Which Dudes Remain?
A guide to the NFL's "Final 4"
David Roth of Defector joins this week to help zero in on the outsized personalities still alive in the NFL playoffs.
Dan Quinn – Commanders HC
Quinn’s vibe scans as “Athletic Fetterman” and he carries himself like your math teacher neighbor who insists that his driver’s license might have fallen behind your fridge. Let’s slide that beast out, and get a quick looksee. Pretty soon he’s rolling around on the floor with a bunch of vacuum hoses and you miss a family reunion and he keeps bringing over new exotic mustards and asking, “What song makes you cry, man?”
While Quinn may never get over blowing the Super Bowl to the Patriots at least he’s not fucking complacent any more. He’ll go for it on every 4th down, and if you fuck with him, they will punt on first down.
Quinn shouldn’t wear his hat backwards like he does, but it clearly gives him a lot of pleasure and he is absolutely ready to tell you why he does it.
Dom DiSandro — Eagles Security Guard
If you write something bad about Dom, well, a lotta stuff could happen. Just sayin’.
So we’ll just pass along some of the myths we collected about one of the most beloved guys in Eagles history.
No human has likely ever threatened a pizza like DiSandro. He is able to put the squeeze on a once-perfect pie, almost like it has a collar. Getting a grip and spitting, “are you fucking kidding me?” at an innocent mushroom pizza. Then maybe ripping it in half like a piece of office paper. — Anonymous
Sometimes, he will place a perfectly normal slice of pizza on the floor and make believe that it was trying to escape. Then he does a leg drop on the thing like he’s Jesse Ventura and the slice is Jake the Milkman Milliman. — Anonymous
So yeah, Dom is the Eagles security guard. But then we were also told that
the Eagles also employee these Philly Catholic priests to bring their bibles into random meeting rooms where Dom has murdered a pizza, and bless the place. Most of them can’t even talk when they leave the room. — Anonymous
Dom’s aesthetic is very different but he is “very much on the same wavelength as very-late-period Steven Seagal” where the fantasy is to be “so alpha that you can just sit in a chair wearing sunglasses” and “look faintly queasy” and still be the main character of an action movie. Dom’s is called Talonpoint.
Terry McLaurin — Commanders WR
McLaurin came to Washington in 2019, but everyone acts like he first started playing for the team the year Gus Frerotte slammed his own head into a wall after getting a TD. Like he’s suffered FOREVER. They act like maybe there was a season the team plane crashed and unfortunately Terry had to eat a lot of them to survive. “I’m not proud of everything Chris [Cooley] and I did out there, but I had to make it back.” And now he’s finally in the playoffs! It’s bizarre. I mean he did have to deal with Dan Snyder, but whatever.
Josh Allen — America’s Nephew
He’s a big, lovable S.O.B. but he sucks at babysitting. He will absolutely flatten your toddler while roughhousing and making up the rules to an in-progress game with a Nerf ball and some clothes baskets; later, it will be revealed that he also passed along a persnickety case of foot & mouth disease. Football’s answer to Ryan Dempster. A question that no one asked, btw.
Jayden Daniels — Commanders QB
Plays like a multi-ring veteran QB who is 32 years old and he sometimes looks like a guy who is a spry 71 year old. Like he’s seen it all. Ages ago. He operates on a different wavelength.
Patrick Mahomes — Referee’s Muse
It will probably be difficult to explain, even in the near future, how basically everyone that watches football wound up being so sick of this guy.
George Karlaftis — Chiefs LB
When any announcer mentions Karlaftis, it seems like they’re talking about a mythical guy from like 1968. “Did a number on your mom’s meatloaf the other night.” “Took all the guys to church before the game.” “One more thing, Betty: George Karlaftis called while you were out.”
I don’t know anything about the guy other than that he was born in Greece and after the game he walks around the stadium getting kids as young as six to commit to the Navy. Not even the U.S. Navy. He’s got brochures from a bunch of Navies. “You need to look into my eyes and you need to swear,” he will say to your son, “that you will get on a damn ship for me.”
Travis Kelce — Chiefs TE
No matter how much goes right for Travis Kelce, he’s still addicted to watching It’s James Chugs videos. He is going to show one to Taylor Swift’s dad at their wedding reception. “This guy is unreal,” he’ll say, in exactly the way that a dog would say something if it could talk. Barack Obama will be seated at the same table, and will see a few seconds of that video.
Sean McDermott — Bills HC
Buffalo Bill Burr.
Andy Reid — Chiefs HC
Appearing in those State Farm ads unlocked something in him. Seeing the close-up of his own mouth and mustache saying “bundlerooskie,” Reid said in a postgame press conference after the Chiefs defeated the Texans, “was like learning a new language. It was an invitation to the dance.” Once a workaholic dedicated to the grind and breaking down tape, Reid now delegates most of the duties he previously guarded so jealously to his assistants, and now spends his hours refining his craft as a performer. “I’m a vessel,” he told Adam Schefter. “It is the duty of a vessel to be open.”
Despite unlocking this new, refreshing identity, Reid laments the time lost. Old NFLer Alex Karras starred in Webster — a sitcom, for years. Reid wistfully realizes that he too, could have been a Mr. Belvedere type character. He could have sat on his own balls, no problem.
Saquon Barkley — Eagles RB
Earlier in his NFL career, Saquon Barkley had to sit and listen to Joe Judge, a man who was hired as head coach because New York Giants ownership thought he felt “like the first salesman at a Buick dealership who really had a bead on crypto,” as Judge tried to explain “mindset” to him. “Okay,” Barkley presumably had to say to Pat Shurmur at some point, “great idea.” These people were his bosses.
Austin Ekeler — Commanders RB
Used to do that guitar thing in the end zone while amassing 49.3 fantasy points every week. Still can squeak out yards by the bushel. Watch out!