Month: August 2022

As training camps begin around the NFL, the 2022 season starts to shift into focus. In the NFC South, there is a runaway favorite to win the division in the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers, but every team is dealing with some serious turnover.

The Bucs and Saints have new head coaches, with Todd Bowles and Dennis Allen each being promoted internally after Bruce Arians and Sean Payton stepped down. The Falcons and Panthers don’t have new head coaches (at least not yet), but both have quarterback questions and, just generally, face uncertainty in the immediate as they try to figure out the long-term direction of their franchises. Here, we’re going to take a look at the biggest question facing each team in the NFC South and how that will determine how successful each team is this season — with the understanding that they aren’t all chasing the same goals.

Atlanta Falcons: Is Desmond Ridder “the guy”?

The Falcons are going to start the season with Marcus Mariota under center after trading Matt Ryan to the Colts, but for a team that won’t be favored in more than one or two games this season, Atlanta’s firmly in the “planning for the future” category of NFL teams. As such, at some point they are going to put third-round draft pick Desmond Ridder out there to figure out if he’s even a possible future starter, or if their focus next offseason is going to be on bringing in someone else to be the franchise QB. The Falcons have plenty of things to figure out with their roster going forward and this season will be more about evaluation than anything else, but it’s hard to go anywhere in the league if you don’t have the QB situation figured out, and when you take one in the third round you have at least a lingering hope he might develop into “the guy.” Atlanta will want to see if that’s the case at some point this year.

Carolina Panthers: Do they finally have a QB to build around?

The Panthers have been in the wilderness for a few years with their quarterback situation. Last year they traded three picks (a sixth rounder, second rounder, and fourth rounder) for Sam Darnold, which didn’t pan out as they hoped, and so this offseason they shipped a fifth rounder to Cleveland for another former first round pick, Baker Mayfield. As mentioned above, you don’t go very far as a franchise without a franchise QB, and they’ve now invested four draft picks in two reclamation projects, hoping one of them will work out. They have, by far, the most interesting quarterback battle and one would anticipate based on how the two have played when healthy in their careers that Mayfield is the favorite to win the job. Still, he’s trying to prove himself as a guy you want running your team, with some incredible highs but painful lows throughout his career as a starter. If he can find that consistent level, maybe Carolina got a steal (after an overpay on Darnold), but if he doesn’t pan out they’ll have to go back to the drawing board on a lot of things — with Matt Rhule entering this season on the hot seat as well.

New Orleans Saints: What does the offense look like without Sean Payton calling plays?

The Saints are the team I can see the widest variance of potential outcomes this season. They have a truly elite defense returning (which is why Dennis Allen got promoted from DC to head coach), but have plenty of questions on offense. Jameis Winston is back under center and looked pretty good last year before his season-ending injury. Michael Thomas is also set to be back, alongside a star rookie receiver in Chris Olave out of Ohio State to give Jameis some real weapons on the outside. Alvin Kamara is facing battery charges in Las Vegas and it’s unclear if he’ll miss any time stemming from that, but if he’s available, you can see the potential in New Orleans. However, Sean Payton was always in control of his offense and although longtime OC Pete Carmichael is staying around to provide some continuity, he’s never been the one calling the plays. There’s a chance this offense could be good if the line holds up and Winston returns to the form he showed early last year, but there’s a lot of moving parts and uncertainty about how exactly all of it will look. If anyone’s going to threaten the Bucs’ superiority in the division, it’ll require a leap forward from this offense to help out what was a top-5 defense last year in the NFL.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: How does the OL hold up without Ryan Jensen?

The Bucs are the heavy favorites in the division for good reason now that Tom Brady is back, and even with Bruce Arians leaving, you have to believe that Todd Bowles and Byron Leftwich (and Brady) will keep things humming along. However, while I have fewer concerns about the Bucs offense transitioning away from an influential head coach than the Saints, the training camp injury to center Ryan Jensen is a real worry. Jensen was beloved by Brady and Tampa is now having to almost completely rework the interior of its offensive line from last year (as last year’s starting guards Ali Marpet and Alex Cappa are both gone). They still have a stud at left tackle in Tristan Wirfs, but Brady isn’t the most fleet of foot anymore and likes to stride forward in the pocket, meaning any uncertainty from guard to guard provides some reason to be uneasy. It might not be catastrophic in the regular season, as Brady’s as good as there is at getting rid of the ball quickly and matriculating the ball down the field on short passes, but in the postseason the best defenses will sit on that and dare the Bucs to push the ball down the field, which is harder to do if you can’t protect as well up the middle.

When you work with Kanye West, you have to take the bad with the good. Sure, the mercurial producer’s co-sign brings with it a legion of loyal (perhaps even lemming-like) fans who would spend a week’s lunch money on one of the man’s toenail clippings, but those guaranteed profits come with the probability that, at some point, you’re going to get on his bad side and wind up on the receiving end of one of his occasional reactionary rants.

Adidas has learned as much the hard way after Kanye accused the company of ripping off his Yeezy slide design for the Adilette 22 slides on Instagram (the post in question has since been deleted). Now, Adidas has apparently incurred his wrath yet again with its Yeezy Day promotion which is celebrated annually on August 2. This time, though, Kanye directed his comments to the Complex Instagram profile‘s DMs, accusing the company of greenlighting the unofficial holiday without his approval, in addition to bypassing him on colorways, employee hires, and re-issuing older Yeezy styles. He also accused Adidas of sabotaging his partnerships with Gap and Balenciaga. You can see his full statement below.

It should be noted that Kanye had similar complaints about Nike, and has an established history of … well, not reading his contracts thoroughly to know what rights and controls he actually has. He’s also been known to change his mind at the drop of a hat and he’s got a lot of plates spinning, so any company working with him probably isn’t exactly waiting on tenterhooks for his every dictate with deadlines to hit — something he’s also kind of notoriously bad at keeping up with.

Coming to New York City’s Forest Hills Stadium this September, the inaugural 3-day The Big Climate Thing Festival was already sporting a packed lineup. The Roots, Khruangbin, The Flaming Lips, and Haim were already gracing the upper tiers of the music festival’s lineup. But when it comes to raising awareness and taking action against the growing climate crisis, the good folks behind Climate Control Projects and Brian Eno’s EarthPercent decided that they needed MORE talent on their already stellar bill, and have added The War On Drugs as a headliner to the music festival.

The War On Drugs will now be be performing on Saturday night’s slate, along with Sheryl Crow, Courtney Barnett, and others. Friday’s slate will kick off the weekend with Khruangbin, The Flaming Lips and Gary Clark Jr leading the way, while Princess Nokia and Haim, join The Roots and others on Sunday.

Taking place from September 16th – 18th, a release for The Big Climate Thing says the goal of the festival, “Is to raise awareness, accountability, action, and inspire real-time solutions surrounding the global climate crisis by connecting to concertgoers through the transformative power of music.” They’ll have a lot of firepower in tow to help with that cause, as the lineup also includes performances from
The Weather Station, Guster, Sunflower Bean, Pom Pom Squad, Mykki Blanco, Valerie Jun, Antibalas, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, and more.

Tickets are available here.

The War On Drugs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The 2022-23 Champions League isn’t quite sorted out yet. While a number of teams secured spots in Europe’s top continental club tournament based on where they finished in their leagues, we’re still waiting for another six teams to get the full list of squads that will compete for the chance to lift the European Cup in Istanbul next year.

Two of those clubs are French side Monaco and Dutch runners-up PSV Eindhoven, which squared off on Tuesday in Monaco. The referee was Italy’s Davide Massa, and while you normally only learn the name of a referee because they made a horrible decision, that was not the case here.

Instead, you are learning Massa’s name because a soccer ball got kicked real hard at his crotch and he was unable to avoid it. Monaco’s Axel Disasi intercepted a pass and tried to play a through ball to one of his forwards. Instead, the ball hit Massa right in the nuts and the referee blew his whistle, presumably because he couldn’t move for a little.

Disasi seemed a little annoyed he couldn’t drive towards PSV’s goal and try to tie things up, but this is as good a reason as any for a game to immediately stop. And besides, things worked out for Disasi a little later in the game, when he scored the equalizer to tie things up at one before the second leg in Eindhoven.

Ahh, the 1990s. That’s probably not something that Monica Lewinsky says to herself very often. And she may have consulted on the scripts for America Crime Story: Impeachment (another Ryan Murphy production), but that doesn’t mean that she enjoys constant references to the most infamous occurrence within her time in the public sphere. You know what I’m talking about, of course.

The infamous Bill Clinton dress regularly gets shouted out by pop culture, and Beyonce went there with 2013’s “Partition,” which specifically contained these lyrics: “He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown.” After that: “Oh, there daddy, daddy didn’t bring the towel.”

That’s quite the visual, obviously. Since Beyonce’s new Renaissance album has been catching some scattered heat from various places (including Fox News, which called the singer “vile”), and Beyonce has apparently removed an ableist term from her lyrics, Monica caught wind and decided to mention those decade-old lyrics that still cause her to take umbrage: “[U]hmm, while we’re at it… #Partition,” Lewinsky tweeted.

There’s been no word from camp Bey on this issue, although it’s safe to say that Beyonce’s probably pretty busy at the moment. She currently appears to be updating the album to delete a contested Kelis sample, but hang tight. If Beyonce decides to move on Monica’s request, we’ll surely hear about it.

While it might seem like all the good television shows have come and gone (besides Better Call Saul…for now), we actually might not even have reached the full potential of “peak TV” yet.

While The Golden Era has had some ups and downs, the number of scripted series from this year is very high, leading FX’s John Landgraf to believe that TV hasn’t fully peaked yet. “My original prediction that we would see maximum in 2018 or 2019 was obviously way, way off,” Landgraf said this week during a virtual TCA press event. The exec attributes COVID delays as a reason for a lull in TV from 2020 to early 2022, but says that the drought is finally coming to an end.

“I’m going to foolishly make another prediction, which is that 2022 will be the high watermark [of scripted TV],” he boldly claimed via Variety. “In other words, it will mark the peak of the peak TV era. It will take a year and a half to find out if I’m right this time, or we’ll have to eat crow yet again.” Hear that, HBO? You only have 18 months to fill the Soprano-less void that has been sitting there since 2007.

Landgraf predicts that the influx of scripts from earlier this year will bring TV to its peak. “This year, we’ve seen a tidal wave of scripted programming thanks to the bottleneck of COVID delay production finally clearing up from January 1 through the end of June,” Landgraf continued. “The number of scripted series has set a record for the first half of the year.”

Between January and June of this year, there were 357 scripted originals across broadcast, cable, and streaming, which is up 16% from 2021. 2021’s final count of 559 scripted shows brought TV to an all-time high, and Landgraf thinks that things will only go up from here! He added, “I think it’s obvious that this year will bring a new record.”

Only time (and the subsequent Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones spinoffs) will tell.

(Via Variety)

Working through a pandemic is just something we’re all expected to do despite, well, that whole pandemic thing still happening two-plus years and counting. Inflation, supply chain issues, the Great Resignation and all kinds of things have become commonplace in recent months.

Some employers have responded with better incentives for workers, higher wages and even begrudgingly accepting unionization efforts from their staff. And some, like a North Carolina Chick-fil-A, just asked people to work for free.

According to reports, the fast food franchise found itself in hot water when a social media post offering “volunteers” free food in exchange for working their “drive thru express” at a location in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Mary Meisenzahl of Business Insider reported last week that the program lasted about a day following extreme backlash from people who know that labor is usually compensated by legal tender, not chicken tenders.

“We are looking for volunteers for our new Drive Thru Express! Earn 5 free entrees per shift (1 hr) worked,” the post read. “Message us for details.”

By the afternoon of July 27, the post was apparently deleted.

Chick-fil-A, of course, is not exactly known for its track record of positive human rights. And as the Washington Post pointed out, there’s a whole slew of things wrong with asking people to work for food. Such as, well, federal labor laws.

The store has been met with backlash for appearing to ignore the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the long-standing federal law that states how employers must pay their employees for all of the hours they work. The Hendersonville location, which is run by a franchisee, responded to the online blowback by saying the “volunteer-based opportunity” was intended for people who “think it’s a good fit for them,” and argued it was different from full- or part-time employment.

If you put aside the not making any money for labor thing, the deal — five entrees for one hour worked — doesn’t really make any sense on several other levels. First of all, that’s a lot of food for an hour worked. Does it multiply if you work two hours? Do you have to eat all the meals at once or do you get coupons like a child entered in a McDonalds summer bowling league, to be redeemed later?

Anyway, the program is dead now and Chick-fil-A is distancing it from its franchisee because it was probably extremely against the law, as Business Insider notes.

A Chick-Fil-A spokesperson told Insider the company did not endorse the program and that the restaurant has decided to end it.

“Most restaurants are individually owned and operated, and it was a program at an individually owned restaurant,” the spokesperson said.

Until fried chicken NFTs become legal currency in America, the rest of us will just have to go back to making money for their labor and using it to buy food instead.

[via Business Insider]

Despite logging an insane amount of hours for Netflix, Stranger Things 4 still couldn’t beat Squid Game as the most popular series on the streaming platform. According to new data that examines the first 28 days of a show’s availability (in this case, Stranger Things 4: Volume 2, which capped off the latest season), the supernatural series fell just shy of the viewing time that Squid Game racked up as it became a global phenomenon.

It’s an impressive victory for the South Korean series, especially when you factor in Stranger Things 4‘s massive episode lengths, which if you haven’t heard, were crazy long. The fourth season had almost double the runtime of Squid Games, but that wasn’t enough to take out the competition. Via Variety:

Ultimately, “Stranger Things” Season 4 ended its run with 1.4 billion hours viewed, compared to “Squid Game’s” 1.7 billion. Important to note is the running time of both seasons: “Squid Game” is approximately 8 hours long in total, while “Stranger Things” Season 4 is approximately 13 hours long, but the 5-hour advantage of the Duffer brothers’ sci-fi hit was still not enough to match Hwang Dong-hyuk’s South Korean drama.

While Stranger Things might not be the reigning champ of Netflix this time around, the fan anticipation for Stranger Things 5 is through the freaking roof. Thanks to the fourth season’s epic story, killer soundtrack via Kate Bush and Metallica, and something called a… Vecnussy (?), the show is more popular than ever. If it brings that momentum into the final season, it could be enough to take out Squid Game, provided that show’s second season doesn’t shatter even more records, which is definitely in the cards.

(Via Variety)

Following the release of his excellent sophomore record last month, Gemini Rights, Steve Lacy has announced the Give You The World Tour. The 27 headlining dates will see Lacy — who Kanye West called “one of the most inspiring people on the planet” — performing at a slew of mid-sized venues across North America. The tour begins on October 2nd at Denver’s Gothic Theatre, before the “Dark Red” singer moves across the midwest onto the East Coast. He’ll then swing back across the country to end the tour with a run of West Coast dates that conclude on November 11th with a hometown show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

Check out the full list of Steve Lacy’s tour dates below. Tickets go on sale Friday, 08/05 at 10 am local time here.

10/02 — Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
10/04 — Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
10/05 — Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theatre
10/06 — Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall
10/09 — Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
10/10 — Boston, MA @ Royale
10/11 — Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
10/13 — Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
10/15 — Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
10/17 — New York, NY @ Terminal 5
10/19 — Richmond, VA @ The National
10/20 — Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
10/21 — Nashville, TN @ Eastside Bowl
10/23 — Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage Theater
10/24 — New Orleans, LA @ Republic
10/25 — Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
10/27 — Austin, TX @ Emo’s
10/28 — Dallas, TX @ The Studio at the Factory
10/30 — Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre
10/31 — Las Vegas, NV @ House Of Blues
11/02 — San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
11/04 — Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
11/06 — Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
11/07 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
11/08 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
11/10 — Anaheim, CA @ House of Blue
11/11 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre

The long-awaited trial over the cover art for Cardi B’s debut mixtape has been postponed again, according to Billboard.

The trial, which was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, was to begin on August 3. However, on Friday, Judge Cormac J. Carney moved the trial to October as Cardi’s original attorney will be unavailable due to a “serious illness.” She’ll now have a week to find a new attorney and begin preparing for the trial.

The case revolves around a 2017 lawsuit filed by California resident Kevin Brophy, who claims Cardi used his likeness without permission on the cover of Gangsta B*tch Music, Vol. 1; he claims that this violated his privacy and “humiliated” him among family and friends. The cover depicts Cardi sitting with her legs spread as a tattooed man kneeling in front of her appears to be engaged in oral sex.

While the original model consented to use his image on the cover, the tattoos on his back were photoshopped in by the graphic designer hired to create the cover. Brophy’s tattoos appeared on a Google search and were superimposed on the model. Brophy’s lawyer said that he “has had to face uncomfortable comments, questions, and ridicule, from community members and family” and that “his work and professional life have been unalterably damaged by his having to explain this unconsented-to, offensive, and malicious use of his image.”

Cardi’s lawyers, however, contended that there’s no real way Brophy’s tattoos would be recognizable, that the digital manipulation on the cover makes it protected by the First Amendment, and that Brophy is just trying to cash in. Meanwhile, Cardi herself has been putting the finishing touches on a new album featuring the single “Hot Sh*t.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.