The Word Podcast: Sports, News, & Stuff · The Word Podcast

Superbowl Recap! Pick'em League Results! Costco is our Apocalypse HQ

·51 min·3 clips

A former Panthers quarterback’s path ends with a Super Bowl win against the Patriots after a career reset.

James Moondia and Richard Abernathy return to the broadcast after a break, and they sound happy to be back. The first big target is Super Bowl 60, which they call boring. After that, the conversation slides into the usual postgame wreckage. They talk about the ads and why people always seem let down by them. One joke is that everyone keeps saying this was a bad ad year, which naturally raises the question of when a truly good one actually happened. That complaint opens the door to a broader hangout. The show does not stay with football for long. The hosts compare notes on how they watched the game and why they were too busy to text each other during it. Then the talk moves toward what the result means for a New England Patriots fan. The mood is less polished analysis than shared processing. A winter Olympics mention sneaks in almost by accident. That turns into a snowboarding detour that catches both of them off guard. One of them ends up surprised by how good the halfpipe looks once he actually watches it. The halftime talk keeps pulling the episode off course. The Puppy Bowl comes up. Bad Bunny comes up too. One host says he does not get why people were upset about the halftime performance. The other compares the energy to an area he knew in Dallas, then to the kind of downtown or midtown district that actually feels alive in a city. The whole thing moves by association. They make transitions the way other shows use clean segment breaks. There are jokes too, including jokes about whether anyone really knew what was happening with the game while it was happening. The tone stays warm, a little exasperated, and chaotic in a familiar way. Even the sports talk comes with tangents attached. By the end, the episode feels like two friends trying to make sense of a big event by talking around it until the point shows up. The show ends in the same loose register it started with.

As heard by us

A loose post-Super Bowl hangout that prefers mood over recap.

After a hiatus, The Word Podcast comes back on the Thursday after Super Bowl 60 with a debrief that is more about the mood than the scoreline.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when the Super Bowl felt boring and you still want the fallout.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Word Podcast: Sports, News, & Stuff