Category: News

On Tuesday, EA Sports made a gigantic announcement when it revealed that it is bringing back its college football video game franchise under the EA Sports College Football title. The last time it made a college football game was with NCAA Football 14, which because of the scarcity and the seven-plus years that have gone by since its release can only be found for an exorbitant price on eBay and other places.

I am among those who has held tight to their copy of NCAA 14, as it (along with Skate 3) is the sole reason my Xbox 360 still has prime placement in my living room — I am currently working through a UMass Dynasty on our Uproxx Edge Twitch channel every Tuesday evening. I love the old NCAA games, as I had every title from 2005 through the final 2014 game, and spent much of my freshman year of college flunking classes because I was too busy working a two-team Dynasty with my roommate every day for an almost embarrassing number of hours each day.

Playing the 2014 edition is a reminder of some of the frustrations of old, and with the various issues and stagnation the Madden franchise has had — particularly with its career and franchise modes due to a lack of investment — we have some hopes for how EA will approach its new college football reboot. We’ll start with the things we want to see, from the “this should be in there” to the “please do this it’d be so much fun even if we know it won’t happen,” and then address some of the temptations that might come for EA’s development of the game that we know will be disastrous.

WHAT WE WANT

Focus On Dynasty Mode

I know that Ultimate Team modes are the focus for EA Sports with Madden and FIFA, sometimes to the detriment of the franchise/manager modes, but I am begging the good folks at EA to recognize why people loved the NCAA games and spend the majority of their time on the Dynasty Mode. It is the flagship mode of the franchise because it was so unique to any other franchise mode. In Madden, there’s only so much you do in free agency and trades. You aren’t going to make trades every week — or, at least, most people won’t — and free agency is a brief offseason note. FIFA is a little closer to the immersive nature of recruiting with the transfer windows and constant scouting of youth players, but it’s still just not quite the same. Recruiting is as big a deal as the games itself, and honestly you spend more time doing that than playing and it’s great, at least from my point of view.

I hope they really dive into the recruiting space and figure out how to expand it. Having played the 2014 game a lot recently, I’d like to see them go back to having a little more to do week-to-week in terms of picking what to talk with recruits about (or at least have that option) as well as negative recruiting other schools. Make visit weeks a bit more of a big deal and maybe even get into the dirty side of recruiting (hold this thought).

The Dynasty mode, by itself, is worth the price of the game if done right and while I know the temptation will be to try and create something new, I hope they simply try to make that mode the best it can be and invest most of their time into that. It’s why people love the game and have rallied to bring it back, and if you want to give them what they want, it’s expanding and dialing in the program building aspect of Dynasty.

Embrace College Football Offenses

The previous franchise did this pretty well and I just want to emphasize they should really spend some time to make sure they get this right rather than making tweaks to Madden playbooks. There is such a variance in college football in terms of what teams run and so many different schemes that separates it from the pros. It allows you to take advantage of things you have and mitigate deficiencies that come with being one of CFB’s have nots. The triple option will for sure be in there, but it goes well beyond that. There has been a lot of progression in college football offense since the last game came out, and it’ll take some serious conversations with coaches and research to get as much of that variety into the game. It would absolutely worth it, if not crucial, to really separate this from Madden — it is in no way a stretch to say that if this plays like Madden but with college football branding that this game would be viewed as a bit of a dud.

Let Us Commit Recruiting Violations

I understand why the NCAA games might have avoided this, because with NCAA licensing comes a partnership and the NCAA doesn’t exactly want to promote dirty recruiting. However, this is now licensed through CLC, which is just giving them rights to schools, stadiums, uniforms, etc. As such, I really hope they use the fact that they aren’t tethered to the NCAA to get into committing recruiting violations and the like. I want to get stripped of three national championships at Coastal Carolina because I got sloppy and was handing out $100s like candy on Halloween and have to restart my career at Nick Saban’s School For Wayward Boys (shouts to Michael Felder) as the offensive coordinator at Alabama to rebuild my image. Bring back recruiting promises, but add in being able to build a bag man network, and if you don’t meet your promises, that kid might go tell somebody about it and get you canned. The people crave it, let them have it now that you’re free from the NCAA.

Find A Way To Pay The Kids In Real Life

For now, the plan is to have the rosters be random groupings that share no resemblance to the names, images, and likeness of the players. That’s good, to start, but also as NIL legislation moves through the federal government, let’s make sure we find a way to get money to the kids, however that’s needed to be done. It seems as though that’s the plan, but it just needs to be said. It’s really cool to be in a video game, but it’s way cooler to be in a game when you’re getting paid.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT

Do Not Try To Make Targeting A Thing

Playing NCAA 14, I came to the horrific realization that if an NCAA game returned they would try to put targeting into it, because they are obsessed with realism. I do not play video games for complete and total realism, I play them to have fun. In NCAA 14, they became obsessed with replay reviews, a thing that, objectively, should not be in a video game. You are a game, you do not need to purposefully get things wrong just to review them. You are in total control here, video game, you can just make the right call, all the time, and not try to add “the human element” which is the thing people hate the most about officiating.

That brings me to targeting. Flagging dangerous hits to the head is important and necessary given the dangers, both short and long term, of head injuries. However, a video game does not have to worry about that, and we can save a lot of headaches by just not trying to make targeting a thing in the new game. It’s going to be tempting, because you’re a “simulation” game, but you can just ignore that one. There is no way in a video game to have full control of how your player tackles and so you’d just be spinning a wheel and randomly throwing guys out in the name of “realism.” Don’t do it. No one will miss it if it’s not in there.

Don’t Get Too Cute With The Coaching Carousel

I have seen people, mostly college football media folks, who have decided that it’d be cool to have coaching buyouts in the game. No. Just, no. We don’t need coaching salaries and buyouts and detailed contracts. Just hire me, fire me, and move on — again, hopefully I’m being fired for brazen recruiting violations. We don’t need buyout negotiations if I want to go to another school, and if we start having it to where you make money as a coach then you know that means microtransactions will somehow be put into this (more on this in about two seconds!). Let’s just not do that and keep it fun.

Microtransaction-mania

The microtransactions economy in video games is gross, we all know this. The ideal situation is that EA Sports makes the correct decision — which would also be based in goodwill since this was not in the last college football game it created — and just does not include them at all. But it seems extremely unlikely that would happen because of how much money microtransactions pull in for EA Sports, they are a rock upon which franchises like Madden and FIFA are built. Hopefully there can be something of a compromise position here, where microtransactions are used for totally innocuous stuff like old uniforms and other small things that add to the aesthetic of the game if you so choose and absolutely nothing more. If EA gets in way too deep here and makes it so VC is, say, crucial for Dynasty Mode to function — “you need X to improve your facilities, which makes it easier to recruit” or “for X you’re able to pay for a better academic staff so your players are academically eligible for games” — and the easiest way to get VC is to pay real money, it would be a major disappointment.

Don’t Spread Yourselves Thin

This one couples with the first point on focusing on Dynasty mode but it’s the thing that’s most concerning to me. There’s surely been a million ideas EA’s kicked around over the past seven or eight years about things they’d do with a college football game if they brought it back, but you can’t do it all in the first edition. Lay the foundation again and then build. That includes maybe not getting everything fans, including myself, ask for in this one, which is perfectly fine. Make Dynasty mode a hit again and work your way out from there. If you can do a story mode for a player career mode, that’d be really cool and I think there’s something there with starting in HS and getting recruited, but it doesn’t have to be a grandiose thing in the first game, especially if it comes at the expense of making your flagship mode worse. I’m sure they’ll try and make a CFB Ultimate Team mode, because that’s a revenue driver, but, really, don’t lose focus on what made people love this game.

After the dizzying high of last week, the price of GameStop stocks has started to plummet after a group of retail traders on Reddit boosted the price by over 1,600 percent, which caused Wall Street to scramble as hedge fund billionaires went on cable news and cried that the coordinated effort was “attacking wealthy people.” While the moment enjoyed a brief celebration as a populist revolt, the WallStreetBets subreddit is reportedly experiencing low morale as the stock frenzy has died down. Enter Mark Cuban, who stopped by the subreddit on Tuesday for an “Ask Me Anything” session where he doled out advice on what to do next and also took a shot at the Robinhood trading app for its controversial decision to block users from buying GameStop and other “volatile” stocks last Thursday. According to Cuban, that move caused the stocks to “dive” by cutting off the source of natural buyers: day traders. Via Deadline:

“If you can afford to hold the stock, you hold. I dont own it, but thats what i would do. Why? because when RH and the other online brokers open it back up to buyers, then we will see what WSB is really made of. That is when you get to make it all work. I have no doubt that there are funds and big players that have shorted this stock again thinking they are smarter than everyone on WSB. I know you are going to hate to hear this, but the lower it goes, the more powerful WSB can be stepping up to buy the stock again.”

Judging by the responses Cuban received, the subreddit plans to follow his advice with some users proclaiming, “BUY AND HOLD. WHEN WE BLEED, THEY BLEED AS WELL.” As for whether that gamble pays off, that remains to be seen, but it’ll be interesting to watch in the several movies that are already being frantically written about the week when GameStop stocks captivated a very bored world.

(Via Deadline)

As the cold, dark days of winter carry on, restaurants all over the country are struggling to keep patrons coming in the proverbial door. Despite expensive and elaborate upgrades to help make restaurant dining safer, the one-two punch of the pandemic and frigid temperatures has done a number on restaurants’ cash flow. Already, 17% of all restaurants in the United States have permanently closed since the start of the pandemic.

The National Restaurant Association described the industry as being “in an economic free-fall” in their plea to the U.S. House of Representatives, for some economic relief. If no help is received, they expect 58% of restaurants to continue furloughs and layoffs in the first quarter of the year.

There are, however, some big businesses doing their part to support the restaurant industry in its time of need. Capital One, for example, is taking a multi-pronged approach to helping the restaurant industry. One of those initiatives is providing over 30 restaurants nationwide with funding to safely and successfully winterize their outdoor dining options so they can stay open and keep their occupancy up.

“Restaurants are anchors in the communities in which we live and work, which is why we’re providing them support so they can better access the tools they need to survive these difficult winter months,” says Monica Bauder, Head of Cardholder Access at Capital One. “At Capital One, the dining industry has always been an important community to us and we want to continue to find ways to help them through this difficult time.”

Cotogna, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s Jackson Square, was able to build an outdoor structure with a roof and heaters at each table thanks to Capital One’s help. The staff also put olive trees between the tables to act as barriers while maintaining the restaurant’s ambiance. Now Cotogna can operate at full capacity entirely outdoors.

Courtesy of Cotogna

“We are really committed to making guests feel safe and comfortable and want them to feel like they’re eating at the Cotogna they know and love,” says Matt Cirne, Cotogna’s beverage director. “Having partners like Capital One that are willing to be creative and really help restaurants navigate the uncertainty that lies ahead is crucial.”

Two well-known restaurants in Washington, D.C., ABC Pony and Maketto, have also received support from Capital One during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since everyone uses online reservation services these days, Capital One partnered with Seven Rooms to provide complimentary table reservation services to restaurants like them. This service will be invaluable for restaurants whether they’re able to be open now or later.

“It’s going to be crucially important to have constant communication with our guests once it’s safe to reopen our indoor dining rooms to ensure that each person feels comfortable,” says Erik Bruner-Yang, a Washington D.C.-based chef who also manages ABC Pony and Maketto. “Capital One’s sponsorship of our transition to using Seven Rooms as our management system will help keep our guests up-to-date in real-time about our COVID-19 safety practices and other important updates.”

The impact on the restaurant industry is changing month-to-month though, which is why Capital One is adapting its support to fit the new needs. For example, the company is also working with Bruner-Yang on The Power of 10, an initiative he created that is helping restaurants keep their employees employed and food insecure communities fed. The initiative found that a restaurant can keep 10 full-time staff employed and make 1,000 meals for frontline healthcare workers and other vulnerable community members with $10,000 a week. So far, the partnership has lead to over 55,000 meals served and 280 jobs saved.

Erik Bruner-YangCourtesy of The Power of 10

In order to help the thousands of restaurant workers who’ve lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Capital One has also partnered with Get Shift Done, a nonprofit that’s hiring impacted restaurant workers to help put together food boxes for food-insecure communities nationwide.

And since keeping a restaurant afloat during the pandemic is an uphill battle, Capital One, the official credit card partner of The James Beard Foundation, hosted a free webinar series for restaurant owners as part of the foundation’s Open for Good Initiative. The initiative was designed to act as a guidepost for owners during this unprecedented time when the future looks so uncertain, and provided useful information on cash flow, business credit, human resources, social media, and public relations.

Despite the challenges that businesses have faced – and continue to face – more than two-thirds of business owners remain optimistic that their businesses will return to pre-pandemic operations and revenues, according to a recent survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Capital One Business.

While that optimism is encouraging, it’s taken resilience and dedication among business owners to navigate the stressful environment of the past year.

Many businesses, including those in the food services industry, have taken measures to help navigate the economic shutdowns and social distancing mandates brought on by the pandemic. They’ve adopted contactless payment options, delivery, online ordering and curbside pickup to keep their doors open and stay connected to customers.

To support local restaurants and the broader small business community, Capital One partnered with a coalition of brands and nonprofit organizations to launch Small Unites, a national advocacy program that is providing ongoing support for small businesses across America. As part of Small Unites, anyone can donate to verified small business fundraisers, as well as the Small Business Relief Fund.

Learn more about how Capital One is helping build thriving communities.

The last we heard from Rostam (aside from his Amanda Gorman song) was his October single “Unfold You.” Now he’s back with his first official single of 2021, a breezy number called “These Kids We Knew.” On the track, he takes a critical position on how older generations deal (or don’t deal) with climate issues.

The lyrics to the song are simple, as they consist of a handful of repeated lines: “These kids we knew for so long / they don’t speak like they been spoken to / by governments or emperors / Gonna line you up on the sidewalk court / Ain’t proud of where we’re going / You say we can’t afford the slow down / but the skies won’t take it no more / so we’re gonna slowly pull the earth back together.”

Rostam says of the track:

“I was thinking of three generations while I was writing this song. There’s a generation of adults who don’t see global warming as their problem because they think they won’t be impacted by it. Then there’s a generation younger than mine, who will certainly have to deal with what is happening. In the song I have a fantasy of the younger generation arresting the adults and putting them on trial in the streets of cities around the world. Those are the ‘sidewalk courts’ that I sing about in the song. The song was written in a fever-dream state during the second week of March last year while I was recovering from COVID-19.”

Listen to “These Kids We Knew” above.

Azealia Banks graces headlines every once and a while after making offensive and controversial remarks about her music industry contemporaries. The last we heard from Banks, however, she had pulled her dead cat out of the ground and boiled it on the stove in an extremely disturbing video. But now, Banks is back to her usual routine of taking aim at fellow musicians. This time, Megan Thee Stallion, FKA Twigs, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the targets of her rant.

Taking to her Instagram Stories early Tuesday morning, the rapper began by discrediting Megan’s claims about getting shot by Tory Lanez last summer. Though Megan has shared graphic photos of her injuries and is currently seeking legal action against Lanez, Banks slammed the rapper as using her story as a way to “virtue signal.”

Next, Banks made some disparaging comments about FKA Twigs recently opening up about being in an abusive relationship with Shia LaBeouf. Banks labeled the singer’s story as “weak,” even though LaBeouf confirmed his abusive actions and apologized to the women he’s hurt.

Finally, Banks made the belittling claim that women in the music industry opening up about their past trauma is just a marketing method.

Read snippets of Banks’ Instagram rant above.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Drakeo The Ruler is living his best life now that he’s back on the outside. With yet another new project, The Truth Hurts, in the works for 2021, he is too busy enjoying his recently restored freedom to worry about life’s minor problems. That’s the theme of his laid-back new single, “Too Icey,” which arrived today with a video depicting Drakeo savoring the finer things — namely, Southern California’s fresh air, a brand-new Rolls-Royce, and a bottle of Tropicana apple juice in the cupholder.

The blend of high-low aesthetics — Drakeo’s regular-guy posturing at a gas station with a car full of snacks and his phone on the charger contrasts nicely with his to-the-socks Supreme ‘fit and luxury automobile — is part of Drakeo’s appeal. He’s a gangster rapper who readily admits his gritty tales are at least partly made-up and maintains a pretty low profile despite his classy flexes. The car is aspirational but the rapper in it is relatable.

He’s also a workaholic, releasing a nonstop stream of new singles and projects since he was declared free from the corrupt LA County penal system just after election day in 2020. Even when he was inside he never stopped working; his album Thank You For Using GTL, recorded on the phone from Men’s Central Jail, was one of 2020’s most impressive and innovative projects.

Watch the “Too Icey” video above.

If your heart is also broken over all the TwIsTeD footage of Jared Leto’s Joker that we didn’t see in Suicide Squad, cheer up: he’ll be back in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

“I wanted to, of course, honor what had been created with him because I thought it was really cool,” director Zack Snyder about bringing the Joker into HBO Max’s four-hour-long Snyder Cut. Leto will have a “little scene” in the film, where “some water has gone under the proverbial bridge between last we saw Joker and this sort-of appearance. He’s a road-weary Joker, I guess that’s a way of saying it.” But what to make of this?

“Amazing character you created. Honored to have our worlds collide,” Snyder tweeted, tagging both Leto and David Ayer, who directed Suicide Squad. First off, I know what Snyder meant, but his phrasing makes it sound like Leto created the Joker. (To be fair, Leto created the only Joker to be nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain, and not win. That’s probably what Snyder is getting at.) Also, with the white face paint and long, stringy hair, why does Leto’s “gangster” Joker now look more like Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker? It can’t be a coincidence.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League comes out on HBO Max on March 18.

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got a new solo album from Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio, a surprise new track from The Killers, and a lighthearted taste of Another Michael’s forthcoming debut album. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Baio – Dead Hand Control

When Chris Baio isn’t playing bass for Vampire Weekend, he is often releasing music under his own name. Dead Hand Control is the latest of such solo releases, but also a bit of a departure from the sounds one would expect, given Vampire Weekend’s recent output. “On his own, Baio delves into electronic textures that stretch into extended, near-proggy song structures, all while singing in a twangy, expressive baritone,” writes Steven Hyden for Uproxx.

Arlo Parks – Collapsed In Sunbeams

In the few years since releasing her debut single “Cola” in 2018, Arlo Parks has gotten cosigns from some of the biggest names in music. Collapsed In Sunbeams makes good on the promise of that single, with twelve tracks that distill Parks’ cool factor and knack for lyricism and melody. Much of the album is about finding comfort in oneself, a message that we can all remember these days.

The Sonder Bombs – Clothbound

On their sophomore full-length album, The Sonder Bombs sound bigger than ever, thanks to a combination of blunt songwriting and impressive production. The choruses are infectious, and Willow Hawks is given ample space to showcase their impressive vocal range. “While The Sonder Bombs got their start (mostly) in the midwestern DIY emo scene, their latest album Clothbound sets their sights somewhere greater,” I wrote in a recent interview.

Frances Quinlan – Likewise Remixes

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of their debut solo album Likewise, Frances Quinlan has teamed up with NNAMDÏ and Ryan Hemsworth (with whom they collaborated on Quarter-Life Crisis) for a pair of remixes. Each producer’s version breathes new life into the music, giving them an electronic edge that perfectly compliments Quinlan’s iconic vocal. “How cool to hear a song I wrote be completely transformed into an entirely new story,” Quinlan said in a statement. “Pure magic.”

Buzzy Lee – Spoiled Love

Sasha Spielberg began writing her debut album Spoiled Love in Northern California, before continuing to develop the songs in Los Angeles, then finally hopping on a plane to Northern Italy to finalize the tracks and put them to tape with longtime collaborator Nicolas Jaar. The album was written about a breakup, but the different phases of the writing process imbues each song with a sense of space that makes Spoiled Love a very interesting listen.

The Killers – “C’est La Vie”

It’s been just a few months since The Killers made their surprising comeback with Imploding The Mirage, and to celebrate the release, the veteran rockers have shared a deluxe version of the album. Along with two stripped down live versions of songs on the album, the deluxe edition also included a bonus track called “C’est La Vie,” a funky, lighthearted number that expands the world of Imploding The Mirage.

Ohtis ft. Stef Chura – “Schtaze”

On their first single since 2019’s Curve Of Earth, Ohtis teamed up with Stef Chura to tell the story of the Selfish Antisocial Male on their new track “Schtaze,” which doesn’t take itself too seriously, and evokes the feel of a classic slacker rock song from the ’90s. Throughout the track, Sam Swimson and Chura trade verses, recalling a difficult situation from the point of view of a long put-upon girlfriend.

Half Waif – “Orange Blossoms”

Written shortly after releasing her 2019 effort The Caretaker, “Orange Blossoms” continues Nandi Rose’s journey as a primary caretaker for someone struggling with addiction. The emotional art-rock number is anchored by swelling synth and vocal arrangements, and serves as the A-side of an upcoming 7-inch.

Michelle – “FYO”

Continuing their path to world domination in 2021, New York City collective Michelle has shared their first new music of the year with “FYO,” which finds the group’s four lead singers powerfully recounting their experiences growing up with mixed race identities. Despite the track’s heavy topic, the emotional lyrics are delivered smoothly and elegantly over funky beats that keep the track buoyant and danceable.

Another Michael – “Big Pop”

After the release of their debut LP was delayed by nearly a year, Another Michael’s New Music And Big Pop is finally set for release later this month. On the most recent sampling, the band’s “dynamic energy can be heard throughout the jangly tune’s upbeat chords and earnest lyrics,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx.

The Obsessives – “Lala”

Long-running Philadelphia punks The Obsessives haven’t released new music since their self-titled effort in 2017. Now, they’re back with a new EP called Monastery, recorded with Will Yip and released on his budding indie label Memory Music. “Lala” is the first taste of the EP, a shimmering dream-pop number with reverb-soaked guitars and a big hook for the chorus.

Nervous Dater – “Middle Child”

“Middle Child,” the first single from Nervous Dater’s forthcoming sophomore album Call In The Mess, starts off slow before exploding into a full-band onslaught. Rachel Lightner’s lyrics are verbose and narrative-driven, with the track serving as what Lightner calls in a statement “a culmination of, ‘Ok, you’ve known this for a while, you aren’t a girl,’ and being inspired by friends gave me the freedom to reassess my own identity and come to terms with it in my own way.”

Charming Liars – “Pieces”

Charming Liars sound larger than life on their latest single “Pieces,” fueled by dynamic alt-rock synthesizers and 30 Seconds To Mars-esque vocal arrangements. It’s a song that “amplifies the pain of division and the feelings associated with our current shattered reality,” the band said in a statement.

Sincere Engineer – “Tourniquet”

Opening with an intro rooted in subdued emo, it isn’t long before Sincere Engineer’s “Tourniquet” explodes into an onslaught of anthemic punk that dissipates as quickly as it entered. Sincere Engineer still have yet to officially announce their forthcoming album, but based on their recent output, it will be worth the wait.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Dolly Parton has a catalog full of classic songs and one of the most recognizable is “9 To 5,” which has become a workers’ anthem over the years. On the chorus of the iconic tune, she sings, “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living / Barely gettin’ by, it’s all taking and no giving / They just use your mind and you never get the credit / It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.” With all that in mind, people are disappointed in Parton’s new Super Bowl commercial for SquareSpace.

For the ad, Parton re-worked “9 To 5” into a new version called “5 To 9,” which is meant to honor the side hustle. Parton said of the ad, “Well I work 365 [days a year]. I’m always working 5 to 9, 9 to 5. I work all hours of the night and day. Whatever you need to do, you gotta get it done, however many hours it takes.”

That said, since the original song touches on themes of being overworked, it seems to some the new song betrays the point of the original. As one Twitter user wrote, “Dolly Parton’s now made a version of her ‘9 to 5’ song for an ad celebrating… side hustles. Great, we can now all work ‘5 to 9’ on top of the other eight hours.” Somebody else added, “Dolly should not have made that 5 to 9 song for SquareSpace. The original song was to complain about the overwhelming burden of work. This contravenes that by glorifying this ‘work is a virtue, you have to hustle’ narrative.”

Those tweets echo a lot of other reactions people online are having, so check out some more responses to the ad below, and check out the commercial above.

When the Brooklyn Nets acquired James Harden, there was an expectation that their defense would suffer as they assembled one of the great offensive cores in the history of basketball, but we didn’t know exactly how low that defense would dip. There were some who were optimistic that they could hang around the middle of the pack, which, when coupled with an elite offense, would be enough to make them a legitimate contender.

However, what has happened in the nine games since Harden arrived has been a complete cratering of a league-average defense (108.9 DRtg pre-Harden trade) to among the league’s worst with a 118.0 defensive rating, trailing only the woeful Wizards (118.3) and Pelicans (118.1) in that span, per NBA.com/stats. The good news is they have the league’s best offense with a 120.5 offensive rating, as their three-headed monster is scoring at will as planned and only seems to have a brighter offensive future ahead as they get more time on the floor. Those reps will also be critical to the Nets figuring out the defensive end of the floor, but the growth they need to show on that end is even greater than most anticipated.

There are things Brooklyn can do in the immediate to help themselves, namely cutting down on turnovers as they average over 14 per game since acquiring Harden and half of those are live-ball turnovers, which allow teams to get out and run in transition against them. However, this is far more than teams running on the Nets, as they have significant deficiencies that need to be corrected in their set defense.

Sunday night’s loss to the Wizards, which Harden missed due to a thigh contusion, was the shining example of how dramatically poor Brooklyn is on that end of the floor right now. Washington won 149-146, scoring 48 in the fourth quarter of an unbelievable comeback, which Kyrie Irving summed up thusly afterwards.

There’s some small sample size noise to what’s going on, with some unbelievable individual efforts like Collin Sexton’s double OT eruption, but they have consistently allowed teams to pile up the points even as they’ve amassed a 6-3 record. The optimistic view is that it probably can’t get much worse than this, and they’re winning at a 67 percent clip. It makes for an exciting brand of basketball, as Nets games have become must-see TV because no lead is safe as both teams are capable of massive scoring runs, but for a team with championship aspirations, they need more than just incremental improvements. Brooklyn has to figure out how to consistently get stops rather than relying on their offense to bail them out again and again, and that’s going to be quite the tall order for Steve Nash and his coaching staff given their personnel.

It’s not just that Harden and Irving are not known for their defensive prowess, it’s that the Nets simply cannot deploy their best defenders with their star lineups. Take the closing lineup from Sunday, which had Bruce Brown — objectively one of Brooklyn’s best defenders — in place of Harden next to Irving, Kevin Durant, Joe Harris, and Jeff Green. They’ve shown a propensity for closing with that small-ball combination for its switching capabilities and that the way they can go five-out offensively can force the hand of the opposition to likewise go small. However, against Washington that allowed the Wizards to go small and created driving lanes for Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook, who knew there wasn’t a shot-blocking threat at the rim.

On this play, Brown is, wisely, playing up on Beal to prevent the pull-up jumper, but Harris, who is on Russell Westbrook and doesn’t need to be out by the three-point line, is too high to create an effective wall to prevent a Beal drive, which allows him to split the perimeter defenders and cruise to the rim before any help from the corners can arrive — and the off-ball action with Mathews and Bertans occupies Durant and Irving on the weakside to prevent them from sinking. Without Jarrett Allen, they simply don’t have the versatility and athleticism in the frontcourt, as DeAndre Jordan is still a shot-blocking threat but can be a liability in pick-and-roll and condenses offensive spacing, while Jeff Green gives them switchability and spacing on offense, but not real rim protection.

On top of roster liabilities with their frontcourt rotation, it is jarring to see how often Nets opponents are able to create great looks off of their initial action. Take this third quarter set from the Wizards, where Moe Wagner runs a lazy dribble-handoff with Westbrook, then fakes a pindown for Bertans and flashes to the paint for an easy dunk past a late contest from the weakside corner.

Jeff Green is slow to react to the handoff action which sets in motion late communication with Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot on the pindown switch. TLC is caught off guard by Wagner’s cut and by the time Landry Shamet arrives from the corner, Wagner’s already in the air for the dunk. It is a pattern you see over and over, no matter the combinations on the floor. Some of that will be fixed with more time together and learning how to communicate, of that there’s little doubt, but this is not an issue simply of communication. They have inherent flaws as a unit, namely their propensity for ball-watching, that makes it incredibly easy to manipulate them for good looks.

Take this play from their overtime win over the Hawks, in which a Trae Young baseline drive is enough to draw the eyes of everyone, and most importantly Kyrie Irving on the weakside, to get Kevin Huerter a wide open three in the corner.

Kevin Durant in this situation is playing the five, and is sitting in pretty good position between Clint Capela and the rim to make Young at least make a split-second decision on a layup or a lob should he go up to the rim. However, Irving digs all the way down to the paint to watch Young’s drive, not recognizing that Huerter has shuffled over from the break to the corner to be in Young’s line of sight. He’s not in position to do anything with Capela, either on a lob or to box him out should Young go up and Durant leave Capela to contest, and he’s no longer in position to get a real contest on a strong three-point marksman in Huerter.

The Nets have added Iman Shumpert and Norvel Pelle to their roster with an eye on bolstering their defensive depth, but the issue lies with how they get stops with their closing lineups, which will be hard to alter barring some major moves. Joe Harris’ shooting makes the Nets Big Three so lethal offensively that he figures to be a part of most every closing lineup, and then it’s a matter of whether Jeff Green or DeAndre Jordan are playing, pending who the opponent is. None of those are ideal groupings defensively, and unless they can find a significant defensive upgrade over Green or Jordan, who can replicate some of what they provide offensively — spacing with Green or vertical space with Jordan in the pick-and-roll and operating out of the dunker’s spot on the weakside — they’re likely going to roll with what they have.

Maybe there’s a trade out there to be had that can bring in a defensive talent (as a member of Nerlens Noel hive I think he could do wonders for them just with his activity and versatility) who could anchor the backline better than Jordan, as Pelle will bring them some welcome additional size but won’t cure all that ails them. Right now, the fact is they have two current plus defenders in their main rotation in Bruce Brown — who is tough to play with all three of Harden, Irving, and Durant — and KD, who by himself simply cannot fix everything around him.

Now, there are some signs that they’re starting to understand how to make those units, particularly with Green on the floor, work decently well, depending on the opponent’s philosophy. Against the Hawks, they got just enough stops thanks to a clever deployment that saw them switch Atlanta’s 1-5 screens, but rotated James Harden into the paint to pick up the center, where he’s a solid post defender, and had Kyrie Irving tag out to the corner. It is the first indication of the work that’s going on behind the scenes with Jacque Vaughn — who Nash described as the de facto defensive coordinator — in what is an unenviable job to make this defense work.

Brooklyn certainly has time to figure things out, and I would anticipate them to implement various strategies to try and figure out what can work and what won’t, because this is a team that has the level of talent to use the regular season as a training ground prior to the playoffs. We’ll probably see some more efforts at zone and different coverages for pick-and-rolls and post-ups, because what they’ve tried thus far, mostly, has been a disaster.

It’s because of this that the Nets are endlessly fascinating.

It isn’t a juggernaut, just rampaging through the Eastern Conference, but an insanely talented but flawed team trying to figure this out in real time. It’s what separates them, right now, from the other top teams in terms of drawing interest. The Lakers are quite clearly going through the motions and trying to get to the point where they can ramp things up for the playoffs. The Clippers are on a revenge tour that no one will really care about until the playoffs arrive, and the Bucks are in a similar realm, just with more hiccups thus far.

The Nets, however, have the shine of something new, but also the warts of a team still figuring out how it all works. It’s why six of their nine games with this new construction have been decided by single digits or in overtime. This is a team with a ceiling of a championship contender, but the capability of losing to seemingly anyone on any given night, which is a gift to fans of the NBA — and surely wildly frustrating to fans, specifically, of the Nets. It’s possible that none of this matters, and the offense can will them into becoming the exception to the rule that you can’t win a title with a bottom-10 defense.

It’s also possible that they put it together and cobble together a league-average defense and that’s enough to get the job done or at least out of the East, but how they figure it out or how close to the sun they fly on wings of wax is going to be the story of this NBA season.