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Shygirl And PinkPantheress Reunite (Along With Isabella Lovestory) On ‘Club Shy Room 2’ Cut ‘True Religion’

Shygirl saw success with her 2024 EP Club Shy, and now she’s running it back: She announced Club Shy Room 2 last month, and today she links up with PinkPantheress and Isabella Lovestory on “True Religion.” Shygirl and PinkPantheress previously teamed up with Mura Masa and Lil Uzi Vert on “Bbycakes” in 2022.

Additionally, Shygirl shared the Club Shy Room 2 tracklist today ahead of its February 28 release. Aside from the artists on “True Religion,” Club Shy Room 2 also features contributions from Saweetie, Jorja Smith, SadBoi, Bambii, and Yseult. The project was also co-produced with Mura Masa and Oscar Scheller, along with guest appearances from Nick León and Blue May. A press release explains of the project, “Room 2 isn’t just the second room of the club — it’s a vast, immersive virtual space where the club has found a global home, always online and everywhere.”

Check out “True Religion” above and find the Club Shy Room 2 cover art and tracklist below.

Shygirl’s Club Shy Room 2 EP Cover Artwork

Because Music

Shygirl’s Club Shy Room 2 EP Tracklist

1. “Je M’appelle”
2. “Flex” Feat. Bambii
3. “Immaculate” Feat. Saweetie
4. “F*Me” Feat. Yseult
5. “Wifey Riddim” Feat. Jorja Smith and SadBoi
6. “True Religion” Feat. Isabella Lovestory and PinkPantheress

Club Shy Room 2 is out 2/28 via Because Music. Find more information here.

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All The Steps The Suns Need To Take To Pull Off A Jimmy Butler Trade

butler-beal-top
Getty Image

The Phoenix Suns very clearly want to acquire Jimmy Butler, and while Butler has not explicitly said the feeling is reciprocated, well, the feeling is reciprocated. Reports indicate that Butler sees the Suns as the team that would give him the lucrative contract extension he’s eligible to receive this offseason and covets, while Phoenix is more all-in than basically any team we’ve seen in recent memory.

Now, we can sit here and argue about whether or not this is a good move for everyone — frankly, I think the Suns trying to make another win-now trade isn’t a good idea, as they’re in title-or-bust mode with a roster that doesn’t make sense and wouldn’t suddenly make sense by turning Bradley Beal into Butler. But the team is very clearly taking a different approach to things, and as such, we’re going to try to answer a very simply question today: How the hell are they gonna make this all work?

We’re at the weird point of the trade saga where it’s pretty clear that the most likely outcome is Butler ends up in Phoenix — he wants it, they want it, and you should never discount a team or a star when they’re both motivated and desperate. However, the steps to getting there are complicated and the power is in the hands of other parties to get Butler to the Suns.

ALREADY DONE: Phoenix gets some more picks in the door

The inherent problem with anything the Suns try to do is that they’ve already traded everything. The deals to bring in Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Royce O’Neale, Nick Richards, etc. have almost completely drained their stash of future picks, and entering Tuesday, their draft capital looked like this:

A 2026 first-round pick that Washington, Orlando, and Memphis all had swap rights on to varying degrees
A 2026 second-round pick from Denver
Their own 2031 first-round pick
Their own 2031 second-round pick
A 2031 second-round pick from Denver

That’s … not great. However, in a bit of savvy maneuvering, the team turned that 2031 first into three future firsts on Tuesday. As Keith Smith mentioned, this gives Phoenix considerably more wiggle room in navigating the Stepien Rule, as they now have access to more picks they can move (either their own or from other teams) in every year from 2025-30. Now, this could mean that they’re just trying to get stuff they can attach to guys like Jusuf Nurkic or Grayson Allen — guys with multi-year deals that cost a lot of money, which are particularly burdensome when you’re a second apron team — or it could all be an effort to get more stuff to sweeten the pot in a Butler deal. Or both! Who knows?

Anyway, having more stuff to trade when you are a team that doesn’t have a ton of stuff to trade but want to pull off deals is a huge piece of the puzzle. While guys like Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro are promising, they aren’t centerpieces of a big deal, and candidly, Phoenix should probably not trade two of their only guys who are young and athletic as their roster gets older and more fragile. As such, picks are worth their weight in gold, and the Suns now have a lot more to play with.

(It’s worth mentioning: Phoenix is about $28 million over the second apron, which among other things means they cannot aggregate salaries in a trade. If they do individual deals with these picks to get off of Nurkic and Allen’s salaries, they’d be sending out a little under $34 million in salary, so it’d make some sense to do those two things as a precursor to a potential Butler deal.)

NEXT: Solve the Bradley Beal dilemma

Beal has a no-trade clause, which is rare in the NBA because you run the risk of having the exact situation the Suns currently have with Bradley Beal. Is he a terrible player? No, but his fit in Phoenix has not been as good as the Suns hoped, he’s been moved to the bench, and he just can’t impact games the way that he did earlier in his career when he was an All-Star. He’s also owed about $50 million this year, $53.7 next year, and has a player option for $57.1 million in 2026-27, which is not ideal.

All of this is to say that Beal is the single most powerful person in all of this. He has given no indication that he wants a trade or would waive his NTC under any circumstance, and if he refuses to do that, the only path to getting Butler for Phoenix involves moving Devin Booker or Kevin Durant, which would make trading for Butler useless, because then they’re in all-out rebuild mode.

So, basically, Phoenix has to find a team that wants Beal and would be appealing enough for him that he’d want to waive his NTC. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what Beal would want — hell, we don’t know if there’s any way he’d be willing to waive it! And further complicating things is the rumor that Miami does not want to take back too much long-term money in a Butler trade, so the Suns can’t just hope he’d go to South Beach, despite their previous interest in him. But let’s turn to The Athletic for some guidance on that first bit:

As several rival executives indicated, Milwaukee is a team worth monitoring as the Suns continue to look for third-team partners in a Butler deal. Per league sources, the Bucks’ motives would be two-fold: Cut enough salary from their payroll to get under the second apron — the only way the Bucks can legally complete a trade while aggregating contracts — and also add a talented, highly paid player to play next to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, the NBA’s top scoring duo. Whether that would be Beal, or perhaps a star like Chicago’s Zach LaVine, in other potential scenarios remains to be seen.

Now, we can debate whether the Bucks trying to acquire Beal would be a good idea — I think it’d probably work out about as well as Beal in Phoenix has — but let’s take this seriously as the one team we know wants Beal. Milwaukee is about $6.5 million above the second apron, so the first domino would presumably involve moving Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez (the most unlikely of the names here), Bobby Portis, or Pat Connaughton. The one team that can just straight up take a player into cap space right now is Detroit, which has done a decent job in the last year acquiring veterans on shorter deals that they could flip if they play well. So for the sake of this, let’s imagine a deal where Connaughton and Milwaukee’s 2031 second-round pick go to Detroit for a heavily-protected future second-round pick that never actually conveys — say, a 2027 second that is top-59 protected.

This makes it easier for the Bucks (which would no longer be in the ultra-punitive second apron) to pull off a Beal trade, even if it would probably have to be a multi-team deal, because there’s no way that a package of, for example, Middleton and Portis are going to the Suns. But for Phoenix’s pursuit of Butler, having a place that they can send Beal when a full-scale Butler trade happens is a gigantic hurdle that would be cleared, and it’s probably safe to assume that the final trade would include Milwaukee getting a pick or two back from the Suns for facilitating all of this.

AFTER THAT: Pull in additional teams to make it all work, maybe

Here’s what the framework of our hypothetical trade looks like now:

PHOENIX GETS: Jimmy Butler
MILWAUKEE GETS: Bradley Beal
MIAMI GETS: ???

You can make a case that Milwaukee trying to get Middleton and Portis isn’t the worst idea, as both have player options for 2025-26, and the Heat could get them off the books after next year and be in a nice position to strike in free agency or the trade market — Terry Rozier and Duncan Robinson both come completely off the books after next season, too. Having said that, if the Bucks are gonna make a move like this, I don’t think just dumping either guy makes a ton of sense. Middleton’s injury issues might make him a bit more difficult to get value back for, but Portis could help a team that has aspirations of winning right now but could use a frontcourt player that brings all the stuff he brings. Plus, just getting Middleton back is a pretty strange haul for Butler.

Could a team like Sacramento, which has turned its season around since firing Mike Brown, decide it wants some reinforcements and dangle a youngster to get Portis? Could Dallas, which has been hammered by injuries this season, try to sneak in and get Portis with an eye on having even more shooting around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, particularly in 2025-26? Would the Pistons wanna make a buy-low bet on Middleton, with the hopes that playing alongside Cade Cunningham could help him find his form? And if any of these teams get pulled into a deal, how would the stuff that they send out get allocated? Is it possible that other teams just don’t get involved, and Miami is happy with a return of Middleton, Portis, and whatever picks/young players Phoenix would throw their way? Does Phoenix even have enough stuff to incentivize both the Bucks and the Heat to do a deal?

All of this is to say that, while Phoenix is moving towards a Butler deal, there is still a ton that needs to happen, some of which is outside Miami’s control. We’re about two weeks away from the trade deadline, so it’s possible those dominoes end up falling, and the sheer desperation that Phoenix, Butler, and to a lesser extent Miami have to make a deal work ends up leading to something happening. But if we get to the afternoon of Feb. 6 and Jimmy Butler is still a member of the Heat, we can probably guess that it has something to do with how far this needs to go before it gets to the finish line.

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When Will ‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 2 Be Available To Watch?

severance-s2-1-lg
Apple TV+

At long last, Apple TV+‘s Severance made an unsettling return to office last week, and it was just like old times. Kind of. Series creator Dan Erickson and director Ben Stiller tossed some curveballs right away as this show’s satire of corporate culture and work-life balance returned to pile more mysteries upon existing viewer theories.

That is, Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan regrouped to make sense out of what three of them learned in the Outie world. One of them delivered an inaccurate rendition of what transpired. The show should follow up on that discrepancy, but will it? There’s a more pressing question at the moment, however.

When Will Severance Season 2, Episode 2 Be Available?

January 24. This week’s episode is titled “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig,” and Apple TV+ has provided a description: “Outie Mark contemplates the meaning of a message. Helena, Irving, and Dylan grapple with the fallout of the Overtime Contingency.” And clearly, Milchick has not been in a dancing mood while he sorts out the PR mess ignited by the core four.

This season will stream a weekly episode until March 21, and Erickson/Stiller have planned for a four-season run to finish the story. One can bet, as well, that they took the three-year-wait complaints under consideration, so they’ll likely do what’s possible to shorten that gap. Still, Severance is a hellaciously expensive show to produce and an intricately staged one that is already a money maker despite the long wait, so the team is doing something right.

And now, we will go sit in the break room and await more goat action.

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Are Chick-fil-A’s New Fries Really As Bad As Everyone Says?

CHICK_FILA(1024x450)
Uproxx

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries. All in all, I think they’re just fine. They get the job done. They’re a worthy side to a Chick-fil-A’s Spicy Deluxe sandwich. In our comprehensive ranking of 36 different fast food french fries, we asked, “are Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries actually good or are they just novel?”

I’m convinced it’s the latter. Chick-fil-A’s Waffle Fries are beloved because they’re one of the few waffle-cut fries in fast food, and they’re natural, earthy, and adequately salted, which most fast food french fries aren’t. We ranked them 15th, sufficiently mid-tier.

Having said all that — I cannot for the life of me figure out who at Chick-fil-A is getting paid entirely too much money to come up with dumb ideas like suggesting the recipe be changed.

You may have heard buzzing in the last few weeks that Chick-fil-A’s new Waffle Fries are trash. If you cruise the Chick-fil-A Reddit board you’ll find countless, and I really do mean countless, threads about how much the new fries suck.

Which got us wondering: how bad are they? So we ordered up a fresh batch, at them on-site for the absolute best experience, and, well, we’ve got a lot of thoughts. Let’s dive in.

Chick-fil-A’s New Waffle Fries Review

Dane Rivera

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

So, what exactly is different about these new fries? Pea starch. Chick-fil-A states that this minor change “offers the same great taste while also making our Waffle Potato Fries stay crispier, longer.” And we can confirm that part of that is true.

For the entire duration of my meal, my fries stayed crispy. The once floppy waffle fries now have an audible crunch and a texture to them, but when it comes to the “same great taste,” we have to push back on that. Straight up, these fries don’t taste the same as they used to. That buttery, earthy flavor of the original is gone. Instead, these fries just taste like salt, or whatever else you put on them.

Dane Rivera

While the pea starch itself is flavorless, the coating significantly muddles the base flavor of the potato, resulting in something way more bland. Now granted, you can fix this by dipping your fries, or dressing them up in some black pepper (which I did halfway through my meal), but straight out of the bag? These things are a shadow of what they once were.

It’s a frustrating change because they’re not so different that it’s going to ruin your meal, we’re convinced people will get used to this change, but what’s annoying is they are so obviously inferior to the old recipe. What you gain in crispiness, you lose in overall flavor.

The Bottom Line:

If you dip your fries in sauce or dress them up in a lot of salt and pepper, you likely won’t notice much of a difference aside from a bit more crunch.

While we wouldn’t go as far as saying the new fries suck, they are a definite step down from the OG.

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The New York Jets Hired Lions DC Aaron Glenn As Their Next Head Coach

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YouTube

The New York Jets have been the laughingstock of the NFL for more than a decade, as they have not made the playoffs since the 2010 season and have just one winning season in those 14 years. They have had four head coaches (and one interim) in that time period and drafted two QBs in the top 10 (and another in the second round), but no one has been able to crack the code on how to get the Jets back to decency.

That task now falls on the shoulders of Aaron Glenn, as the former All-Pro corner for the Jets will return to the Meadowlands as their head coach after spending the last four years as the defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions, per Ian Rapoport, Adam Schefter, Diana Russini, and others. Glenn was widely regarded as one of the top head coaching candidates in this year’s cycle (along with Detroit’s other coordinator, Ben Johnson, who is now in Chicago). He is a beloved figure in Detroit and the Jets are hoping he can build the kind of culture of competing and winning that has been absent from the Jets facility for more than a decade.

The first order of business for Glenn and whoever they hire as the new GM in New York is to figure out the quarterback situation, as it seems highly unlikely Aaron Rodgers returns for another season under center. From there, there is some talent on the Jets roster, and Glenn will look to put the puzzle pieces in the right place to finally turn the Jets into a competitive squad in the AFC.

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2 Chainz Teams Up With Larry June And The Alchemist To Make Some ‘Bad Choices’ In Their New Video

Larry June cruises the nighttime LA streets with his collaborators in tow in his new video for “Bad Choices” featuring 2 Chainz and The Alchemist. The surprise track features a signature lilting sample from the LA producer, as 2 Chainz and June deploy some of their low-key luxury flexes, wondering on the chorus, “Where all the good girls that make bad choices?”

We may only be three weeks into the new year, but Larry June has, as always, hit the ground running with a slew of new videos for singles including “Jan 14th” and “I Ain’t Stoppin.” As none of the three new songs appeared on his 2024 album, Doing It For Me, it’s probably safe to assume that he’s got yet another new project on the way sooner or later.

2 Chainz, meanwhile, has been more or less out of sight since very early last year. His last full-length project was 2023’s Welcome 2 Collegrove with Lil Wayne, and his last solo album, Dope Don’t Sell Itself, came out in 2022, so he’s also probably due a new release sometime in the near future. The third member of this triumvirate, Alchemist, stays busy, however, producing for everybody from Big Sean to Kendrick Lamar last year, even getting peripherally entangled in the Compton rapper’s feud with Drake. You can bet good money he’ll be dropping something new this year as well.

Watch Larry June and The Alchemist’s “Bad Choices” video featuring 2 Chainz up top.

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Everything New On Netflix For February 2025 Including The ‘Cobra Kai’ Finale And The ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ Series

Cobra Kai
Netflix

Netflix is ready to be your sweetheart for the coming month (after you’ve binged The Night Agent‘s new season and need to forget about Peter Sutherland for a few months). The streaming service will be largely rolling with Valentine’s counterprogramming (other than launching a new Love Is Blind season), and that’s just fine. So pull up a cozy chair for the end of Cobra Kai, the continuation of grifting stories, a bridge for The Witcher‘s next supply of wigs, and a limited series with Jesse Plemons, whose character will surely not threaten anybody in the process. Maybe.

Here’s everything coming to Netflix in February:

Cobra Kai: Season 6 Part 3 (Netflix series 2/13)

Say it with me: “COBRA KAI NEVER DIES!” Those are the words coming from both Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso in tandem in the above teaser. The final five episodes will put a vow on a forty-year saga. Of course, this series will be followed by the Karate Kid: Legends movie later this year, but first, the Sekai Taikai competition must come to a close, and somebody really needs to give Terry Silver a wedgie on the way out the door. Who’s gonna step up to that challenge? My money is on Chozen. (In all seriousness, the creative trio of Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg handled the The Karate Kid revival series with unadulterated respect, and good on ’em.)

Apple Cider Vinegar: Limited Series (Netflix series 2/6)

This series is bringing grifting back with Kaitlyn Dever (The Last Of Us‘s second season) and Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear The Walking Dead) on opposite sides of a battle for Instagram glory over wellness remedies that surely don’t deliver as promised. The story is based upon The Woman Who Fooled the World, the 2017 book from investigative journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, and expect some Inventing Anna-scale drama about a deadly serious subject.

Zero Day: Season 1 (Netflix series 2/20)

Jesse Plemons has a knack for surfacing in political-adjacent thrillers about dire crises and scaring the hell out of everyone. This movie does, however, more prominently star Robert De Niro as an ex-president who helps trace a deadly cyberattack after it kills thousands of U.S. citizens. This limited series also stars Lizzy Caplan, Angela Bassett, and Matthew Modine and hails from Narcos creator Eric Newman. Also, the heightened reality of this series could maybe, just maybe, be a fine distraction from you know what.

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep (Netflix animated film 2/11)

This animated placeholder movie will take Geralt of Rivia into the sea, where he will apparently fight monsters that threaten land. And from here, Liam Hemsworth will take over the leather pants from Henry Cavill (with that handoff coming at an undetermined date this year).

Avail. TBA
A Copenhagen Love Story
Graveyard
: Season 2
Roosters
Too Hot to Handle: Germany
: Season 2

Avail. 2/1
SAKAMOTO DAYS
Cult of Chucky
From Prada to Nada
Happy Feet
Happy Feet Two
Home Improvement
: Seasons 1-8
It (2017)
Magic Mike XXL
Miss Congeniality
The Nice Guys
Parasite
Queen & Slim
Richie Rich
Space Jam
(1996)
Spanglish
Two Weeks Notice
The Wedding Planner

Avail. 2/2
The Founder

Avail. 2/3
Bogotá: City of the Lost

Avail. 2/4
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of January 24, 2025

Avail. 2/5
Alone Australia: Season 1
Celebrity Bear Hunt
Envious
: Season 2
Grimsburg: Season 1
Kinda Pregnant
Prison Cell 211
Sintonia
: Season 5

Avail. 2/6
Apple Cider Vinegar
Cassandra
Golden Kamuy -The Hunt of Prisoners in Hokkaido-
Supreme Models: Limited Series
Sweet Magnolias
: Season 4

Avail. 2/7
A Different World: Seasons 1-6
The Conners: Season 6
The Greatest Rivalry: India vs Pakistan
Pokémon Horizons
: Season 2
Wrong Side of the Tracks: Season 4

Avail. 2/8
SAKAMOTO DAYS
Spencer

Avail. 2/10
Aftermath
American Pickers
: Season 16
Rambo (2008)
Rambo: Last Blood
Surviving Black Hawk Down

Avail. 2/11
Felipe Esparza: Raging Fool
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits
: The Week of January 31, 2025
Peninsula
Train to Busan
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep

Avail. 2/12
Death Before the Wedding
Honeymoon Crasher

Avail. 2/13
Cobra Kai: Season 6: Part 3
Dog Days Out
The Exchange
: Season 2
La Dolce Villa
Resident Alien
: Season 3
Trial by Fire

Avail. 2/14
I Am Married…But!
Love Is Blind
: Season 8
Melo Movie
Valeria
: Season 4
Dhoom Dhaam
Love Forever
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Umjolo: There is No Cure

Avail. 2/15
SAKAMOTO DAYS

Avail. 2/16
Don’t Let Go
Gold
Ted 2

Avail. 2/17
Gabby’s Dollhouse: Season 11

Avail. 2/18
Court of Gold
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits
: The Week of February 7, 2025
Offline Love
Rosebud Baker: The Mother Lode

Avail. 2/19
My Family
To Catch a Killer

Avail. 2/20
Operation Finale
Zero Day

Avail. 2/22
SAKAMOTO DAYS

Avail. 2/23
The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Avail. 2/25
Full Swing: Season 3
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of February 14, 2025
Really Love
Watcher

Avail. 2/26
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Seasons 5-6
Miss Italia Mustn’t Die

Avail. 2/27
Demon City
Running Point
Toxic Town
The Wrong Track

Avail. 2/28
Aitana: Metamorphosis
Despicable Me 4
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Squad 36

And it’s your last chance to stream these titles:

Leaving 2/1
Cocaine Cowboys 2
Plus One
Run All Night

Leaving 2/11
The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast Five
Fast & Furious 6
The Pope’s Exorcist

Leaving 2/14
The Catcher Was a Spy
White Boy

Leaving 2/15
47 Meters Down: Uncaged
Blackhat
Pearl

Leaving 2/20
Book Club
Southpaw

Leaving 2/21
All Good Things

Leaving 2/24
U Turn

Leaving 2/25
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Seasons 1-2

Leaving 2/28
21 Bridges
A Haunted House
A Haunted House 2
Aloha
The Angry Birds Movie
Blended
Cinderella Man
Due Date
Green Lantern
Inception
Legends of the Fall
Little
The Mindy Project
: Seasons 1-6
Oblivion
The Other Guys
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Sixteen Candles
Stand by Me
Without a Paddle

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The Six Things We Want To See In ‘EA Sports College Football 26’

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EA Sports

After more than a decade without a college football game, EA Sports College Football 25 was a sight for sore eyes. Football fans were so starved for a CFB game that they made it the best-selling sports title in video game history, and I think for the most part people enjoyed the game. There were, as always in simulation games, some hiccups, but the game absolutely scratched the itch that we all wanted it to.

Earlier this month, EA Sports confirmed the game will be back for this summer for another edition (which was a lock given how well it sold), and we are hopeful they will build off of their success to make ’26 even better. The ’25 edition was, by design, a fairly stripped down model as they wanted to get the important things right and had to spend a ton of development time just building out all of the things that make college football what it is — stadiums, mascots, bands, traditions, etc. Now that they have all of that done, we hope they can shift a bit more focus to the game play and game modes to give them more depth. Here, we identified six things that we hope will be the focal points of ’26 and make it a game worth investing in again as fans.

Coordinator mode in Dynasty

I absolutely love Dynasty mode, and think that for the most part, they got it right in their first year back. My one gripe is that I’d love it if you could choose to start your career as a straight-up coordinator with your responsibilities being exclusive to being a coordinator. That means only calling plays and recruiting on one side of the ball, and then when you take a head coaching job, your team has an edge in one way or another that is in line with your coaching archetype — for example, if you’re a recruiter who starts as a defensive coordinator, when you take a HC job, you automatically have a leg-up in recruiting defensive talent, but recruiting on offense and in-game/player development stuff on both sides of the ball is something you have to work on. It’d be a fun way, I think, to make the climb to becoming a successful head coach a little more difficult.

Make coordinator hires mean more

Kind of going off of that: There’s a very delicate balance that needs to be struck between making this matter and making the game more difficult. Having said that, I think leaning into coordinators having specific archetypes and there being consequences related to your coordinators would be a fun twist. Part of this comes via their specific archetypes — say, hiring a recruiter means player development is harder and in-game stuff is more difficult — but also, coordinators taking head coaching jobs and bringing players from their current school is a common thing in college football. Why would that not be a common thing here?

How To Play mode

I know a lot of people who still complain about, say, how many interceptions they throw, while I know I can really struggle with the defensive side of things. A big part of this, in my opinion, is that you get thrown right into games, and have to learn stuff based entirely on in-game reps. John Madden wanted the Madden franchise to exist as a way to teach fans the game, so why not do something in the spirit of that here? Give fans an instructional mode where they can learn how to follow their blocks in the running game, or how to read coverages before the snap and during a play, or how to understand defensive assignments/gap integrity/whatever else on that side of the ball. A lot of people went a long, long time without seriously playing a football video game, so this can help them get up to speed now that a college football game is back.

Bring back Mascot Mashup

Self-explanatory. If you played the game when Mascot Mashup was in it, you get it. If you did not, imagine playing an exhibition game, only with mascots. It rocks. Next!

Back to the drawing board for Road To Glory

In the game’s first year back, EA Sports made it very clear that Dynasty mode was the focal point. That was the correct decision, as it’s the mode people play the most and is what made the original game so popular. While there are things to improve there (as discussed), it has the strongest foundation for them to build on. Road To Glory, on the other hand, was a swing and a miss.

The stated goal for RTG was to have it be a shorter playthrough option (10-20 hours) but the truth is, it was just a very shallow career mode experience. They attempted to make it realistic by making you balance your time across different areas, but there wasn’t anything really to do other than practice or push a button to study/get treatment/etc. I don’t know what exactly the formula should be, but they either need to go all-in on making that part of the game more interactive (which, to be clear, could lead to backlash) or scrap it all together and just really lean on the football part of things. I know they want to replicate the “student athlete” experience, but what they did in ’25 just didn’t work.

Even the on-field portion of the game left something to be desired. At the non-QB positions, rotations made little sense and you could be a star at running back who would go long stretches without playing or touching the ball because you had no influence on play-calling or who was in the game. Coach Trust was vital (it literally determined if you’d play), but even as a veteran star QB, your ability to influence play-calling was extremely limited. All of that is perhaps realistic to being a college football player, but it’s also a miserable experience for a video game mode.

There has to be a better middle ground between creating a simulation of the authentic college athlete experience and making a video game mode that is fun to play for more than a season. I tried a few different times at a few different positions and never got more than a year and a half into a RTG career before I just stopped playing and went back to Dynasty. There was little depth, very little that changed from year-to-year, and even playing the games could be wildly frustrating. If that’s going to change for ’26, they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out where to really add depth to the mode, where to possibly scale back (or eliminate all together), and be more cognizant that the entertainment and fun factor should matter more than creating the most realistic mode.

Some combination of the following players on the cover

Jeremiah Smith and Caleb Downs, Ohio State
Garrett Nussmeier and Harold Perkins, LSU
Arch Manning, Texas
Ryan Williams, Alabama
Cade Klubnik, Clemson
Drew Allar, Penn State
Dylan Stewart and LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina
DJ Lagway, Florida

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Lucy Dacus Is Donating $10K To Various GoFundMe Campaigns For Trans People’s Surgeries

Lucy Dacus 2023
Getty Image

Lucy Dacus has long been a supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community (and is a member herself), and now she has launched a new venture that’s putting her money where her mouth is.

On X (formerly Twitter) today (January 22), Dacus wrote:

“if trans people wanna comment surgery gofundmes, I’m gonna give away 10k in $500 increments until it’s gone, & if other people wanna scroll through and make donations, please do. the government will never be the source of our validation or protection, we have to do it ourselves.”

As of this post, Dacus’ tweet has over 300 replies, many of them linking to GoFundMe pages.

This comes after President Donald Trump said during his recent inaugural address, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

He expanded on that in an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” which reads in part, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality.” It goes on to define and address terms like “sex,” “woman,” “man,” “female,” “male,” “gender ideology,” and “gender identity.”

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Indie Mixtape 20: Heart To Gold Bare Their Hearts On ‘Free Help’

heart to gold FEATURED
Dylan Chazin-Bowman

Heart To Gold wear their hearts on their sleeves. The Minneapolis emo/punk trio, composed of vocalist-guitarist Grant Whiteoak, bassist Jim Kiser, and drummer Blake Kuether, write soaring anthems filled with cathartic choruses and blistering breakdowns. Their third full-length album, the Will Yip-produced Free Help, oozes with the band’s belief in their vision and why that self-assurance often yields an honest portrait of their artistry.

Having wrapped up a tour with Mannequin Pussy, Movements, and Softcult (plus some supporting slots for Militarie Gun, Ben Quad, and Prince Daddy And The Hyena), Heart To Gold paid attention to the moments of their live show that resonated most with audiences. Bringing those elements into Yip’s Studio 4 resulted in Free Help, their most intoxicating work yet.

Following the album’s release in November, Whiteoak sat down with Uproxx to talk about Katy Perry, King Krule, margherita pizza, and more in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Loud, abrasive, energetic, fun.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

I would like to be remembered for being a glimmer of light in a pattern of darkness. For being one of the best organically live alternative punk rock bands.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Probably Kurt Cobain, King Krule, or John Dwyer. All three have things that make them uniquely themselves. They have something that others don’t. That’s really inspiring. Skateboarding has been a huge influence also.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?

Punch Pizza. It was a margherita pizza.

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.

Weezer with the Pixies haha. Seeing them as a headliner in a stadium was pretty magical. Crazy pyrotechnics.

What song never fails to make you emotional?

“These Days,” the Jackson Browne version. Makes me think about my parents. Also “I’m Having A Rave In My Room All By Myself” by Memo Boy. Both beautiful songs.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

How to spell “Giuseppe”.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Oh man. We’ve camped illegally in a few forestry areas and playgrounds. Maybe some crusty hardwood floor in the Midwest. Some little kids room with stuffed animals or something.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?

Minneapolis, MN. Next up I would love to perform “Tokyo” in Tokyo, Japan.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Start right now lil bro. Don’t wait to make rock/punk tracks. Avoid the wacky outfits for attention, specifically beach shirts. You’ll feel better about it all when you’re in your late 20s.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

We could make some really beautiful quieter alt-rock indie shit if we wanted. We can jam together pretty good.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

Suicide prevention. Lost some real ones in the mix of life. Depression is hard. We all need help.

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

I’m cool with it until it isn’t cool I guess. Hard to say. A bit scary and even dystopian. I’m not going to stop making music the way we do it now. All I’d say is that if it turns out to spiral out of control and cause more harm than progress – we as a species may have asked for it.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.

Somewhere in London. Too hard!

Right now I’d say King Krule/George Clanton collab set, Mannequin Pussy, Turnstile, Underoath, H2G/Hotline TNT/Title Fight secret set.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?

Haha I have no idea. Maybe Djbonerboy. Giuseppe’s Garage. Aldo2swag.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

Well it would be my grandmother’s name, or “fuck” poorly tattooed on my back. Enough said.

What is your pre-show ritual?

Run. Punch the air. Vocal warm-ups. Jumps. Handstands. Then we put our hands together and say “1, 2, 3, – H, 2, G!”

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Katy Perry.

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

I’m going to Whistler Canada on a snowboard trip with my snowboard dawgs Tom, Sid, & Blake.

What is your biggest fear?

Fear itself for sure. For days.

Free Help is out now via Memory Music. Find more information here.