Gross Football Lunch – Week 5, 2026 NFL Season

Recipe of the Week: Super Special Surprise Sad Wings of Destiny 50th Anniversary Re-Issue Emergency Podcast Blog

Method & Analysis:

I don’t follow classic metal news and discussion like I used to because, well, there’s only so many times you can read and/or listen to a handful of dudes who are even older than I am conduct an in-depth interrogation of what the best Ratt song is. (For the record, the answer is You’re in Love.) As recently as Monday morning, I would have told you this lifestyle choice was a net positive. Nobody should want to live like I lived when I was 20.

But come Monday afternoon, this certainty was replaced with doubt, because on Monday afternoon, I learned to my great shock that Judas Priest had released not one, but two 50th anniversary editions of their landmark 1976 album Sad Wings of Destiny. There’s a regular old remastered version which sounds like the a remaster of the same album I’ve listened to a million times, and also a remixed version (overseen by Tom Allom, the band’s producer in the 80s glory days) that I now need to listen to a million times in order to catch up. 20 year-old Rob sucked and his life sucked, but he would’ve been ready!

This is a big deal! A couple of years ago, Allom and his friends gave Priest’s debut album Rocka Rolla – an album that, frankly, is not very good – the same treatment, and the remixed version simply sounds gorgeous. What was once a sludgy, sloppy sounding collection of marginally inspired material is now a thunderous, pristine sounding collection of marginally inspired material. The remix didn’t turn Rocka Rolla into a great album all by itself, but it did make it one worth listening to as more than a historical curiosity. And, as soon as I had checked out the remixed Rocka Rolla, I started to wonder if Sad Wings would get the same treatment. But, soon after I started entertaining this notion, I wrote it off. Priest had effectively disowned Rocka Rolla until relatively recently, which made the logic of a remix extremely legible. Now that we acknowledge this record’s existence, why not check out a version that doesn’t sound like crap?

By this logic, a Sad Wings of Destiny remix makes almost no sense. It’s all but impossible to overstate the importance of Sad Wings of Destiny in not only Judas Priest’s career, but in all of heavy metal history, period. If one were to compare the history of heavy metal to the history of animal life on this planet, Sad Wings of Destiny is the brave amphibian that sprouted stubby little legs and decided to crawl out of the water and onto the beach to see what’s what. It is fast, loud, heavy, dark, progressive, technical, punishing, and exhilarating, a synthesis of everything early heavy metal was in the aggregate but never before instantiated in a single band. Its songs have always been featured in Priest’s live sets, and they always will be. It needs no rediscovery or reassessment, so its status as an acknowledged masterpiece obviates any need for rehabilitation.

And yet, I’ve never been a huge fan of the original production. The guitar sound is off; the riffs are muddy and the leads sound garbled. There’s too much bass – and please note that it’s all but impossible to have too much bass in metal – as it booms over the guitars and swallows them instead of blending and reinforcing them. There’s other weird mixing decisions, too, especially as concerns backing vocal tracks and guitar solos. For all of its many excellent tracks and incalculable historic importance, the original Sad Wings of Destiny sounds like a 50-year-old record that was recorded for 50 bucks (excuse me, I of course mean 25 quid). Granted, that’s because it is a 50-year-old record that was recorded for cheap, but you get my point.

But the remix! This remix is the real deal, and it’s what I wanted a remixed Sad Wings to sound like. The guitars have low end removed and mids boosted, resulting in a precise but still heavy sound, with gorgeous, crisp solos. The bass and guitars are mixed properly, to skull-shattering effect. There are vocal harmonies I hear in the remix that I’ve never heard in my many, many years of regular listening. Hell, even the drums are given a lift in the form of a tasteful amount of reverb, accentuating the clean-up the rest of the band is given. In short, the remix makes Sad Wings of Destiny sound like an album recorded by Judas fuckin’ Priest instead of a band that was still growing into their own mantle.

If Judas Priest had broken up and disappeared after Sad Wings of Destiny, they would still be first ballot Heavy Metal Hall of Famers on the strength of it. Now it finally has a version whose sound measures up to the band’s greatness and the greatness of the songs it contains. If you have any interest in heavy metal, hard rock, or really, any kind of loud, guitar-driven music, the remixed 50th anniversary edition of Sad Wings of Destiny is mandatory listening. Highest recommendation!

Week 5 NFL Confidence Pool

Bye: Chiefs, Panthers

One of the many lies I tell myself is that it’s okay to keep examining the NFL through the lens of the confidence pool in an era where legalized sports betting has ravaged the sports media landscape like a plague of locusts. I’ll spare everyone a walkthrough of the torturous mental gymnastics I put myself through in order to maintain this delusion, but suffice to say this top 5 has laid my folly bare for all to see. This is a cry for help in confidence pool form. I have no idea what to make of this week’s slate, no idea as to how to assign points, and barely any idea as to which teams I should be picking in the first place.

This is how I ended up giving max points to a London game, in defiance of common horse sense. London games are chaos incarnate! Just because the Jaguars are rolling and the Eagles have entered the active decay stage (in case you’re unaware, right tackle Lane Johnson retired and center Cam Jurgens was traded to Baltimore) does not mean either team is immune to the consequences of overseas football. The Broncos can’t beat anyone by more than one score, and while I’ve convinced myself (and only myself) that they are the rare team that’s well-equipped to win this way, that shouldn’t mean I’m this comfortable giving them this many points, let alone against a desperate division rival. I always preach that new offenses often take time to come together; what if even this seemingly doomed unit is actually thiiiiiis close to attuning to the ways of Mike McDaniel and turning everything around? What if the Broncos once again take the first three quarters off offensively (which they absolutely will do) and McDaniel rights the ship? What then?

Speaking of teams that can only win ugly, the Vikings. Cripes. Kyler Murray was awful for three quarters against a putrid Miami defense before developing a rapport with tight end T.J. Hockenson, and I can’t help but chug a pitcher of the purple Kool-Aid as a consequence, even though I’m usually wise enough to avoid drawing conclusions from one quarter of data. I should also recognize that the Lions are a 0.500 team playing 0.500 football whose problems on the offensive line and in the secondary from last year have carried over into this one, but if I can’t go big against the Cardinals, what can I do? And, while I stand by picking the Seahawks at home against their arch nemesis and current best team in the league, do I really have to give them 11 points? Just because I want to prove to everyone what a smart and special boy I am for bravely predicting an excellent football team can beat another excellent football team at home? That’s cry for help material if ever there were such a thing.

That’s especially true once you consider that I could easily talk myself into giving the Cowboys more points against another team in free fall that’s also starting an undrafted free agent rookie at quarterback, but the Cowboys’ defense remains putrid and Brian Schottenheimer deserves no trust as a game manager. Zac Taylor doesn’t deserve any trust either, not with Ja’Marr Chase out and Tee Higgins quite possibly out too, but pluck and moxie don’t win football games. Pluck and moxie are all the Dolphins have going for them this year.

I spent way too much time trying to pick a winner in Monday night’s Game of the Century of the Week, but I ended up choosing the Rams for three reasons. One, I’ve seen the Rams play and I do think they’re better than their record. Play that same game against Denver 10 times, and the Rams win 6 or 7 of them. The Bills are riding higher but last week was a good reminder that they still can’t be trusted, and they have fewer paths to victory. As tends to be the case with shake pass defenses, their path to victory is forcing a shootout, and when you’re picking the winner of a shootout, you would be wise to pick the team more likely to get the one stop their life depends on.

Picking the Falcons was unthinkable as recently as two weeks ago, yet here we are. From what I saw of Monday’s sound thrashing, that line can push the pile like nobody’s business, and Michael Penix might be improving. I kind of stopped believing that quarterbacks actually develop or improve in any way, ever, so watching Penix come around is heartwarming. That is, of course, if he has in fact come around. There’s really no telling. Also, I can’t be certain Lamar Jackson will play at press time, and this is the exact sort of game the Ravens lose even at full strength.

When my special little guy Kyler Murray – who is so good at his job that the sad ass Arizona Cardinals released him outright – has one good quarter, it means that he’s finally becoming the prince that was promised, and that Kevin O’Connell can make quarterbacks better. When Drake Maye, the MVP runner-up from last year, has one good game after an early season slump, he has to go out again and prove it in order to beat the One Season Wonder charges. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

The last two weeks have done more for Ben Johnson’s schemelord bonafides than…than…uhm…okay, I give up, Ben Johnson’s schemelord bonafides have been established for years. My point is the last two weeks may make taking the Bears and putting big points on them a tempting proposition in a week this thin up top, but don’t do it! Yes, the Packers are flagging and untalented, but they are also playing at home and desperate for a win against their most hated opponent, and still have a potent head coach and quarterback combo of their own. Right now, the Bears only have the coach, even if said coach can engineer wins against the self-destructing Eagles and the actual New York Jets. I can’t guarantee a Packers win – I’m only giving them 5 points for a reason – but I can all but guarantee they will provide heavy, heavy resistance.

Finally, I wish I could quit the Texans. I really do. If there’s one shred of positivity to be found in this bizarre week of bizarre picks and even more bizarre assignments, it’s that I successfully restrained myself from giving even more points to a winless team that I had high expectations for. Why don’t I give the Chargers double digits, if that’s my attitude. More than two thirds of the regular season remain, and I’m already this haggard. Watch this space in the weeks to come for further signs of disassociation.

Enjoy the games, everyone!