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Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking juicers, the Spock market, airplane seat prep, and more. Your letters: Brendan:

New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel decided to have a press conference Tuesday, addressing the media for the first time since those eyebrow-raising photos of him and now-former NFL insider Dianna Russini were published. What did Vrabel want to tell everyone? It's not really clear based on what he actually said. Vrabel started the press conference by issuing a classic non-denial denial, never addressing the photos directly. All that was made apparent is that he has had "difficult conversations" with the team and his family, and that he will "attack each day with humility and focus." Here's the meat of it: I’ve had some difficult conversations with people that I care about: with my family, the organization, the coaches, the players. Those have been positive and productive. You know, we believe in order to be successful on and off the field, you have to make good decisions. That includes me, that starts with me. We never want our actions to negatively affect the team. You never want to be the cause of a distraction. And when I—those are comments and questions that I’ve answered for the team, with the team, we’ll keep those private and to ourselves.

The Carolina Hurricanes spent Game 1 displaying exactly why they're among the East's favorites. After the Ottawa Senators dropped Game 2 in double overtime, they're left ruing all the opportunities they didn't take advantage of in a much more evenly played game. Against these Hurricanes, they know you can't trust luck to do the hard work. And you can't waste chances. A quick primer on the Canes: This is their eighth straight season making the playoffs under head coach Rod Brind'Amour, and in every single appearance they've won at least one series. That said, they've also fallen short of the Cup Final every time, with a total of just one win across three conference final outings. In the regular season, they've racked up points with a tried-and-true formula that maximizes shot differential and keeps the puck as far away from their own net as possible. On an average night in the NHL, that work gets you wins on its own, and it's how the Canes finished fifth-best in the league in goals against, even as none of their goalies played above average. But in a best-of-seven against one of the league's very top teams pushing themselves like there might not be a tomorrow, Carolina's consistently found itself on the wrong end of talent mismatches. The good news for the Canes, however, is that this might be the most skilled forward group yet assembled in Raleigh. A centerpiece in Sebastian Aho has been complemented by a new career high in goals and points for Andrei Svechnikov, an impactful free-agent signing in Nikolaj Ehlers, and younger guys who are developing at an exciting pace in Seth Jarvis, Logan Stankoven, and Jackson Blake. I might not pick them in a third-round clash with the Lightning, but the first round against the Senators is a different story—one that looks a lot like that 2-0 Game 1 victory. What I particularly loved, and which I'd been wowed by before, was the way they sucked the life out of Ottawa once they took "the most dangerous lead in hockey," playing with both hustle and smarts on both ends to absolutely smother even the idea of comeback. It was as grand a statement of belief and purpose as you'll see at the start of a playoff run, and it's a testament to the culture Brind'Amour's cultivated that he's been able to get so much mileage out of this demanding and difficult style of hockey.

I took the D-shirt challenge, knowing it would be an emotional rollercoaster through weepy terrain. There was some sun overhead though, and some smiles to cut through the cold reality that I had to do it alone. Dan McQuade was my son, and as anyone who is familiar with his work here at Defector and elsewhere would know, he loved collecting bootleg T-shirts. The plan was for Dan and me to chart his massive bootleg T-shirt collection before he died. Thanks ultimately to his wife, Jan, who is very smart, the 1,200 or so shirts he accumulated could already be found in one of our closets inside 30 giant, blue plastic bags of Herculean strength. How they got there through my wife Denise’s NBA-playoff style defense against clutter is a wonder. I’m sure Jan convinced Dan in a nice way, because she’s a nice person, that either the extensive sneaker collection or his famous T-shirt extravaganza had to find new lodgings to make room for two-year-old Simon’s ever-growing toy truck fleet.

Patriots' Day in Massachusetts is known for two things: the Boston Marathon and Here Comes The Pizza. No longer. The third Monday in April will forevermore be remembered as the day Cribl, Axonius, and Netskope were at Fenway Park. No need to clean out your ears, you heard me correctly: Cribl, Axonius, and Netskope. I'm not sure you understand what a big deal this is. Cribl, Axonius, and Netskope! Three of the entities of all time! Will wonders never cease? Cribl and Netskope taking in a Red Sox game together, sure. That wouldn't make headlines. Cribl and Axonius? I could see it happening. But Cribl, Axonius, and Netskope? All in one place? At the same time? And in historic Fenway Park? Pull the other one!

The Edmonton Oilers are perceived to have been cruising on Connor McDavid's nickname more than a decade now, and will be for maybe another decade. And while it became a matter of cross-border amusement that McJesus could not win a Stanley Cup from a guy nicknamed Bob, it was also true that McJesus was both aptly and unironically named. This has not been more evident than this season, in which he not only led the league with 138 points (48 goals, 90 assists) but was an even more central truth in that he scored a point in all but 14 games this season, and the Oilers lost every one of those 14. If that isn't the very definition of a most valuable player, then value is just another beauty contest. Then came Monday night and, for you trogs who live on the wrong side of the continental shelf, this morning. There was no McDavid point in Game 1 of the Oil's first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks, but the reflexive defeat didn't happen either. Edmonton took a 2-0 lead that, given it's the Ducks, seemed insurmountable, and gave it back and then some over 14 minutes of the second period. Given the Oilers' successive Final losses to Florida, the postseason has become as much a trigger as a reward, and McDavid not breaking the seal on his playoff would seem to negate the return of Leon Draisaitl from injury hell, at least for the fans and vagrants who stood outside the arena watching on big screens. Well, McDavid didn't make the scoresheet in the final period either, although Draisaitl did, but the Oilers did something odd. They stole the game back and escaped with a 4-3 win that was very much against what we like to call the run of play. It was their first win without a point from McDavid since last May, when they knocked Vegas out with a 1-0 win in the conference semifinals.

At the end of March, the NBA approved the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers to a group of investors led by Dallas billionaire Tom Dundon, at a valuation of about $4.25 billion. On paper, Dundon, who already owns the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, certainly looks the part of an NBA owner. He built his career on subprime lending, led businesses that were recently investigated by the state of Oregon for predatory lending practices, and invests enthusiastically in professional pickleball. However, barely one month into officially owning the Blazers, Dundon has already developed a reputation for industry-leading stinginess. When Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was arrested in October as part of a federal gambling investigation, that vacated the seat for interim coach Tiago Splitter. Though Dundon was hoping to hire for the role, he doesn't intend to spend more than $1.5 million annually on the head coach's annual salary, according to Jake Fischer, writing last week for the Stein Line. That would be well below market rate, even for Splitter, so good luck with that. NBA head coach salary is at least a seven-figure annual expenditure, but Dundon has also looked to scrimp and save on much humbler line items. Blazers staffers were recently seen gathered in a hotel lobby because they'd been asked to check out to avoid late checkout fees, as Chris Mannix reported last week at Sports Illustrated. And while it is customary practice for fans at playoff games to get free T-shirts, the Blazers won't be doing that for this series, according to team president Dewayne Hankins. Another investor in the Blazers ownership group, Sheel Tyle, tweeted that the team will be doing "something else" instead. Sounds promising.

In the world of Netflix’s Bridgerton, the wildly popular Regency romance adapted from an equally popular book series, some things are constant: The women wear organza and brocade gowns; everyone takes long walks in manicured parks, and longer reclines in ornate sitting rooms; there is always a ball to attend; and these balls will feature string-quartet covers of modern pop songs. Everyone is trying to find their love match, and everyone is desperate to impress the queen. The women are women—pure, proper, dainty, skilled at the pianoforte or embroidery—and the men—strong, brusk, and sexually experienced—are men. Racism has largely been vanquished, but patriarchy triumphs. Actual patriarchs, however, do not fare so well. There’s something else that remains constant throughout every season of Bridgerton: All the dads are dead.  Yes, all the fathers are deceased. I wouldn’t blame you if you’ve never noticed—it’s not an obvious conceit of the show as much as a quiet pattern, like the showrunners are trying to MKUltra millennial women into believing that you can only fall in love if your father exists solely in postmortem flashback. But it’s true. Each season follows a different Bridgerton sibling as they find love in high-society London, and their father Edmund is dead, so that’s half of the lovers’ dads in one go. But their romantic counterparts are also always fatherless: The Duke of Hastings, Kate Sharma, and Sophie Baek, the love interests of the first, second, and fourth seasons, respectively, have lost their fathers to unidentified illness, while Penelope Featherington, fortunate enough to have a living albeit somewhat distant father through most of the first season, loses him to murderous bookies by the time her love story arises in Season 3. Even the young Queen Charlotte, whose story is told in the show’s eponymous spinoff series, is apparently fatherless; it’s her brother who arranges her marriage to the recently ascended King George. George, obviously, just lost his father, too. But while the protagonists may be fatherless by the time of their courtship, the show is sort of daddy-obsessed. Mothers are always telling their sons what their father would have thought of their behavior (usually negative, at the beginning, and positive toward the end when the young man has found love); young lovers are either aspiring to the love their parents had, or actively seeking to avoid it. Each of the seasons’ lovers has some kind of daddy issue which drives the narrative. Simon’s abusive father was desperate to maintain his bloodline, and the season’s main conflict centers around Simon’s refusal to have children as revenge. Antony’s father was a good, dutiful patriarch, and as a result, Antony struggles to negotiate a perceived conflict between his affections and his obligations as the head of the Bridgerton household. Kate is eager to marry off her younger sister, abandoning the possibility of her own participation in the marriage mart, because her father’s death has left her responsible for the family. Penelope’s absent father threatens her propriety—her season is characterized by regular reminders that she has “no male relation” to sponsor her through the marriage mart, a high-intensity environment in which she’s been consistently rejected due to her domineering mother, her family’s bad reputation, and her general inexperience with talking to men. And Sophie, of the show’s most recent season, is the illegitimate child of a nobleman who promised always to protect and provide for her. After his death, her stepmother asserts that her father left her nothing in his will, forcing Sophie out of high society and into work as a maid. 

Near the end of the New York Knicks' Game 1 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, the rowdy home fans started chanting, "Fuck Trae Young!" This, despite the fact that it has been several years since Young earned the city's ire by knocking the Knicks out of the playoffs. Also, he currently plays for the Washington Wizards. Maybe the once-ubiquitous chant returned to the Garden in Game 1 just because it's fun to yell, or maybe it was a harsh appraisal of the 2025–26 Hawks' ability to offer up a fresh antagonist. The Game 1 crowd spoke too soon. By the end of the third quarter in Game 2, the home fans had found a new chant: "Fuck you CJ!" If you are wondering who CJ is, I don't necessarily blame you. Just to clear things up: We're talking about CJ McCollum, who up until being traded to the Hawks in January had spent a handful of years fading into obscurity in the basketball wildernesses of New Orleans and Washington, D.C. Thousands of people who watch basketball every night have not thought about this man in a half-decade. And yet McCollum came into this series as Atlanta's most accomplished postseason performer, and by the time Game 2 was over, he had put some fresh ink on his surprisingly robust playoff résumé. He finished the night with a game-high 32 points, leading the Hawks to a 107-106 victory.

Don't stop me if you've heard this one before: The New York Mets are a real disappointment. This was true last year, when they missed the playoffs, and this was true last week, when the team followed a sweep at the hands of the Athletics with one by the Dodgers. It's somehow even more true today, as the Chicago Cubs spent the weekend stretching the Mets' losing streak to 11 games, putting them at 7-15 and dead last in the National League. A common theme in these losses is that New York has failed to plate runs, but on Sunday in Wrigley, they almost got away with it. Riding a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth, they entrusted newly acquired bullpen arm Devin Williams with the save situation, then watched as he fumbled it by allowing a base hit and an RBI double by former Met Michael Conforto. In the 10th, after the butt end of the Mets' order failed to bring around their guy on second, it was another new-to-them reliever, Craig Kimbrel, who let the winning man score on a wild pitch and a sac fly. https://youtu.be/_kIo33I6nbQ?si=iZIZOq6sXT0OM3MV&t=997