they're God fucking awful at producing movies outside of the auteur space, but I'm in a fine enough mood right now that I'll just say that this was a missed opportunity to expand upon a promising potential cinematic universe instead.            

Grade: C-

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

John Goodman Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of John Goodman-whose latest project "Smurfs" opens in theaters on Thursday. 

John Goodman's Filmography Ranked:

35.Captive State (D)

34.Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (D+)

33.The Flintstones (D+)

32.Transformers: Age of Extinction (D+)

31.Once Upon a Time in Venice (C-)

30.Evan Almighty (C-)

29.The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (C-)

28.Death Sentence (C-)

27.Transformers: The Last Knight (C-)

26.One Night at McCool's (C)

25.The Monuments Men (C)

24.The Artist (C)

23Red State (C)

22.The Hangover Part III (B-)

21.Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (B-)

20.Trumbo (B-)

19.The Internship (B-)

18.Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (B-)

17.Speed Racer (B-)

16.The Gambler (B)

15.Monsters University (B)

14.Patriots Day (B)

13Trouble with the Curve (B)

12.The Emperor's New Groove (B)

11.Bringing Out the Dead (B)

10.Flight (B+)

9.Argo (B+)

8.The Big Lebowski (B+)

7.Monsters Inc. (B+)

6.10 Cloverfield Lane (B+)

5.Kong: Skull Island (B+)

4.Atomic Blonde (B+)

3.O Brother, Where Art Thou? (B+)

2.Raising Arizona (A-)

1.Inside Llewyn Davis (A-)

Top Dog: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Inside Llewyn Davis became one of my favorite Coen Brothers movies as soon as I saw it in theaters in early 2014 and it remains among my favorites today. Oscar Isaac is a force of a nature as a musician struggling to break out in the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961 whose personal life is just as turbulent as his professional one, the tremendous script avoids struggling musician movie cliches by making Llewyn Davis a miserable prick who's plagued by his poor decisions/attitude just as much as good old fashioned bad luck and the melancholic ending manages to generate a surprising amount of sympathy for a guy that most viewers spent the bulk of the previous 95 or so minutes not liking all that much.        

Bottom Feeder: Captive State (2019)

What a fucking misfire this proved to be. Rupert Wyatt brings absolutely none of the energy, empathy or conviction that made his previous sci-fi movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes so great and instead, settled for wasting a pretty cool sci-fi premise (a rebel group in Chicago aim to overthrow the alien dictatorship that has been holding them captive for the past decade since they invaded Earth) on one of the most boring, narratively muddled movies to hit theaters in the last decade.   

Most Underrated: Raising Arizona (1987)

When it comes to pure goofball, madcap Coen Brothers movies, Raising Arizona is hard to beat. The Coens deliver a masterclass in situational comedy with the smorgasbord of great gags/punchlines they trot out here, and the cast headed up by Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Goodman, William Forsythe. Trey Wilson and Randall "Tex" Cobb is having a ball playing around in such a deeply absurd, silly sandbox.  

Most Overrated: The Artist (2011)

This is a serious question to anybody reading this: When was the last time you heard anybody talk about The Artist? It's barely 14 years old at this point in time and yet it's effectively been scrubbed from history! A Best Picture winner becoming this forgettable is a really remarkable feat to pull off in an era where a lot of people online have shown a great fondness for waxing poetic or ruthlessly shitting on past Best Picture winners. Aside from CODA, we'll probably never get a Best Picture winner this universally shrugged off ever again, so congrats to the team behind this blah movie for making history!      

Monday, July 14, 2025

Movie Review: Superman (2025)


When James Gunn was hired to lead the overhaul of DC at Warner Brothers alongside his longtime producing partner Peter Safran in November of 2022, the brand was in rough shape. The perception that they were Marvel's loser little brother that was making no attempt to get their shit together had only intensified after their largely poorly received movies also stopped making money at the top of the 2020's and the largely underwhelming final crop of films from the previous DC regime (Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) that were released after Gunn took his executive post managed to add even more layers of feces to the big shit sandwich he was inheriting. The billion-dollar question that Gunn was facing as he drew up the plans for DC's new era was how do you get people to care about the comic giant's properties again, especially in an era where superhero movies are no longer the safe bets for hits that they were from 2000-2019? The answer is build something on a foundation of passion and love for the iconic characters that are headlining these stories and hope that the audience follows. In the inaugural big screen venture for the newly minted DC Studios, Gunn himself delivered big time on the company's new mission statement with his take on Superman.

The first thing that endeared me about Gunn's Superman is that it wastes no time with setup and just drops you into the action right away. Admittedly, it took me about 15-20 minutes to get my bearings of what was going on in the universe, but once I figured out the players and their role in this universe, I was hooked. There's something refreshing about a movie adaptation establishing a new cinematic universe/character electing to bypass the framework of a traditional origin story. It's not like every time you pick up a comic book, you're going to be greeted with a detailed back story of how every character became who they are in that specific issue or series, so why should the movie adaptation be obligated to play by a different set of rules? Having Superman be firmly established as a hero whose become beloved through his desire to be kind and desire to do anything he can to help people, Lois Lane be the only person who knows that her bumbling nerd Daily Planet co-worker Clark Kent is Superman since she's dating him, Lex Luthor be consumed by his desire to destroy Superman, the Justice Gang be a separate entity that's fighting the various killer threats that make their way to Metropolis, etc. before we meet them on screen doesn't prevent satisfying narrative arcs from emerging or character development to be stunted. Gunn simply asks the viewer to accept that we're meeting these characters at a point in their journeys where they're already on the path that everybody knew they were going to eventually end up on. Not every member of the audience is going to be on board with this approach obviously, but I felt like it was a savvy narrative choice that speaks to Gunn's desire to prove he's not dicking around with DC's rebranding efforts.

As what's become the norm for Gunn in his superhero work, his thorough understanding of the characters he puts on screen is the driving force behind Superman's success. Clark Kent/Superman is the most purehearted superhero there is. The Kents raised him like he was their own child and the compassion and love for humanity they instilled in him has informed how he sees the world. It's only fitting that Gunn made a Superman movie where the character operates as this beacon of light in an increasingly dark, cynical world. That's not to say his worldview and confidence aren't challenged, but his ultimate belief in seeing in the good in mankind and fighting to preserve it is what pulls him out of the depths of despair. After watching every other Superman movie released during my lifetime only capture a tiny essence of what the character was really about, it was great to see a movie that bears his name fully embrace the character's signature traits.

Of course, Gunn's passion for and knowledge of the characters he's putting on screen is also evident in the strength of his casting choices. These performers don't just do a good job of bringing these iconic characters to life, they've already become tethered to their legacies for the rest of time. David Corenswet is a ray of pure light, hope and love as Superman. Rachel Brosnahan imbues Lois Lane with an unwavering integrity and dedication to questioning everything in the pursuit of the truth that makes her the perfect complement to Superman/Clark (Side note: the chemistry between Brosnahan and Corenswet is insane). Nicholas Hoult perfectly captures the unique combination of maniacal, petty and pathetic that makes Lex Luthor such a detestable villain. Edi Gathegi is so consistently magnetic, cool and funny as genius inventor superhero Mister Terrific that I'm kind of bummed that he doesn't already have his own spin-off movie in the works. Nathan Fillion makes for a really entertaining cocky asshat as the Justice Gang's self-appointed leader Guy Gardner. Isabela Merced erases the memory of her shaky turn in Madame Web with her strong work as the snarky Hawkgirl. Several other supporting characters of note (Anthony Carrigan's Metamorpho, Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen, Sara Sampaio's Eva Teschmacher, Maria Gabriela de Faria's The Engineer, Pruitt Taylor Vince's Jonathan Kent, Nora Howell's Martha Kent, Zlatko Buric's Vasil Ghurkos, Frank Grillo's Rick Flag Sr.) all have at least a moment or two where they make a huge splash that elevates the film. I said this after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 came out, but it bears repeating: Gunn is Quentin Tarantino-esque in his ability to put the right people in the right roles and make them shine regardless of how much or how little time they have on screen. Having somebody with this rare gift for casting at the top of the executive hierarchy for DC should be a massive asset for them moving forward.

Superman is precisely the type of fun, vibrant triumph that DC needed to kick off this new era. While using a movie from a brilliant, seasoned pro superhero movie director in Gunn would be an unfair measuring stick for future DC films, I'm hopeful that it will be able to usher in an era of superhero filmmaking where talented filmmakers are bringing characters they know and love to the screen. As Gunn has said numerous times recently, the only way to defeat superhero movie fatigue is by taking more risks and injecting creativity into the genre. May Superman be the first of many DC projects to deliver on his promise of reinvigorating the genre through enthusiasm, boldness and ingenuity.                                   

Grade: A-