Dan Orlovsky and the Mirage of American Exceptionalism By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Geneva Bureau GENEVA—In a world where Belarusian sprinters defect during live Olympics and French pension reform is decided by tear-gas referendum, the name Dan Orlovsky might seem as globally urgent as the Liechtenstein water polo standings. Yet the former Detroit…
**The Curious Case of Deshon Elliott: How One Safety’s Journey Reflects Our Global Obsession with Gladiators in Spandex** From the bustling streets of Mumbai to the quiet pubs of Yorkshire, humanity has always harbored a peculiar fascination with watching exceptionally large men chase an oddly-shaped ball for astronomical sums of money. Enter Deshon Elliott—the latest…
Michelle Beisner-Buck: The Sideline Reporter Who Accidentally Became a Geopolitical Barometer By the time most of the planet’s 195 nations had finished arguing about the shape of the COP28 negotiating table, Michelle Beisner-Buck was already on a tarmac in Qatar, squinting into a desert sunset and asking an NFL linebacker how he planned to “finish…
In the pantheon of American secular religions, few cults are as fervent as Nebraska Cornhuskers football, a spectacle so devout that pilgrims from the steppes of Sarpy County to the soy-lattes of Shanghai tune in to watch unpaid laborers in crimson helmets plow into each other for the greater glory of… well, mostly cable ratings…
Baltimore Ravens: America’s Gothic Opera, Now Playing on Every Continent By Our Man in Perpetual Transit Somewhere over the Mid-Atlantic, 37,000 feet above whatever fresh geopolitical disaster is brewing below, the in-flight Wi-Fi hiccups just long enough for the passenger in 14C to miss Lamar Jackson pirouette out of a collapsing pocket and flick a…
NFL Divisions: How Eight Petty Fiefdoms in Shoulder Pads Became a Global Rorschach Test By the time the sun rises in London, the citizens of the United Kingdom have already placed their accumulator bets on whether the Miami Dolphins will remember what a defense is. By lunchtime in Lagos, WhatsApp groups light up with hot…
Travis Hunter, American Football’s Two-Way Glitch, Is Quietly Exporting Chaos to the Rest of the Planet By the time the rest of the world finished arguing about VAR, Travis Hunter had already played 100 snaps on offense, 100 on defense, and signed a few more NIL deals than most European second-division clubs manage in transfer…
The NFL Today: America’s Gladiator Pageant Goes Global (Whether Anyone Asked or Not) By the time London’s pubs are pouring their first pints on a Sunday, the National Football League is already halfway through its weekly three-hour infomercial for concussion science and geopolitical soft power. From Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca to Munich’s Allianz Arena, the…
Carolina Panthers: America’s Adorable Existential Crisis on Cleats By “Jet-Lagged” Julio Navarro, Senior Correspondent for Dave’s Locker The Carolina Panthers, for the uninitiated, are an American football franchise named after a predator that hasn’t prowled the Carolinas since the 19th century—an irony not lost on a planet that now watches apex predators mostly on streaming…
Bryce Underwood, the 16-year-old quarterback who has just committed to the University of Michigan for 2025, is already being hailed as the LeBron James of American football—a comparison that, like most things American, is half hyperbole and half prophecy. While the rest of the planet sorts out minor inconveniences like climate refugees and supply-chain famines,…
Middle Tennessee vs Wisconsin: A Microscopic Proxy War for a Planet That Can’t Even By the time the final whistle blows in Murfreesboro this Saturday, roughly 97 % of humanity will be blissfully unaware that Middle Tennessee and Wisconsin just re-enacted the global balance of power in 60 tidy minutes of American football. That’s fine;…
**The Global Trade Route Nobody Talked About: Khalil Mack’s Journey from Fort Pierce to the Edge of Civilization** While the world obsessed over supply chain bottlenecks and cryptocurrency volatility, a different kind of international commerce unfolded on NFL fields across America—one involving a 6’3″, 269-pound outside linebacker who treats quarterbacks like fragile exports that need…
