4 quick takeaways on Netflix’s ‘Home Team’ trailer

No one really knew what to expect in the upcoming movie “Home Team,” about Sean Payton’s year coaching his son’s football team in Texas, but the official trailer dropped Tuesday and gave us an interesting glimpse. The film is set to release on Netflix on Jan. 28, 2022 starring comedian and actor Kevin James as the New Orleans Saints head coach; produced by Happy Madison Productions, it focuses on Payton’s year in suspension from the NFL and his tenure as the assistant coach of his son’s sixth grade football team.

The production company is owned by Adam Sandler, whose brother-in-law Christopher Titone wrote the script, who also happens to be dating Payton’s daughter, Meghan, who is a sports reporter. News of the feature first dropped back in April when Peter King of “Football Morning in America” reported the scoop. He’d said at the time that Payton had recently read the script and made some corrections accordingly. Fans may recall when Sandler’s production company visited Payton at the practice facility and at some point filmed a cameo of the coach dressed rather strangely.

Now back to the trailer. Here’s what stood out and what we can look forward to in the upcoming film:

A Dose of Nostalgia and a Gut Punch

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The trailer opens with an homage to Super Bowl XLIV, when the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 back in 2010 to win their first championship title, with James edited in over Payton as the players hoisted their coach up in celebration. It’s a bit jarring to hear the voiceover when fans likely have Jim Henderson’s broadcast call on a similar replay.

That feeling of happiness quickly dissipates when it cuts to a scene of Payton’s office that appears to be situated in Benson Tower with the Superdome outside his window. Payton did rent an office space in the building after his suspension was announced, but that’s not where the news would have been broken to him.

The office itself is pretty well-decorated. Behind James sits a photo of Drew Brees holding up the Vince Lombardi trophy. There are several pictures on the wall that appear to be from the Super Bowl season, as well as a bizarre bobblehead. When his presumed assistant walks in the office, we see a wall with several photos of Brees, a plaque from when the team was founded in 1967, what appears to be training camp film on screen, and a copy of his autobiography, aptly titled “Home Team.” The nostalgic music quickly cuts when Payton is alerted hilariously by an aide that a “Mr. Good-All” (pronounced like Gouda cheese) is on the phone for him. We all know what happens next.

That other dose of nostalgia? When James begins coaching the team and gives an anecdote about Drew Brees and “how you become great.”

A Season that Mirrored the Saints

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“You played a great game out there,” Payton says after watching one of his son’s middle school football games. His son Connor in retort: “We lost 0-40.”

With a “Kicking and Screaming” type of vibe mixed with a bit more self-deprecation, it’s clear this is a comedy centered on a not-great football team. We hear in the trailer that they’re the worst team in the league, and apparent head coach Taylor Lautner recruits Payton to serve as their new offensive coordinator. When he announces this to the team, a player promptly responds, “Our defense sucks too,” in a moment sure to get a lot of run with disgruntled sports fans on social media.

It’s fitting that one of Payton’s first tasks when he returned to his NFL team was to fire the defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo after one season. A season in which the Saints ranked last in the NFL in total and run defense; the 7,042 yards allowed were the highest ever in a single season.

Some Passive Aggressive Shade?

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When the movie idea was first released, there was word that Gregg Williams – the proponent of Bountygate – would be featured; it would be near-impossible not to touch on his fractured relationship with Payton and the team. Particularly when considering how they handled introducing Goodell, we should expect plenty of tongue-in-cheek references. While not depicted in the trailer, on the IMDB page, actor Scott Green is listed as “Rams Coach.” Williams was briefly the defensive coordinator for the then-St. Louis Rams until suspended indefinitely a month later.

The other potential jab? Whoever Rob Schneider is supposed to be portraying. His role is a bit bizarre to interpret – he approaches James and Lautner near the team bus and tells them he’s perfected his recipe for the “ultimate energy bar, the Super Log,” which sends the team into a fit of projectile vomiting. Maybe it’s a riff on Alex Guerrero, Tom Brady’s controversial alternative medicine purveyor. Sound a bit like the TB12 Method and the merch Brady has been hawking?

The Genuine Message

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As much as the comedic tone of this movie dictates the reaction, it’s hard to completely humorize the 2012 season and preceding events. Without much warning, coach Payton was basically cut off from all contact or communication from anyone in the NFL. It was shocking and jarring, and there really exists no blueprint on what on earth to do with a sudden year off.

Rather than wallow, Payton figured there was a group of sixth graders that were young and he could make an impact on them in some shape or form. While the trailer is for a comedy movie, there’s an actual story to be had within that year he served as offensive coordinator for Liberty Christian in Argyle, Texas. Check this NFL Network feature out below:

“Here’s this group of young sixth graders you can impact in some way shape or form

Filling up the Gatorade, cutting oranges, putting together the playbook at Kinko’s,” Payton tells his daughter, Meghan. “Looking back at it, I needed this team more than they needed me.”

The group of sixth graders now fully grown recap how absurd and memorable that season was. Unsurprising to Saints fans, they were awarded a whopping playbook with a bunch of crazy names in a “language we’d never even heard before.” He even rings up his lifeline, Bill Parcells, who helps introduce Single Wing 101 to a group of twelve-year-olds.

“This void needed to be filled somewhere, man,” Payton says in the feature. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

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