Listener sentiment
The Athletic Football Show continues to earn strong listener loyalty for its sophisticated, hot-take-free NFL analysis, with Robert Mays frequently cited as the best football podcaster in the business and Derrik Klassen's film expertise widely appreciated. However, a wave of technical complaints dominated the most recent window: since adding video to the feed, multiple Apple Podcasts listeners report playback that stutters, randomly stops, won't skip or pause, and sometimes replays overlapping segments — making the show hard to consume in audio-only mode. Beyond the platform issues, recurring frustrations include missing or inaccurate chapter timestamps (a long-standing complaint), excessive ad loads that bother even paying Athletic subscribers, and a sharp divide over co-host Dave Helman, whom some listeners find engaging while many others consider unlistenable and lacking substantive insight. Derrik Klassen's frequent mispronunciations of player names and the hosts' repetitive verbal tics also draw steady nitpicks. When the feed cooperates, listeners prize the show's accessible depth, salary-cap literacy, and balanced league-wide coverage — but the technical friction and format complaints are now nearly as prominent as the content praise.
Apple4.4 · 651
Summary generated Jul 22, 2026
