The Draw Play

NFL tight ends have become major commodities in the era of passing. They used to just be offensive lineman who were allowed to catch the ball, but thanks to folks like Tony Gonzales and more recently Gronk the NFL tight end has evolved into a sort of super man position, or in another way, a weird tweener between O-line and WR. Certain Tight Ends have even come in and had incredible success playing this odd sport known as basketball in college. Please, refer to the sport as it’s full name, Played Basketball in College. Playing basketball in college is the NFL jam now. The NFL Jam. Welcome. Welcome to the NFL Jam. Here’s your chance, do your dance at the NFL Jam. Here’s your fine for dancing.

Space Jam is a classic and if you don’t think it’s perfect fight me. It’s even better these days because now we know Michael Jordan was a huge jerk, which gives an extra dark subtext to the film that to beat the outer space aliens who were huge jerks, the Looney Toons went out and got a jerk ringer. To beat the Monstar, you need to BE the Monstar.

Jokes and announcer bad habits aside, I kind of wonder if NFL scouts actually look towards BBall sometimes. It does seem like a sport with crossover athletic appeal. Big dudes. Quick movements. Blocking. A big power forward or maybe a thick Small Forward, maybe a center although they may be too big. Anyone who specializes in rebounds is probably a decent base point for possible TE. Gates played Power Forward. Graham was also a Forward. I don’t see tiny Steph Curry making it in the NFL but forwards are possibilities. It would probably be hard to convince a good basketball star to go football though, have you seen the contract differences between NBA and NFL? Play BBall, folks. Probably breaks your brain less too.

I want to see an uplifting sports movie about a college basketball player who makes it to the NFL. He eats a little too much and picks up some weight and gets forgotten about during his senior year of basketball after a tragedy strikes his family. But by chance meeting with a down on his luck NFL scout, they begin to get him in line for football. There are cool montages of the player trying to learn football, like trying to dribble a football and dunking one. He tries out QB and throws a sick no look behind the back pass into the scout, and they laugh. Soon he’s ballin hard, and the scout fights the good fight to the big gruff GM. The GM is the villain of the piece, he doesn’t want to draft this dumb former star kid from bad school state. He’s also a racist for good measure. But it’s round 7, the GM has nothing else, and the scout pleads his case. The owner steps in and says “Take the guy, John” because the owner loves the player because Hollywood won’t portray the rich white probably financier of the film as a bad guy. The GM relents, selects our protagonist, and the movie ends with him signing a rookie contract. It’ll be called “Switch Hitter”, to sucker the baseball fans into the theater by accident.

The sequel then reveals he was drafted onto the 49ers, tore his acl in week 2, and spent the rest of his days as a nobody. Based on true events.