Monday Night Bites: Princess Switch and Woeful Jets

 Entertainment: Princess Switch

If you actively disliked my Halloween movie reviews the way Odell Beckham hates Josh Norman, I’ve got bad news for you. 

My holiday film recaps have returned, this time for the birth of the figure so many around the world celebrate. To clarify, I mean Jesus Christ, not Giannis Antentokounmpo. 

This time, we’ve got a classic Netflix formula film, following the same concepts as The Holiday Calendar, The Christmas Prince, and just about anything else created by Netflix featuring December holidays. 

I’m convinced that Netflix has a staff of 3 people to write all of their Christmas movies. Unfortunately, their screenwriters are super lazy, and they’ve programmed a machine to make the same movie hundreds of times, but change a few variables to keep audiences on their toes. A similar phenomenon can be seen in the Chicago Bears offense.

No, it’s not Holidate. No, it’s not A Knight Before Christmas, but a different Vanessa Hudgens venture, The Princess Switch and its sequel, The Princess Switch: Switched Again.

The first time I laid eyes on this beauty mediocrity came 2 years ago, when I was too busy with the legendary Monday Night Football duel between Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff to watch the first 3/4s of the movie. While I do trash these Netflix projects, this is the magic of what they do: I can just sit down, have no clue what’s going on, and enjoy. 

In the first installment, one American Vanessa Hudgens main character travels to (fictional Eastern European country), where she meets the other Vanessa Hudgens protagonist, a princess from (another fictional Eastern European country). At the request of Hudgens #2, they swap places. 

How could they look so similar, you ask? Well, they may have had a common distant relative, so that’s how science works: they happen to look exactly identical, from face to height to hand size (shout-out the NFL combine, the only other time hand size might be scrutinized). 

Hudgens #2 meets Hudgens #1’s friend and friend’s daughter, both with fatal flaws: the daughter looks ~12 but is said to be 8, and the father smiles at literally every opportunity. Hudgens #1 meets Hudgens #2’s husband to-be, the prince of First Generic Eastern European Nation. As unsurprisingly as an early season Kentucky upset, each Hudgens falls in love with the other’s male friend. 

Tragically, they recast the girl who was four years too old (good title for mediocre but depressing movie) in the sequel, with an actress who was the right age, but came off as meddlesome instead of sweet.

You don’t actually need to know anything for the sequel, other than that the two women promise to never pull another swap again. Of course, they pull another swap, only with a third Hudgens in the equation.

The films are so forgettable, yet so much fun in the moment. They bring a perfect yin and yang, a great balance between being good and bad, where the mediocrity elevates them. The Princess Switch has enough of both actually good moments, and moments that are fun to scoff at, that it joins the countless Netflix films that are far from Christmas essentials, but fun ones to enjoy when removing your critical lense

Sports: The New York Facepalm Jets

Over the past 36 hours, I occasionally find myself chuckling about the Jets. 

Heading into Sunday, 8 of their 11 losses came by multiple possessions. Going into their duel this week with the Raiders, their offense had failed to eclipse 10 points six times, while the defensive unit had allowed seven 30 point games.

Nevertheless, their 31-28 loss on Sunday against a Raiders team in the playoff picture remains their worst loss of the season, if not in franchise history. 

Losing again was a celebratory event for the front office, with generational talent Trevor Lawrence, a quarterback at Clemson, presumably entering the pro levels this spring. The Jets continuing their losing streak, perhaps all the way to the third 0-16 record in NFL history, will undoubtedly lead to the #1 pick, a priority for Joe Douglas.

The Jets offense made an incredible run, with QB Sam Darnold working to give his team a lead and perhaps save his job. He engineered two great fourth quarter drives to give the Jets a 28-24 lead, a few of the strangest words to type in the English language.

Now, the game was in the hands of the defense. As you can tell from basic math, the Raiders going from 24 to 31 points would take a touchdown. 

Just giving up a touchdown isn’t so bad, but the fashion in which the Jets did it was awful. Even a late game touchdown as painful as the Hail Murray from earlier in the year is acceptable, as the Bills defense did everything they could, but the Kyler Murray-DeAndre Hopkins tandem proved too strong. The Jets choke job is another story.

The Jets went 3 and out trying to chew the clock, punting the ball to Las Vegas. When the special teamers wearing green downed the football, 42 seconds flashed on the clock, and the Raiders had 61 yards to go. 

Some quick background on the man calling the plays for the Jets: his name is Gregg Williams. He can best be known for his days as the Saints defensive coordinator, where two big things happened. 

First, he failed to ice a lead with less than 2 minutes to go in the 2011 NFC divisional round vs the 49ers, when his opponents scored with 9 seconds to go. So if you’re a diehard Niners fan, as I was when this occurred shortly before my 6th birthday, please send a handwritten thank you note to Mr. Williams.

Secondly, Gregg Williams was involved in the Bountygate scandal, involving paying players for bigger hits. First of all, this is despicable getting players to endanger others. Second of all, you’re probably not doing your job well if you need to pay your players extra to get them to make plays.

Fortunately, with the lackluster play of the Jets, it was pretty clear that there’s no Bountygate scandal in East Rutherford.

Now, to the final drive. The Raiders made a 12 yard completion before spiking it, not a bad stretch for the defense, which was dedicated to stopping the big play. Then, an incompletion. 

Now, to the big play. Even for someone with no grasp on football, the philosophy here is simple: the only way you lose this situation is if they get past you. As a result, the common defensive play call here involves very deep zones to stop the big bomb. Whether you go with zone or man coverage underneath is personal preference. However, you will always see deep zones and a pass rush of only 3 or 4 men.

Fortunately for the Raiders’ playoff hopes, Gregg Williams disagreed with this defensive concept. Instead, he dialed up a Cover Zero blitz, meaning 7 players blitz, while 4 drop into coverage, with 1-on-1 coverage on each receiver. This means if a receiver gets past their defender, they’re home free.

The Raiders also had a player cut out for this exact role in Henry Ruggs, a rookie out of Alabama. Last year in Tuscaloosa, Ruggs was one of the best receivers in the nation. Most of all, he was the speediest player in college football and perhaps the single best deep threat. 

At least the Jets had a lockdown cover corner to shut down Ruggs, right? Wrong. Ruggs’ defender was Lamar Jackson, not the reigning MVP, but an undrafted rookie out of Nebraska. 

Fast forward a few seconds, and Henry Ruggs III and the rest of the Las Vegas Raiders are celebrating in the endzone. 

Fast forward to Monday morning, and Gregg Williams is out of a job.

Fast forward 5 years, and Jets faithful are celebrating December 6, 2020 as the day they held on to the pick that became Trevor Lawrence, the pick that became their first success since Joe Namath.

Rabbit Holes of the Week

I hate hand size conversations: https://youtu.be/CpB2_ewkRFE https://youtu.be/3JgM1GpOai0 

Just enjoy how wonderfully awful this Jets play call is: https://youtu.be/pt1bx1Fe93E