80 for Brady is centered on an aging character figuring out how to deal with fading relevance, the loss of a beloved spouse, and an inability to fit into the workforce after a decades-long career—but there are also several characters in the movie besides Tom Brady. It’s the story of four 80-year-old women who go to the Super Bowl to watch their beloved Patriots play the Falcons. It’s supposedly based on a true story, although the actual women in question merely watched the Patriots at home.

It’s the second straight year that Hollywood has dumped a convoluted how-did-this-get-made comedy based around a fringe NFL plotline in the middle of Super Bowl week—but 80 for Brady is about 10,000 times better than Home Team, the Kevin James groaner about Sean Payton coaching his son’s peewee team after the Bountygate scandal. 80 for Brady is funny and sweet and features some of the most accomplished living actresses instead of Kevin James. Also, the entire theater at my screening burst out laughing at Brady’s brief, robotic attempt to do Serious Acting in the closing minutes of the movie, which made the entire experience worth it. 

The people who made 80 for Brady clearly put great thought into the little details of the Super Bowl, from a replica of the Super Bowl–winning locker room (I saw a Barkevious Mingo nameplate over one of the lockers! Forgot he was on the Pats back in February 2017!) and NFL Films video and audio of the Pats’ comeback to a joke about Brady’s jersey getting stolen, something that actually happened that night in Houston. At one point, a character walks past a TV screen playing The Bachelor—and I looked it up, and it was a clip from the episode that actually aired the week of the 2017 Super Bowl. 

The most notable football aspect of this film is in the way it proposes an alternate theory behind the Patriots’ historic comeback in Super Bowl LI. (Spoilers ahead.) (Gonna be honest, I feel a little bit stupid writing “spoilers ahead” for a low-stakes comedy about a very famous Super Bowl, but whatever. Spoilers ahead.) With the Patriots trailing 28-3, Lily Tomlin’s character, Lou, decides to take matters into her hands. She sneaks into the New England coaches’ booth and hijacks a headset in order to talk directly to Brady, telling the quarterback that he inspired her to beat cancer and that he can’t give up now. He pauses to contemplate the message, then screams LET’S FUCKING GO at his teammates, and the rest is football history.

But Brady didn’t pull off the comeback all by himself! The Pats defense also came up with stop after stop in the fourth quarter. That was true in real life. Who can forget Dont’a Hightower’s strip sack of Matt Ryan? The movie hypothesizes that this, too, was caused by elderly intruders. While Lou talks to Brady, Sally Field’s character, Betty, sneaks up on a Patriots coach with a large bushy beard and a visor: defensive coordinator Matt Patricia. (While many ex-Patriots make cameos in the movie, the studio hired a Patricia look-alike.) Betty is a retired MIT professor who has fallen in love with the numbers and strategy of the game—at one point one of her friends complains, “We’re starting to enjoy football, don’t make it about math!” She tells Patricia that the Patriots need to switch things up and play Cover 1 instead of Cover 2. She calls in the coverage, and at first, Patricia and the other Patriots coaches are furious. But when the defensive switch works, Patricia decides to turn to Betty for more advice. Brady looks compassionate and human for listening to the story of an elderly woman; Patricia looks like an idiot for getting outcoached by one.  

The decision by the filmmakers to imply that one of the NFL’s least popular assistant coaches owes his greatest career success to a retired lady with no coaching experience was completely unnecessary … and yet somewhat plausible, considering the accuracy of other aspects of the movie. Here’s every question I have about the Matt Patricia storyline in 80 for Brady:

1. Is the character in question canonically supposed to be Matt Patricia, or does he simply resemble Matt Patricia?
2. Did Matt Patricia consent to getting roasted in 80 for Brady?
3. As the film’s producer, did Tom Brady have to sign off on the Patricia plotline?
4. Does Bill Belichick know that 80 for Brady features a scene where his coaching staff takes Xs and Os advice from a booth invader?
5. Does Bill Belichick know that 80 for Brady exists?
6. Does Bill Belichick know about movies?
7. Did the people who made 80 for Brady attempt to get Matt Patricia to play himself in the movie, as Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman, and Rob Gronkowski did?
8. Did he back out because he was embarrassed about the plotline about him being outcoached by an 80-year-old woman or because he was busy?
9. When casting a Matt Patricia look-alike, how important is it to actually choose an actor who resembles Matt Patricia and how much of it is just giving any random actor a beard wig?
10. Is “beard wig” the technical term?
11. Did the actor playing Patricia, Alex Bentley, have to study Matt Patricia’s coaching strategy to prepare for the role?
12. Can that actor tell us what Matt Patricia’s coaching strategy is? Does he have one?
13. Why didn’t Sally Field have any strategic advice for a Patriots offense that scored just three points in the first 40 minutes?  
14. Did they consider bringing in Aaron Paul to play Steve Belichick?
15. If somebody did somehow break into a coaching booth and yell “PLAY COVER 1” in the vicinity of a defensive coordinator’s headset, would the defense listen to the random voice?
16. A 2017 article by the NFL’s Bucky Brooks noted a fourth-quarter switch in the Pats’ Cover 1 as pivotal in stopping the Falcons from putting the game out of reach. I have to ask: Did an elderly woman actually break into the coaching booth and convince Matt Patricia to change his game plan?
17. Would the Patriots defense have given up 500-plus yards of offense to Nick Foles and the Eagles in the 2018 Super Bowl if someone had run into the booth to tell Patricia to do stuff differently?
18. Is this why Bill Belichick switched Patricia from defense to offense when Patricia returned to New England in 2022, even though Patricia had no experience coaching offense?
19. Has Belichick considered hiring Sally Field to coach the Patriots instead of Matt Patricia?
20. Couldn’t they have avoided embarrassing the Patriots coaches by writing a script where the old ladies broke into the Falcons’ booth and told Kyle Shanahan to keep passing with a 28-3 lead?
21. Hold up: Did any old ladies break into the Falcons’ coaching booth and tell them to keep passing with a 28-3 lead?

The movie does get one critical football thing wrong. Just before the credits roll Brady quips to his new friends about how he has no intentions of retiring. In reality, he retired last Wednesday.

Rodger Sherman