I want to be clear about something before we start: We have no problem with quarterbacks painting their nails or having pink phones or anything of that sort. Even if they want to cross-dress, we have no problem with that at all. We’ll come back to this, but I’m about to refer to the “Caleb Williams femininity narrative” and I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into a certain position on that issue.
With that established.
I would like to credit The Barking Crow for being early on the Caleb Williams femininity narrative. Back when everyone asked in September if Caleb Williams’s dad was going to pull an Archie Manning, Joe actually went and read the GQ profile with the relevant quotes, which led him to notice Caleb Williams looking very, very silly. He mentioned it at the time, even if the first “Your quarterback wore a dress??” cycle was four months away. We’ve known for over a year about the nail-painting. The GQ outfits were only new in January.
Yesterday, as USC’s women’s basketball team beat reigning WNIT champion Kansas in an exhibition tournament, Williams was spotted in the stands with a pink cell phone. It has been speculated that he was also wearing lipstick. The result is another wave of questions about whether Caleb Williams’s fashion choices mean he won’t be a good quarterback.
Obviously, obviously, obviously, that’s absurd. But!! I do think two things are true:
First, succeeding in the NFL is easier if everyone in a room is connected. We might not have a problem with Caleb Williams’s style, but there are probably NFL coaches who do, even if it’s only in the “that’s a distraction” sense and not anything…oh boy I don’t know if this is an ok word…metrophobic. (We’re not talking poetry, guys.) Even for coaches who don’t, could there be an issue when it comes to relating to their franchise QB? Josh Rosen wasn’t as good a prospect as Caleb Williams is, but the things for which Josh Rosen was criticized leading up to the 2018 Draft largely centered around his ability to do the interpersonal piece in the NFL locker room. Aaron Rodgers might be a weirdo’s weirdo, but stories from his early Packers years almost uniformly praised his ability to navigate the locker room. Rodgers succeeded. Rosen did not.
Second, success in the NFL is significantly a matter of perception, and though wins and losses little to do with the feelings of a fanbase or local media, some franchises are sensitive to morning radio. The Bears ecosystem is known as one especially prone to riding the rollercoaster, always believing their team destined to either go 16–0 or 0–16, depending on the most recent development (I don’t formally recognize the 17-game schedule yet). Whether Caleb Williams is good or not, it’s going to be easy for Bears fans to turn on him, and if they do, they’ll be coming at him from an uncomfortable angle that’s going to make the thing an even bigger mess. Caleb Williams is an amazing draft prospect. The Bears are historically organizationally terrible at developing quarterbacks. The Bears ecosystem is dramatic, all-or-nothing, and easily aggrieved. This is going to be a mess.
How Joe Kelly Became the Face of the Dodgers
From the ESPN recap of Shohei Ohtani’s comments yesterday, emphasis mine:
Several key members of the Dodgers — including CEO Stan Kasten, chief marketing officer Lon Rosen, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, general manager Brandon Gomes, manager Dave Roberts, utility man Enrique Hernandez and relief pitcher Joe Kelly — were in attendance while Ohtani spoke.
The big seven. Kasten. Rosen. Friedman. Gomes. Roberts. Kike Hernández and Joe Kelly.
This is like when the Dodgers released their promotional schedule and the giveaways centered around Jackie Robinson, Kobe Bryant, Ohtani, Fernando Valenzuela, and Joe Kelly.
Joe Kelly is the face of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
How has this happened? I think it’s a combination of the following:
- When he signed before the 2019 season, the Dodgers’ marketing department probably liked that Joe Kelly was a local kid who’d just gutted their team in the World Series. They expected big things and they liked that he was relatable, so they hyped him up.
- Dave Roberts and the rest of Dodgers leadership let Joe Kelly be Joe Kelly, which is a hard thing to avoid but made it easier for him to emasculate Carlos Correa, barter with a fan for a mariachi jacket, wear that mariachi jacket to the White House, etc.
- The Dodgers have turned over so much of their roster that Joe Kelly’s first game in Dodger Blue came before almost anyone’s among those still on the team. I believe the only 40-man guys who were on the big-league team prior to 2019 are Clayton Kershaw, Austin Barnes, Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, Hernández (who also came and went), and Walker Buehler? I’m probably missing someone, but that’s a small list of figures who have more Dodgers history than Joe Kelly.
- Joe Kelly won a World Series for the Dodgers.
- Joe Kelly’s probably something of a leader?
I’m assuming on this last one. I think he’s up front so much because he’s a good clubhouse guy. I also think the Dodgers want him on their roster because he’s a good clubhouse guy. He basically said this offseason that he’d only play if he was playing for LA, and they gave him eight million dollars to come back. He’s a good pitcher and he’s valuable in high-leverage spots, but they’ve gotta like him off the field.
Anyway, Joe Kelly was there, and I think he was wearing the Baseball Isn’t Boring t-shirt where the phrase is written out in Japanese.
As for Ohtani:
His story sounds believable, and his explanation for striking back against the initial story does make sense. (His explanation was that his translator tried to sneak one past him by telling Ohtani one story in Japanese and the press and team another, in English.) It’s also perfectly possible that Ohtani did something nefarious here, or that he did voluntarily pay the debts but that he’s now trying to cover his liability, or that he was betting illegally on sports but wasn’t betting on baseball, which…same. Except I do bet on baseball.
There are a lot of possibilities. A lot of gray areas. I’m hopeful we’ll one day learn the full truth, but if we don’t, I hope it’s because Joe Kelly managed to thwart the investigation to protect his guy. Secret Agent Joe Kelly sounds rad. He does talk in his book about wanting to fight crime.
Adam Silver Strikes Back
34 fucking minutes after Ohtani’s press conference began, news broke that Jontay Porter (Michael Porter Jr.’s brother, plays for the Raptors, never won an NIT) is under investigation due to suspicious gambling activity surrounding prop bets related to his nightly stats. The short version is that a lot of overs were hitting on his numbers on nights he played, and that unders were hitting when he sat out, the implication being that bettors somehow knew ahead of time whether Porter was going to play or not. There are a ton of possibilities of what could have caused this, but the investigation appears reasonable. The matter should be investigated.
That said.
How Adam Silver would it be to drum up a competing gambling scandal to try to steal the spotlight from another sport?
On a similar note, I’m excited to see how Silver responds to the NFL taking over Christmas Day. It’s tough for the NBA, because people don’t care about the games in the NBA regular season (this applies to the players, too, unless of course they have a prop bet on the action), so it’s not as simple as putting a bunch of good ones on a day the NFL normally dominates, like the first Sunday of November. Instead, I’m assuming we’ll get a Toy Story broadcast of Kyrie Irving talking 9/11 competing with the Thursday Night NFL game on September 11th, 2025. I will tune in.
Indiana State vs. Cincinnati: Which Is Better for the NIT
I hope I’ve been open enough about the fact that I am cheering for what’s best for the NIT. Georgia’s advance? Good. Lot of Bulldogs fans who will watch any Bulldog game on TV. Ohio State’s advance? Great. The same effect, and also a lot of geographic proximity to Indianapolis, where the NIT Final Four’s being held. Ohio State’s the interest in that one, for those of us who want a lively NIT Final Four environment and strong viewership numbers combining to convince the haters that we, as a country, still love this tournament.
It’s harder to know what sells with Indiana State and Cincinnati.
College basketball fans are likelier to watch a game involving Indiana State. Indiana State is a more newsworthy college basketball team, with the NIT’s biggest star in the form of Robbie Avila. Casual sports fans? I think Cincinnati’s small enough of a brand that for channel-flippers, it won’t make a difference. The question is whether Cincinnati’s brand is bigger enough to outnumber college basketball fans, and I don’t think it is? For ratings, then, the answer’s probably Indiana State. Narrowly.
For attendance, though, which is useful longterm because 1) we want the NIT Final Four to have a reputation for being a madhouse and 2) we want the NCAA to see that Hinkle Fieldhouse is an amazing place to hold the NIT Final Four and shut down the hopefully already nonexistent talk of Fran Fraschilla’s nine–days–in–Vegas nightmare suggestion…
Cincinnati is more than twice as big of a school as Indiana State.
Cincinnati is only half an hour further from Hinkle compared to Terre Haute.
I do think a higher share of Indiana State alums end up in Indianapolis than is true for Cincinnati. Cincinnati presumably pulls from the Columbus and Cleveland areas and probably more from Louisville than is true for the Sycamores, and it probably sends alumni back in those directions. But a 17,000-student difference in undergraduate enrollment is a lot. Indiana State fans are definitely more excited about this NIT run than Cincinnati fans are about their own, so I do still think the edge here goes to the Sycamores. But Cincinnati’s size has me asking the question.
The Rest
Nothing right now. I’ve been eating salads lately (to look thin and sexy in my bucket hat and basketball tie during my early-April trip to Indiana) and my anti-salad agenda is being weakened. I always thought that I was shitting my brains out post-salad because salads are evil. Others told me it was because my body wasn’t handling the fiber. I did not believe them. I might have been wrong. The more salads I eat, the more normal the process becomes of shitting them out.
