kevin james playing sean payton

Kevin James playing Sean Payton is going to be a hilarious clusterfuck

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So if you missed the news, Netflix dropped the trailer for their upcoming movie HOME TEAM. It’s a movie about a plucky underdog team who gets an unexpected boost from a new coach with questionable decision-making. It’s the kind of movie Minnesotans love on paper. Except there’s one thing. It’s a movie about what that slimy, betacuck Sean Payton did while he was suspended for his role in Bountygate. Starring Kevin James. That’s right. Kevin James is playing Sean Payton. Give the casting director an Oscar and a billion dollars.

Pictured: technically a Super Bowl-winning coach, apparently?

Seriously, whoever looked at Sean Payton and said “yeah, let’s get fucking Paul Blart to be him” needs a statue put up somewhere. Listen, I have no problem admitting I’m still salty as fuck about Bountygate. I will never get over my hatred for Sean Payton and Gregg Williams. Which is why I can’t get over the fact that Netflix cast a guy whose most famous roles are ones where he’s a bumbling doofus. Let’s talk a bit about how bad this movie is gonna be.

A Frame by Frame Analysis of the Trailer

I get its expository dialogue on the off chance that a viewer doesn’t know who Roger Goodell is, but it’s VERY funny to me that the trailer opens with Kevin James playing Sean Payton (still funny), not fully knowing who “Mr. Goodell” is.

Cut to the next scene, it’s Sean Payton as a deadbeat dad. Hell yeah. Great work Netflix Producers. Then he immediately goes on to slander a group of 13-year-olds? What a scumbag. Way to be doing this portrayal true to form.

Then Sean Payton gets recruited to be the OC of this team his son plays on, where the head coach (played by Taylor Lautner, another very funny casting choice) apparently doesn’t know how to coach a football team. So he recruits Payton over a beer, which gifts us with the funniest screen grab of the week.

After this, it cuts to the stereotypical training montage of every sports movie ever. The new coach pushes the team to the brink. While he’s doing this, Payton says, OUT LOUD TO A MIDDLE SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM, a quote about Drew Brees. “You guys know what Drew Brees does? When everybody else is going home, Drew stays on the field to see what he could have done better. That’s how you become great”. What a psychopathic thing to say to LITERAL CHILDREN. These kids have busses to catch, they’re paying like $200 in equipment fees just to play the game, you gigantic prick. Once again, Netflix showing that they really understand their subject matter.

By the end of the trailer, it appears that Payton whips (figuratively, but maybe literally?) these whippersnappers into shape. He reckons with the fact he’s been a shitty, absentee father. And then, as is required by the deal all of Adam Sandler’s friends signed with him (and probably also the Devil) back in the 90s, Rob Schneider shows up. This time, Rob appears to have given the team the equivalent of Michael’s Secret Stuff.

And then, in a twist nobody saw coming, it turns out that the bars aren’t the ultimate energy bar! I can’t believe they spoiled such an insane twist in the trailer.

Oops.

The trailer ends and reveals the film’s title: HOME TEAM. A hilarious title, given that they are the away team in the final shot before the trailer reveal.

This movie would have made a billion dollars at the box office in 1998, but Sean Payton wasn’t a character then. Quite frankly, it makes no sense why they are centering this around Sean Payton at all. Or why the NFL, an organization that is famously overprotective of the use of their logos in movies, agreed to this at all. But hey, fuck it, right?

Now, as to who will play the other mastermind of Boutygate, I have to stand with Cousin CJ on this. Make it happen, Netflix. Steve Buscemi as Gregg Williams.

This movie is going to be an absolute CLUSTERFUCK and I hate that I know myself well enough to know that I will binge drink a fifth of bourbon and hate watch it. Maybe I’ll live tweet it, who knows. If you want that, you know where to find me.