Playmakers and their 1 season

Playmakers is an American television series that aired on ESPN from August 26, 2003 to November 11, 2003. It illustrated the lives of the Cougars, a fictional professional football team in an unidentified city. The show starred Omar Gooding, Marcello Thedford, Christopher Wiehl, Jason Matthew Smith, Russell Hornsby, and Tony Denison. The show, which ran eleven episodes, one season, was the first original drama series created by ESPN.  Playmakers ended up becoming the highest-rated show on the network other than its Sunday Nigh NFL and Saturday college football games.  Unfortunately for the network, ESPN eventually canceled the series under pressure from the National Football League, who disliked the portrayal of the negative aspects of its players' lives off the field.

I believe that this show was an accurate description of the hardships of professional athletes, especially professional football players.  The show played on the emotion side of the athletes and what is going through their heads.  In the big leagues, when you get injured, it could cost you your career, and in turn, your dream.  The first episode hooks the viewers with real-life script, and touching stories that people can relate to.  The first story of the whole season they show involves an accident that occurred during a game that paralyzed a man from the waist down.  Even though the player went to visit the fellow athlete he paralyzed, it will never change the fact that the player's career is over and that he can no longer do the simple things, like playing football, that came as first nature to him.  The line that probably hooks most viewers is how the player responds to the athlete when he says he is sorry.  The player says, with no remorse or sympathy for the athlete, "I can't even feel my own dick." The show goes on to other characters and their stories throughout the season and how they handle what comes at them.  I believe that the show should have had more seasons, but it negatively impacted the NFL, so they requested it be taken down.  Obviously the big man of the business must be obeyed.  I definitely encourage watching the show, I think it could have been better produced, but all in all I enjoyed it.