Sports recaps with pop-culture drift.
Jagbags is a rapid, casual panel conversation where weekly sports updates share space with pop-culture rabbit holes. Cubs hopes, WNBA previews, Letterman bits, album criticism, and guest interviews all get the same dry, teasing energy.
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Jagbags is a sports-and-pop-culture conversation with the rhythm of people who have been talking together for a long time. Mike Beyer and Len Foote open from the home studios in Woodridge, Illinois, then start moving. Sometimes the route is clear. Sometimes it wanders beautifully. Recap episodes usually make room for MLB, NBA, WNBA, NFL, March Madness, Bears and Browns frustration, Cubs excitement, Cavs worry, Bulls optimism, and whatever playoff or draft news has recently arrived. Those segments are not sealed off from the rest of the show. A standings update can become a joke about sainthood, a team gripe can become a larger fan argument, and a quick sports note can give way to music criticism or TV history. The show has recurring affection for structured bits, including recommendations, album reviews, and Len reading The New Yorker and explaining it. It also has a strong music lane. Robert Christgau grades, Sly and the Family Stone, Jason Isbell, INXS, Duran Duran, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame choices, and the value of criticism all appear as real topics, not filler. Television and comedy get similar treatment. The David Letterman episode treats late night as a whole ecosystem of bits, writers, awkward interviews, real people, and strange comic taste, with Amy Sealy helping chase the details. Interview episodes stretch the format without sanding it down. Iva Marie Palmer’s visit turns her adult novel Christmas People into a conversation about romance categories, Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry, bookstores, fandom, and melodrama. Chris’s WNBA preview brings a more focused sports angle while still leaving room for the show’s usual side comments. Jagbags is casual, but it is not empty. The talk is quick, dry, and specific, with enough old-TV, music, and Chicago-area sports texture to make the recaps feel personal. It is best for listeners who like their sports talk mixed with memory, comedy, and pop-cultural arguing.
Made for: For listeners who follow sports but also want arguments about albums, late-night TV, books, comedy, and fan culture in the same conversation. It especially suits people who enjoy dry, fast-moving banter over polished punditry.
What sets it apart: Jagbags treats recap structure as a launchpad rather than a cage. The show can cover Cubs, Cavs, WNBA, and March Madness, then naturally land on David Letterman, Robert Christgau, INXS, or romance publishing without losing its conversational pulse.
Jagbags is a new podcast featuring Len Foote and Mike Beyer. Every week, Len & Mike discuss a new topic based in music, sports, or overall pop culture.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jagbags pairs comic host chemistry with specific, observant talk about MLB, the WNBA and the NFL.
Mike Beyer and Len Foote treat sports as an argument already in progress, moving through MLB, the WNBA and the NFL with comic friction and close attention to what happened on the field.
Somewhere between Cubs anxiety and Letterman's McDonald's drive-thru bit, your opinions get a workout.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A relaxed book-world chat turns genre labels, Colleen Hoover, and an injured co-host into lively pop-culture banter.
Iva Marie Palmer's first adult novel, Christmas People, gives Jagbags an easy path into romance, fiction, genre labels, and the way readers talk about popular books.
A brisk baseball-leaning sports check-in with Cubs talk, Guardians fever, and Mike Meyer's Guardians-Sox perspective.
Jagbags is at its sharpest on sports when it settles into baseball. MLB comes through as the livelier lane here, with Cubs talk, a late-fall case of Guardians fever, Sox talk, and Mike Meyer's view from attending a Guardians-Sox game.
A warm look at Letterman's oddball late-night style, real-person comedy, and the creative partnership behind some of its strangeness.
Jagbags frames David Letterman's late-night legacy as a tour of television made to feel live, odd, and a little unstable. The review moves from his weatherman beginnings into the Top 10 list, Stupid Pet Tricks, awkward celebrity interviews, and the McDonald's drive-thru routine,…
A loose sports-and-pop-culture recap where NFL talk, 80s music arguments, and acting-performance debates all get room.
Jagbags turns its recap into a relaxed tour through sports and pop culture, starting with MLB, WNBA, the NFL season about to kick off, and Bears-Browns talk before wandering into an In Excess-Duran Duran bracket and the Ringer's list of the 101 best acting performances of the…
A sports-heavy Jagbags recap where box-score arguments, host banter, and recommendations all share the table.
Jagbags moves like a casual catch-up that happens to take the long way through sports before settling into its recommendation lane. The episode starts with MLB, including Pete Crow-Armstrong's joking vice pope nomination, then shifts into the NBA conference finals and an Eastern…
A funny, grounded conversation about Iva Marie Palmer's move from children's books to adult fiction.
Jagbags frames Iva Marie Palmer's Christmas People as a lively conversation about the blurry border between romance and fiction. Palmer is sharp on the book's humor, its relationship to paperback rom-coms, and the way readers and booksellers sort writers such as Colleen Hoover…
Big Cat and PFT Commenter cover the NFL, March Madness, and NHL for laughs.
Jagbags hosts Mike Beyer and Len Foote talk with Iva Marie Palmer about Christmas People, her first adult novel, which is due September 30.
Hosts Len Foote and Mike Beyer recap pop culture topics in their weekly show Jagbags.
Len and Mike recap NBA playoffs and MLB, recommend a New Yorker article, and preview a Death Heaven album review.
Len and Mike kick off 2024 with a superior best-of-2023 music list, criticizing other outlets for premature lists.
Mike and Len discuss the prolific career of actor Willem Dafoe, highlighting his range and notable films.
Jagbags hosts Mike Beyer and Len Foote interview Iva-Marie Palmer, a children's book author whose debut adult novel Christmas People (St.
Jagbags co-hosts Mike Meyer and Len discuss a wide range of pop culture topics in a rapid-fire recap format from their Woodridge, Illinois home studios, covering 1960s pop rediscoveries including Fontella Bass's 'Rescue Me,' their mixed take on Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Going On (B minus, not the A plus Robert Christgau awarded), reflections on music criticism including Anthony Fantano and a Chicago Reader critic who hated every show she reviewed, and a New Yorker double issue featuring articles on changed music criticism and A24's commerce-vs-art tension.
Mike Byer, Len Foote, and Amy Sealy discuss David Letterman as the late-night figure who came from Indiana weather reports to the top 10 list, stupid pet tricks, and awkward celebrity interviews.
Jagbags opens with a recap of the Ringer’s list of the 101 best acting performances of the 21st century, plus sports, recommendations, and a long song bracket detour.
Len and Mike recap recent sports events including MLB, NBA conference finals, and WNBA, with a pop culture twist.
Len and Mike preview the 2025 WNBA season with guest Chris, discussing key changes, the draft, and Caitlin Clark's impact.
Len and Mike recap recent sports events including NBA playoffs, MLB season, NFL draft, and discuss Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and omissions.
Len and Mike recap the NCAA tournament's first four days and discuss the NBA, along with recommendations and an album review.
Co-hosts Mike and Len discuss NBA and college basketball, NFL news, and Mike's album review, along with recommendations and Len's New Yorker progress.