True Story Football Movies Hollywood Should Make

Instead of "Feel Good" Films, Let's See More of the Dark Side of the Sport

Over the past year, I've been bombarded by ads for several football-related films; We Are Marshall, The Gridiron Gang and Invincible are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head and I'm sure there were one or two more I'm forgetting.

While I'm sure they are mildly entertaining (I confess, I haven't seen any of them and I'm not sure if I want to) they all have the same basic plot. Based on true stories, they are about a player or team that overcame almost impossible odds to achieve greatness.

Been there, done that, starting with The Longest Yard and Rudy. I love football as much as the next sports fanatic but even I'm getting tired of the same rehashed material. It's time for Hollywood to look at the dark side of the game (much like Any Given Sunday attempted to do) and make some films about real events and people that might not produce the same good feeling but would be just as entertaining.

Here are few suggestions:

The Esera Tuaolo Story - Tuaolo played defensive tackle for nine years in the NFL while hiding the fact he was gay, something that would have gotten him hurt if the players around him in the locker room found out. The movie could be based on his autobiography that was recently released; "Alone In The Trenches: My Life As A Gay Man In The NFL."

The George Preston Marshall Story - There have already been movies about integrating black players into professional sports but none about the man that easily was the most racist person in the NFL. He is famously quoted as saying "We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites" and did not add a black player to his roster (Bobby Mitchell) until 1962, when the U.S. Government threatened to revoke his stadium lease.

Black Thursday, the end of the Baltimore Colts - Teams have relocated to new cities before but never worked out deals in secrecy and packed everything up in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts did in 1984. Now that the Indianapolis Colts won a Super Bowl, it would be a great time to make people remember how they got there.