Sports fans—of any degree, really—know that it’s been a hard month. With the MLB standing tall as the only Big Four professional league in season right now, I’ve resorted to pathetic measures. I’ve watched more meaningless NBA Summer League contests than I’d like to admit, bought the audiobook for Coach K’s Leading With the Heart, and bet on the Hot Dog Eating Contest. The Hot Dog Eating Contest!
Even worse? I won. Joey Chestnut under 71.5 glizzys, baby.
That said, I was expecting to lose myself in Quarterback, Netflix’s new sports docuseries. (I’m a longtime supporter of the streamer’s sports-doc efforts.) The series follows NFL quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota, over the course of the 2022-23 season. We follow the athletes from game to game, see their home lives (Kirk: dress yourself, man!), and hear them talk about playing one of the world’s most lethal games. Quarterback debuted on July 12, with eight 45-ish-minute-long episodes.
Turns out (whispers), Patrick Mahomes isn’t…all that interesting? Or, more likely: the highly curated version of Patrick Mahomes we see in Quarterback isn’t all that interesting. He’s a father, has a dog, throws footballs well, wins (spoiler!) the Super Bowl, and talks shit when he has to. (Admittedly, the “I’m here all day!” scene is a high point.) This isn’t Last Chance U, where we’re gifted a nuanced portrait of every player. Really, the storytelling grows inversely complex with each player’s skill level. Cousins is slightly more compelling, as an aging, middle-of-the-road quarterback clinging to a leadership role. And Mariota—the soft-spoken former Heisman Trophy winner—is Quarterback’s standout, since he has the most at stake. It’s no secret that the respected journeyman had an uneven season. Consequently, we learn the most about average NFL life by seeing Mariota win, lose, fight, cheer, and remain the utmost professional throughout a tornado of a season.
All of this is hardly the fault of the filmmakers; the lack of transparency is something journalists must wrestle with, as athletes rarely offer interviews outside of sponsorship commitments nowadays. But it does make you wonder if Quarterback, in its second season (Netflix has yet to announce more episodes) might be better off focusing on, say, Mahomes’s backup, Blaine Gabbert? What’s it like to sit behind the rich dude making bank from Head & Shoulders commercials? That’s why HBO’s Hard Knocks works. More often than not, the series focuses on the guys who probably won’t make the team. There’s more to learn in the struggle, and there’s certainly more at stake when a missed tackle sends you back to the couch on Sunday afternoons.
Let’s hope—if there’s a second season—Quarterback takes its solid formula to the bench. Even better: give us Kicker! I’d watch 10 seasons of a Rodrigo Blankenship-led docuseries.
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