Apologia at the Super Bowl

If we can change, so can you

The most nimble, dynamic, fearless ad agency since Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is back in the saddle. Strap in.

Dennard: We’re sorry.

Those words hurt, because you think you have to mean them. There’s another way.

At Apologia, we understand your pain. As Virtuosity, we were targeted for our beliefs, actions, and intent to continue. But by convincing the world we both learned and grew, we put the moralists and prosecutors behind us. And discovered our passion for emergency brand surgery.

If you’re watching this, you’re in the shit. All the way in the shit. It’s already at your neckline, and this is the last video you’ll see before drowning. You can sink, or take our hand.

A good ad on a small screen won’t change anything. You need a masterful ad on the biggest stage possible. You need Apologia at the Super Bowl.

Call us. We won’t wait long.

Dennard: WWE headquarters! What a beautiful building. The nandrolone fountains are a nice touch. Would a man without love and respect for his employees put one on each floor? Don’t answer that, unless you’re sure this room isn’t bugged.

We’re all lifetime fans of your work, Mr. McMahon. These are my colleagues, Amran and Michael. Specialists in turning moral frowns upside down. Unless any sexual assault investigators are listening. Then we’re Publicis.

Amran: It’s an absolute honor and privilege to meet you, Mr. McMahon. Nobody’s overseen the premature deaths of more of my childhood heroes than you. Except maybe a client we’re meeting later. But they didn’t make human meat grinding look as fun.

Michael: He’s not kidding. My childhood dream was to have my bones crushed in the ring. Sadly, I have a bum knee, so no meat grinder for me. But I have a new dream: to clear your good name, Vince.

Dennard: In short, we believe in both your innocence and undead cage fighters. All that’s left is convincing the world.

Mr. McMahon, my proposal speaks for itself. Please focus on this video trailer, and not our intern. She’s very uncomfortable, and we don’t have funds to bury an incident.

FADE IN

INT. MCMAHON ESTATE

NARRATOR

Young Rock showed you Dwayne Johnson’s HGH-free childhood, SARM-free rise to stardom, and inevitable presidency.

But what about wrestling’s greatest legend? The face of creativity and consent? Where did his legend begin?

The father of wrestling’s father, VINCENT J. MCMAHON, enjoys his patriarch chair. He has a commanding aura, but lacks the kindness and bulging traps of a true leader.

VINCENT J. MCMAHON

I feel like doubting a budding genius today. If only…

YOUNG VINCE rides into the living room on a tricycle. His free hand does 80 lb hammer curls.

YOUNG VINCE

Paw-paw! I invented another new phrase! Can it be on your show?

VINCENT J. MCMAHON

Let’s hear it.

YOUNG VINCE

“No means no.”

VINCENT J. MCMAHON

It’s not quite there, son. The world’s not ready for your nutty ideas.

YOUNG VINCE

Oh paw-paw, I wish you’d believe in me. Hopefully that changes by the season finale.

VINCENT J. MCMAHON

It just might, son. It just might.

NARRATOR

See the friendships that shaped the feminist icon.

INT. MOTEL LOBBY

STILL-YOUNG VINCE enjoys a quick deadlift set in the motel lobby. The weight is impressive, yet humble. His friend JIMMY SNUKA enters, with an armload of white roses.

JIMMY SNUKA

Whatcha thinkin’ about, boss?

STILL-YOUNG VINCE

Consent.

JIMMY SNUKA

Nice. Could you help me carry these flowers? I have three bouquets for my wife, but only two arms.

STILL-YOUNG VINCE

Anytime, Jimmy.

STILL-YOUNG VINCE grabs a bouquet in his teeth and continues deadlifting. He shatters his record, which happens to be the company record.

NARRATOR

Watch the trials he overcame on the way. Personal, non-criminal trials.

INT. STADIUM HALLWAY

FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE paces backstage. One of his precious employees is missing. Could they be hurt? Dead? He curls nervously, at half his usual weight. Then NOT-RITA CHATTERTON enters, yawning.

FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE

Call time was an hour ago! Where were you?

NOT-RITA

Satanic book group. We’re reading about trapping innocent billionaires. It’s fascinating stuff!

FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE

You know I love reading and monogamy. But I need your head in the game.

NOT-RITA

Of course, mark.

FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE

What was that?

NOT-RITA

I love felony perjury.

FOREVER YOUNG VINCE

What was that?

NOT-RITA

Of course, boss.

NARRATOR

America may not want Young Vince. But it’s getting Young Vince.

FADE OUT

Vince, there are three things you learn in a crisis.

First thing is, you’re fucked.

Second thing is, you need to hire the best people to unfuck the situation ASAP.

Well, the world’s best emergency brand surgery team is here, Vince. And since we’re here, I’m going to tell you the third thing you learn in a crisis. Ready?

People have short attention spans. Very short. Shorter than the gnats Christopher Nolan cast in Memento.

What’s that? You just Googled it, and there weren’t any gnats in Memento.

Vince, bubala, you’re so much smarter than the other sex criminals we’ve rebranded. Of course there weren’t any gnats in Memento. That’s exactly the point! We want to change the subject. Instead of the conversation being about all the dark shit you’ve done, and let’s face it, probably are still doing, we’re going to introduce a distraction.

The Super Bowl of distractions!

Now, our research shows only twelve percent of Americans support the idea of men wearing tights. As you can probably guess, those people are a collection of purple-haired Marxists, soy boys, and MSNBC viewers. These are not your people, Vince. But they are the people trying to cancel you. What we want to do is co-opt these people. But we need a wedge issue, or in your case, a wedgie issue.

Vince, we want you to normalize tights for men.

Wait! Before you put me in a headlock, Vince, I want to make two points.

First, the social justice warriors who are trying to cancel you have a real soft spot for anything that looks like dismantling the patriarchy. Creating space for men to cast off the shackles of traditional masculinity is the Achilles high heel for that crowd.

Second, you’ve been normalizing tights for decades! Our data shows twenty-nine percent of American men hold a secret desire to wear tights, just like their favorite wrestlers! You know what that means, right? There’s a silent majority just waiting for a champion to normalize tights.

With the right Super Bowl ad, you can be that champion, Vince. We can activate the tight enthusiast silent majority, while simultaneously co-opting a segment of social justice warriors to carry water for you as they enlist as allies in the movement to normalize tights.

Wait! Please don’t head-butt me until you hear about the ad, Vince.

OK, here’s the pitch.

It’s you, Vince! You’re doing all the things you normally do, but you’re wearing tights.

In the first scene, you’re telling a retired wrestler you’re not responsible for the injuries he sustained while wrestling for the WWE. He cries because he’s having trouble walking without a cane and can’t remember his name sometimes, but you tell him to “man up.” Then you notice his tears are landing on your tights. You think about punching him, but you show mercy. You give him the tights off your butt. He smiles and says, “Thank you, Vince, for empowering me to live my truth as a male tight enthusiast.”

In the next scene, there’s a beautiful woman standing in the middle of a wrestling ring. You ask her for consent, but she says no. You respect her answer because this is the Vince McMahon rebrand. But then she notices you’re wearing tights. She changes her mind. As the two of you make sweet, sweet love against the trembling turnbuckles of the wrestling ring, she says, “Real men wear tights.”

In the final scene, we’re in the WWE boardroom. The board is talking about selling the WWE to MBS, or Elon Musk, or some other evil dipshit. It’s humiliating, quite frankly. We need a real man — a man who wears tights! That’s when you burst into the boardroom, Vince. There’s smoke, and strobe lights, and some awesome theme music because that’s how real men roll. And you’re wearing tights, of course, but unlike the tights you wore in the previous scenes, these tights are an American flag print because PATRIOTISM! The camera lingers on your Old Glory tights and the glory that is your consent-activated package, Vince. It’s a powerful image, and with the right social media strategy we’ll make sure everyone is talking about Vince McMahon’s powerful, consent-activated package.

Anyway, back to the scene. You grab your daughter by the hair and lift her up out of the chairman’s seat, then throw her across the room. Immediately, the company lawyers start with their hostile work environment crap. But you silence them by pointing your massive finger at them. The lawyers melt — literally melt — in the face of your raw power, Vince. Some of the melted lawyer goo gets on your American flag tights, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here on a mission to normalize tights. You snap your fingers, and everyone who has survived this boardroom massacre takes off their pants to reveal: tights!

We linger for a beat to take in the board’s newfound balls, before you take your rightful seat at the head of the table and say, “You can’t put a price on normalizing tights, just like you can’t put a price on freedom!”

Let’s frame this in language you’ll understand, Mr. McMahon.

You’re the fearless, white-meat babyface. The hero fans pay to see go over. You make men cheer, women swoon, and kids dare to dream.

Problem is, poor creative and worse booking have buried you. Now you’re the delusional heel and marks can’t cough up money fast enough to see you get squashed.

Impressive, huh? At Apologia we’re more than just pretty faces.

What you desperately need is a “face turn.” Luckily, the answer’s hiding in plain sight.

FADE IN

INT. MRSOOL PARK, RIYADH

Bayley, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair are engaged in a legendary triple-threat match. All three lie dazed and disoriented in the center of the ring. As they simultaneously stagger to their feet the raucous arena goes pitch black.

When the lights flicker back on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — aka MBS — stands in the center of the ring, flanked by Bill Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, and Brock Lesnar. Each brute hoists a now unconscious female superstar over their shoulder.

MBS says, “Vince McMahon. How dare you poison my Great Kingdom with your American propaganda.

“Women’s equality? Ha!

“I’m taking these strumpets to my Red Sea sex dungeon. Try to stop me, Vince McMahon. If you dare!”

Vince runs down the ramp but the dastardly heels escape. He falls to his knees, buries his face in his hands, then looks directly at the camera and roars, “This misogyny will not stand.”

INT. DIVE BAR

Vince sits alone at an empty bar. One by one Dana White, Jerry Lawler, Greg Hardy, Ray Rice, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Tyreek Hill greet him. They christen themselves the Seven Chivalrous Samurai.

“Those brave and totally capable women need our help,” Vince says. “And nobody cares more about brave and totally capable women than Vince McMahon.”

“Anyone lays hands on a woman, they’re a coward in my book,” Dana White says.

“Chicken shit,” Stone Cold Steve Austin agrees.

“These paternalistic and chauvinistic cats need to get got,” Greg Hardy says.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Tyreek Hill asks.

EXT. RED SEA PALACE

The Seven Chivalrous Samurai shout “For our better halves!” and parachute out of a fighter jet and land directly in front of MBS’s backup palace.

They battle through hordes of faceless foreign thugs — think Helm’s Deep times a thousand — with bare fists, Samoan drops, and vertical suplexes.

At the main entrance Vince picks up Tyreek Hill and tosses him through the door, Colossus and Wolverine-style.

INT. RED SEA SEX DUNGEON

Vince kicks down the steel door to the sex dungeon. The three scantily clad heroines hang in cages from the ceiling.

The Seven Chivalrous Samurai stare down Goldberg, Hogan, and Lesnar. MBS cowers behind. An all-out brawl ensues!

Lesnar and Vince break from the pack. Lesnar lunges at Vince but he adroitly administers a Johnny Cage-esque low blow. Lesnar howls like Liu Kang, then Vince delivers three F-5s and a Tombstone piledriver.

With Hogan and Goldberg defeated the Seven Chivalrous Samurai surround MBS. He begs for mercy, but Vince lifts him above his head, breaks his back like Bane, and says, “Nobody molests my female talent but me.”

Dana White quips, “Mohammed bin Salman? More like Mohammed been bitch-slapped.”

The Seven Chivalrous Samurai and the three strong, independent, totally capable women laugh and hug and high-five then raid MBS’s luxury car garage and head to the U.S. embassy for extraction.

FADE OUT

We’ve cast Riz Ahmed as MBS and Michael Bay’s down to do his best RRR impression.

Digital de-aging tech can do amazing things these days, Mr. McMahon. The only question now is: are you in?

Dennard: I try not to be too prescriptive with a new client, since it can start things off on the wrong foot. But on our way here, four officers performed a “Doomsday Device” on a jaywalker. And quite frankly, I hate to say it, but you need more of that.

Michael: But with better footage. These low-res body cams aren’t cutting it. The people want police brutality in 4K.

Amran: Agreed. Also, you can’t show weakness to the Marxist mob. Dennard walked in here unscathed, which means you’re shirking your responsibilities. I already feel less safe.

Dennard: My lawyer’s disappointed, and so am I. I wore a vest here for nothing. There’s even a defibrillator in my briefcase.

Ads are nice, but normalizing violence gets you silence. Have you considered using the Magic Killer? BTE Trigger? Triple Powerbomb? We just finished working with Vince, we can help.

Think of your media backlog. Or bucket list. Or just the chores waiting at home. How are they?

Bloated beyond usefulness? Intimidating to think about? A grey blur of stuff? That makes sense, because it’s how human brains work. We can only process so much.

Right now everyone’s focused on one little murder. Because one’s easy to track.

Let’s change that.

FADE IN

EXT. BALD EAGLE PRESERVE

CHIEF DAVIS spins a football on her fingertip, and then passes long to a LOCAL CHILD. The ball strikes the LOCAL CHILD in the forehead, knocking them to the floor. Motionless. The shot quickly returns to CHIEF DAVIS, who radiates warmth and professionalism.

CHIEF DAVIS

Isn’t football great? One ball, two syllables. Nothing taxing.

In the Memphis Police Department, we strive for excellence. It’s a long, difficult to spell word. But worth the effort.

This year, we hit a bump in the road. We’ve taken a life from the community. And we know that forgiveness is also a long, difficult word.

To make it easier, we’re coming clean. We’re releasing our complete, alphabetized, and tagged archive of officers stepping over the line.

Every speed trap beating. Every bribe from a local organ salesman. Every teenager given a warning shot to the knee.

And yes, every officer-involved shooting. A long, difficult term for murder.

That’s where trust starts. It might be hard to wrap your head around it all. You might not even bother. You might seize up and tremble before the sheer scale of the Great Blue Wall.

That’s fine.

Because choice is important. You could sort through ten years of the Scorpion Unit hunting civilians, or enjoy the spring. We’ll never take that choice away from you again. New incidents will join the pile as they unfold.

What matters is I’m on your side. We have an open, honest relationship. And like any relationship, one of us is happy.

FADE OUT

Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this.

Sometimes an enterprise is so fundamentally corrupt, its core so thoroughly rotten, and its original purpose so utterly grotesque, improvement becomes an impossibility.

Think Blackwater. Or Great Britain.

Its only path forward is to acknowledge — no embrace — its raison d'être.

So what’s my advice for the Memphis PD? Stay the course.

Resolution is a myth. Change is for the weak-willed. Progress implies a lack of conviction.

However, there’s value in pragmatism.

The woke, radical leftists will never accept your extrajudicial methods — no matter how righteous — and the MPD can’t afford to sacrifice perfectly capable officers for following their organizational mandate.

Intractable problems call for revolutionary solutions.

Luckily for the good people of Memphis, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and video editing technology make it possible to alter the very fabric of reality.

Let’s say — hypothetically — one of your gangs accidentally administers irreversible justice again. Mistakes are bound to happen.

Now, imagine a scenario where — instead of showing cowardly goons mauling a perceived super predator — MPD body cams and CCTV cameras depict admirable heroes engaging in single combat with an actual super predator.

How? you ask.

Cocaine Bear.

The most important American film since Citizen Kane hits theaters nationwide on February 24. We’ve already spoken with the head of marketing at Universal. They’re airing a brand new trailer during the first quarter, amplifying engagement with a full social media advertising blitz, and — like most gutless, cynical corporations — are clamoring to support law enforcement personnel.

Cocaine Bear’s “based on true events,” which means “documentary” to Americans and “synergy” to us.

We create and release “found footage” videos of people encountering and succumbing to Cocaine Bear during his vicious rampage — à la The Blair Witch Project — and pay Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to push their “viral” buttons.

By kickoff the snippets will have billions of global impressions.

At halftime every God-fearing patriot with an AR-15 will be manning their windows.

Then, midway through the third quarter we flip the script, and show the entire nation why the MPD’s mission and military-grade equipment are so critical.

We re-release the footage of the Tyre Nichols execution as a full two-minute TV spot. But this time we replace the departed young man with a CGI version of Cocaine Bear.

What do viewers see now?

Certainly not five dark match jobbers battering, bludgeoning, and brutalizing an unarmed, defenseless, 145-pound kid with Crohn’s disease.

No, they see a mammoth, Herculean, life-or-death struggle between MPD’s finest and the Volunteer State’s most dangerous mammal — a deadly beast which just so happens to have snorted an entire brick of Columbian snow.

All that bear spray looks justified when there’s an actual amphetamine-soaked bear involved, amirite? Especially since our new footage ends with one officer bleeding out, two dealing with lacerated limbs, and Cocaine Bear absconding toward a wealthy white suburb.

By the time Eagles’ fans are burning couches Governor Lee’s office will have declared a state of emergency, authorized martial law, and — with “great reluctance, but great confidence” — reinstated the SCORPION Unit and granted it statewide jurisdiction.

A ferocious, unstoppable killing machine’s trafficking foreign narcotics and endangering the lives of Memphians, Tennesseans, Americans.

A locked and loaded MPD’s never been more important to national security.

You hit send on that wire transfer and we start doctoring footage.

That’s the Apologia promise.

Nothing changes. We used to be Virtuosity, before a crisis made us Apologia, but we’re the same talented scoundrels we’ve always been. Speaking of scoundrels, you’ve got more than a few bad apples, am I right?

Take it easy! And please put down your tasers and guns. Jeez, I meant it as a compliment, one scoundrel to another.

Point is, why fight your nature? You recruit people who have a power trip kink, and you supply them with U.S. military hand-me-downs. Violent attacks on innocent people isn’t a bug, it’s a feature!

But what if, and just hear me out, instead of brutalizing innocent people, the Memphis PD brutalized annoying people?

First scene. It’s a crowded parking lot. We follow a Toyota Corolla as the driver looks for a spot. The Corolla’s rear bumper is littered with leftist propaganda: Black Lives Matter bumper sticker, rainbow flag, Medicare for all. Clearly, this car is so far left, it’s incapable of making a right turn. But there’s a bigger issue: some annoying asshole in a pickup truck took two spaces, leaving this social justice warrior with nowhere to park and nobody to turn to.

Enter the MPD!

An armored police van rolls up to the scene with lights and sirens. Officers dressed in body armor jump out of the van. Without being told, they see the problem, and they act.

Two officers place an explosive device on the pickup truck, while a third officer runs a line from the explosives back to the command truck.

Meanwhile, inside the Corolla, our social justice warrior mutters some leftist propaganda about police overkill. But before he can say, “Defund the Police,” we hear a giant BOOM!

The explosion knocks the pickup truck back into its own space. But more importantly, the blast knocks some sense into our leftist friend.

“Thank you, MPD,” he says, before pulling into his parking space.

Second scene. A woman works in her garden. Her yard is decorated with the usual woke lawn signs. Hate Has No Home Here. Defund the Police. Vote. On the mailbox, we see the name of the people who live there: Ferguson.

Mrs. Ferguson’s phone rings. She checks the caller ID. It reads: “Scam Likely.” Mrs. Ferguson sends the call to voicemail. A second later, her phone rings again. “Scam Likely.” She sends the phone to voicemail for a second time. But the phone rings a third time. Out of frustration, she picks up.

“I’ve told you scammers to stop calling me,” Mrs. Ferguson says.

Cut to: a rundown office park on the other side of town. Inside one of the office buildings we see an army of scammers working the phones. We zero in one scammer.

“This isn’t a scam, Mrs. Ferguson, this is your bank. We’ve spotted some suspicious activity on your account, but before we can help you, I’ll need your email address, password, social security number, mother’s maiden name, blood type, and a notarized power of attorney…”

Just then, we see a janitor enter the frame. At first glance, it looks like the janitor is minding his own business, but as he mops the floor he inches closer and closer to our scammer.

“And how do you spell your mother’s maiden name, Mrs. Ferguson?”

There’s something different about this janitor. He’s built like a linebacker. He moves like a ninja. And he’s wearing a tiny earpiece.

“Great, great. You’re going to get a text message in a moment, Mrs. Ferguson. I just need you to click the link so I can access your account.”

The janitor presses his hand over the earpiece.

“It’s a go. Take ‘em down. Now!”

The janitor unscrews the long wooden mop handle. Carefully, he uses the handle to brush the scammer's headset off his head. The scammer bends down to pick up his headset. Just then, the janitor pounces. Using the mop handle, the janitor beats the shit out of the defenseless scammer.

Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. Lights. Sirens. Screaming. Shooting.

We cut to: the bloody aftermath of an epic shootout. The call center is littered with the bodies of dead scammers. Our janitor, who now wears his MPD badge on a chain around his neck, is on the phone with Mrs. Ferguson.

“No ma’am, that wasn’t your bank. They were scammers. But don’t worry, the Memphis PD is on the case.”

Third scene. A crowded movie theater. Everyone is enjoying the feature presentation. In the darkness, a cell phone rings. A man near the front answers. By the light of his glowing phone, we see the annoyed faces of his fellow moviegoers. People shush, but the man doesn’t care. Someone gets the manager, but the man keeps talking, until…

The MPD SWAT team bursts into the theater. They take up firing positions in front of the screen, crouching low so they don’t block the movie. Unlike their target, MPD SWAT has manners.

A red laser dot appears on the man’s forehead. One of the officers whispers, “Hang up the phone and put it on airplane mode for the duration of the movie, dirtbag.”

The man has been warned, but he doesn’t care. He just keeps talking…but not for long.

We hear the metallic clink of a gun with a silencer, then the man’s head explodes in a red mist.

The audience bursts into wild applause. They can watch the movie in peace, thanks to the MPD.

Dennard: It’s almost the big day! Twenty-four hours where America cares more about the ball than the human carrying it. How do you want to spend that time? It’s your last chance to convince America that football shouldn’t join cockfighting and Miranda Rights in the dead past.

Amran: It’s surreal being here. One of my biggest regrets is only acquiring high school football-level brain damage. If I’d just been a little faster, and a lot bigger, I wouldn’t have to watch my kids become teenagers.

Michael: Where are we again? Sorry, I played college ball. Division III, but the concussions still slap.

Dennard: See? Thanks to football, I haven’t paid out bonuses in five years. That’s worth saving.

Gentle reminder: everything here is Apologia’s IP until money changes hands. Vince tried a shortcut, and had to settle out of court. Much like his love life.

This one comes straight from Steve Bannon’s playbook, so you know it’s legit. Here’s the plan: flood the zone with shit. Gentlemen, we’re going to flood the zone with so much shit nobody will remember that your gladiator league is bad for the gladiators. We call this campaign, “Everyone got CTE from everything, except from the NFL.”

A little background. After our PR crisis landed us in legal hot water, we learned, we grew, and along the way, we developed some great relationships with the underbelly of the legal community. Well, gentlemen, that underbelly is ready to suit up for you and kick ass. We’ve put together an All-Pro team of lawyers led by Bill Barr, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Avenatti, assuming he makes probation, for the Super Bowl of class-action lawsuits.

Who are we suing? Actually, the question is, who aren’t we suing?

Our legal dream team will represent anyone, against any entity, on any claim, no matter how frivolous, as long as that claim alleges that a non-NFL defendant is liable for causing CTE.

All we need to get started is a toll-free number for clients to call, an actor to play the doctor in the ad so it looks legit, and a few client testimonials gushing about how much money there is in filing a CTE claim. And your approval, of course!

What’s that? No, no. The NFL logo won’t appear in the ad. There won’t be any mention of football. The goal is to drag every other American institution, company, and school board down to your level. It’s like Vidal Sassoon told me after I lost my hair: if they don’t look good, you look better!

No, no. We’re not hiring an A-list director. We need authenticity. That’s why we’re outsourcing the creative to an agency that does all those personal injury lawyer ads. Something like this:

What? You’re worried the ad will look cheesy? Yes! That’s the point. This isn’t just an ad. It’s a real law firm, filing real frivolous cases.

How does that help? What part of flood the zone with shit don’t you understand?

Gentlemen, instead of defending the NFL, we’re putting everyone else on the defensive. Cars cause CTE, OK? Sugar causes CTE. Critical race theory causes CTE. Understand now? Everything causes CTE, and everyone has CTE. Because if enough people believe that, then there’s nobody to blame for CTE!

Some people are simply haters.

They dwell on the negative, fixate on flaws, and refuse to see the sunny side of life.

No, I’m not talking about myself.

Some people are so out of touch, and so concerned with “virtue signaling,” they don’t recognize their own hypocrisy. They call the world’s greatest sport “barbaric” and “exploitative” then do Simone Biles-caliber mental gymnastics to justify why they tune in every Sunday.

I said I wasn’t talking about myself.

These proselytizing blowhards obsess over trifles.

Like how NFL players rarely receive guaranteed contracts, which makes them expendable to their teams and incentivizes playing injured.

Or how NFL players suffer injuries and concussions at orders of magnitude higher rates than all other professional athletes.

Or how the league’s own Executive Vice President of Football Operations compared the combine to a slave auction.

Or how one severely flawed and extremely biased study — conducted by researchers with an agenda — found 92% of the brains of fallen NFL players exhibited signs of CTE — an “ailment” invented by researchers with an agenda.

Big surprise: these moralizers get triggered every time a player almost dies on the field too.

The problem with these pearl-clutchers is they don’t realize incessantly focusing on what’s broken makes them downers.

For the last fucking time I’m not talking about myself!

Their blind naysaying makes it impossible to see the many upsides and immense privileges afforded to NFL players. Like fame, fortune, and leaving behind a handsome corpse.

So let’s concentrate those bloviators' attention on the positive — for once. Let’s lean in to your workforce’s self-mutilation. Let’s celebrate these gladiators’ willingness to pay the ultimate price for our entertainment.

Here’s how we do that with a taut, thirty-second TV spot.

A blank screen and a brief moment of silence give way to the NFL’s iconic “shield.” It fades to black then a video montage of the mythical Greek warrior Achilles begins. Think a few frescoes but mostly highlights of Brad Pitt in Troy.

Voiceover provided by the legendary James Earl Jones kicks in and says, “Throughout history, few men have achieved immortality.”

Then a photo collage of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson cycles.

“Glory demands sacrifice.”

Next we see black-and-white footage of Wehrmacht Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s heroic exploits in North Africa.

“Greatness has a price.”

Finally, a video montage showcases Junior Seau’s most rugged, bone-shattering, brain-scrambling tackles — JACKED UP! style.

“Some see flames extinguished too early,” Mr. Jones says. “We honor stars who simply burned brighter.”

Fade to black.

Boom!

Tell me you’re not dying to don a helmet and smash your head into a wall until your brain turns to mush right effing now.

In psychology this device is called reframing. And while your players’ prefrontal cortexes are too battered to process such a concept, we can still change the minds of the sulky, college-educated globalists hosting the Big Game for their friends and neighbors.

Color me an optimist.

We can be honest in here.

The whiners are right about one thing: this sport is a glue factory for people. Everyone can see it. Bright young men are beaten into monosyllabic zombies in real time. Some would even call that the appeal.

We can deny that reality, or use it. Every game, someone turns into a swole mannequin. But what else happens? What can we guarantee per cadaver? How can we judo tragedy into goodwill?

We prove you care.

FADE IN

EXT. JUNKYARD

A once-great ATHLETE sifts through cans. His mind is gone. ROGER GOODDELL watches from his charity Bugatti.

A lone tear runs down ROGER GOODELL’s cheek. A manservant dabs his cheek with a wad of international bills. GOODELL, in touch with his emotions, swats it away. He needs to let himself feel this. Then he can act.

ROGER GOODELL

We can’t do this anymore.

We can’t ignore the science. We can’t ignore the victims. We can’t put empty profit ahead of humanity.

We can’t sit back and watch the planet die.

Our players agree. Battered grey matter should serve a planet in crisis, not distract from it. The National Football League has to do better.

I’m proud to introduce the National Forest Legion. A program planting trees for every brain damaged or destroyed on the field.

For every lab-confirmed case of CTE, we’ll plant a beautiful maple.

For every player crippled by other means, we’ll plant a utilitarian bamboo grove.

For every domestic incident, we’ll plant a romantic willow.

And for every fallen hero of the game, we’ll plant a strong, enduring redwood.

What’s your part? What do you have to do, to be an ecological hero?

Nothing at all. Just keep watching, and stop complaining. Do your part for Gaia, and let us worry about the rest.

FADE OUT

Amran: Job well done, fellas. Now I’m certain you should never meet your heroes.

Dennard: Well said. There’s nothing like seeing the smile on a client’s face, and knowing that no one can stop us now. Not even God!

Michael: Speaking of God, there’s an account we need to pitch.