There are many movies involving Sports that are amazing. I make it a point when a sports movie comes out to try and watch it in the theaters when I can. One of my favorite Sports movies of all time is Money Ball which talks about how Billy Bean uses his system of math to revolutionize the game by working with a small budget in baseball. However, there is one movie that I saw that was disappointing and was one of the worst sports movies I ever saw. That movie is called Draft Day.
Never have I ever gone out of a movie theater as disappointed after watching a movie as I was. I was 14 at the time and wanted this movie to be good. So I decided why not review this movie a few years later and see if my opinion changed (Spoiler alert it did not).
Introduction of 2 Main Characters
This movie starts with it being 24 hours before Draft Day begins. It cuts to Sonny Weaver who is the GM of the Cleveland Browns (played by Kevin Costner). He is watching ESPN and is getting ready for a day of work. We have a boring conversation with his love interest Ali Parker who is played by Jennifer Garner. So, Ali and Sonny are in a relationship both personal and business as they work together.
I will just say this now, but they both have no chemistry with each other at all. Also, it’s probably not a good idea for two employees in a business one being a GM of a football team to be in a relationship with each other. She informs him that she is pregnant and tries to help Sonny as he is grieving after he had just lost his father who passed away a few weeks before the draft.
Seahawks Introduction
So Sonny goes to work and gets a call from Tom Michaels (GM Of the Seattle Seahawks) played by Patrick St. Esprit. He offers a trade giving up the 1st overall pick and in exchange, Sonny has to give up the 2 1st round picks and a 3rd round pick. Honestly, the Seahawks GM Tom Michaels has great negotiation skills in making this trade, however, he makes the idiotic statement saying that If Sonny makes this trade he can save football in Cleveland.
How will this trade save football in Cleveland? The Browns are not losing money at all and have no interest in relocating to a different city. Also, did he forget about such awesome college football teams like Ohio State that are close to Cleveland and Columbus? So him saying this makes no sense at all. Why couldn’t he have just said that making this trade can save his job?
So Sonny decides to hold off on the trade and decides to take a drive, where he listens to a radio show and they say that the city of Cleveland does not have beaches, beautiful weather, and sunshine. When the camera zooms out, guess what we see the sun shining. Was that supposed to be a joke or a serious quote from that radio host?
Vontae Mack’s Introduction
Anyway while on this drive Sonny gets a phone call and it is Vontae Mack who is being played by Chadwick Boseman. Now Vontae Mack is a prospect in consideration for being a top pick in the NFL Draft. He calls asking Sonny to pick him 7th overall because he needs the money. Wait a minute, How did Vontae get Sonny’s phone number? Also even if his agent gave it to him, why in the world would he allow his client to speak to the general manager without him present?
That is not the icing on the cake yet. Especially as it is such a good idea to make this call to the only team’s GM who can potentially pick him the highest during the draft day and inappropriately talk about the higher paycheck. Yes, I know he has a lot of family members he needs to take care of, but this is something you should not say to a GM on draft day. It gives the GM the view that you care more about money then playing football.
Jennings Family Introduction
So once the call ends Sonny gets a phone call from Earl Jennings who is played by Terry Crews. Earl Jennings is a Hall of Fame running back who played for the Cleveland Browns and his son Ray (played by Arian Foster) is entering the draft. Earl calls asking for a favor to draft his son so he can play for the same team he did. Sort of like what the Pittsburgh Steelers kind of did with Joey Porter Jr in the 2023 NFL Draft. This scene is actually really realistic and does happen in the NFL which I appreciate them adding in.
This may be a little bit of a nitpick here, but why did they cast Arian Foster to play as a prospect entering the draft? I mean good for Arian as he probably earned a lot of money being in this movie, but in 2014 he played with the Houston Texans and was a top running back at the time. Would it not have been a bit weird to see the same guy get drafted to two different teams? Yes, I know it’s nonfiction, but a lot of notable players at the time had their names mentioned in the movie. Does Arian Foster just not exist in this movie?
Browns Owner Introduction At A Waterpark?
Sonny then finishes his drive where he meets up with the owner of the Cleveland Browns (not Jimmy Haslam) but Anthony Molina who is played by Frank Langella. Ok so I am not joking when I say this but Molina in this scene has a habit of making these weird comments on making a splash and people wanting to get wet. Get it because they’re at a waterpark and you can splash water at a waterpark. The humor is just so awesome in this movie, am I right?
My main question is why out of all places are they having this meeting take place in public at an empty waterpark almost hours before the NFL Draft is about to begin? Also, do you mean to tell me that a billionaire who owns an NFL football team and a GM of that team has no security around them just in case the press or anybody tries to come up to them? The last thing is why out of all the time they had available in the offseason, are they having this meeting almost 24 hours before the draft begins?
Anyway, this pep talk has Sonny stressed and he decided to make the trade with the Seattle Seahawks to acquire the 1st Overall pick and give up 3 1st Round picks making this deal. It is such a great idea for Sonny to make a gigantic trade like this without consulting anybody in the organization or his girlfriend who works for the organization when it comes to managing the salary cap. If this was reality this would be immediately labeled as a terrible move and have many called for him to get fired. That is so ridiculous and I refuse to believe that anybody researched while making this movie.
Browns Head Coach Introduction
So next we finally get to meet the head coach of the Cleveland Browns Vince Penn played by Denis Leary. I will be honest, I legit forgot who the coach’s name was and had to look it up on Google when the movie was over. All I legit remember from him is how often he complains and thinks about his life decisions. Is he talking about accepting the coaching job or accepting the role for this terrible movie? Anyway, Sonny walks in and announces the trade to everybody in the draft room. Unsurprisingly many are angry with him making this move. Especially a former Super Bowl-winning coach from the Dallas Cowboys.
So coach Penn then basically freaks out saying that he gave up three straight years of consecutive 1st round picks. Okay let’s stop right now as this is a tremendous mistake and it goes to show that the writers did not proofread their script. The Browns did not give up three consecutive years of 1st round picks. They gave two consecutive years of first-round picks to trade up from the 7th Overall pick to the 1st Overall pick. But the movie wants us to believe that he gave up three consecutive years of 1st round picks. That is not how math works.
Sonny then gets a call from the Browns owner who says that he is going to the NFL Draft and has a custom-made Bo Callahan jersey that he will himself be giving to him in person. No NFL owner has ever gone to an NFL Draft live in person for the 1st round. I can not remember a time when this has happened at all. Also excluding Andrew Luck, I can’t remember the last time a team ever gave a custom-made jersey to an NFL player without ever having backups on if they change their mind.
Sonny then has a conversation with Ali and they discuss how Sonny has issues being clear about what he wants to do. Like I said we get a lot of boring dialog and conversations between both of them. They get interrupted when an intern gets hassled by a full-time employee who wants all the film he can get on Bo Callahan.
Okay, Why is that not all already out during draft day and why would they have a single intern having control of the film? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Also, let’s speak about this intern as this is his first day on the job and they put him in charge of handling the tape without the surveillance of a manager or training. Man, I can’t imagine what can go wrong here am I right? Can this movie please stop being stupid for one minute?
Sonny Weaver’s Mom
Next up we get a call from Sonny Weaver’s mom who is played by Ellen Burstyn. They talk about the upcoming draft and how she knows the Browns traded up for the 1st round pick. She found out on Twitter when Vontae Mack tweeted about it. Hold up, how in the world does Vontae know that the Browns traded up? He just made a call requesting the Browns select him at the 7th overall pick so he can get more money and nothing at all was mentioned about a trade. I guess Adam Schefter and Ian Rappaport are not a thing and players just know the insights of a trade occurring and can break it to the entire league themselves. Also if Vontae wants to be drafted with a high pick, how is it a good idea to tweet this stuff out during draft day? Doing this just makes him an untrustworthy prospect and would make him drop during the draft.
So of course Sonny calls him to confront him on what he did and Vontae gets angry and tells him to watch his film when he faces Bo Callahan. So we see the film play of Vontae and Callahan. It is revealed that Callahan crumbles easily under pressure which is a solid part of the movie scouting-wise. Plus we get this side plot where Vontae gets flagged for giving a football to a fan in the crowd and touching a ref. Many Scouts see this as controversial, but it turns out the fan is Vontae Mack’s sister.
Ok, why does it take them this long for them to find out that Mack was giving the ball to his sister? If they had been scouting Mack for a long time and this was his most notable performance he had in college. How was everybody in the league and in that draft room clueless about that until now? Were they this unprepared heading into the draft that they would forget so much about a player they heavily scouted?
Brian Drew QB of Cleveland Browns
So now we are introduced to the current Browns QB named Brian Drew who is played by Tom Wellings. So he is a QB who is a journeyman in the league and is recovering from knee surgery. What type of knee surgery and When he suffered that injury, is never explained once throughout the entire duration of the movie?
So the trainer then explains to Sonny that Drew has been doing better than expected in his rehab and is quoted saying “Star wide receiver Andre Bello has had secret workouts and has said he added arm strength to throw 15 yards deeper and I have seen it with the way he benches… and he benched 250 lbs 25 times translation Brian Drew is in the best shape of his life.’’
First off the dialogue is so terrible and I don’t understand how his lines got approved. Second, how can you tell that a player’s arm strength throwing the football is improved by watching him bench press? I mean there is a literal practice field just outside and you could just say I have seen it myself while evaluating him while he practiced.
Third, he may be in the best shape of his life, but how does it prove that his knee injury is all healed up through bench pressing? Why are they not making him take it slow with his rehab as he could potentially get hurt if he over pushes himself? I have seen many people in High School get injured for over-pushing themselves while lifting weights and they get severely injured. But you’re telling me that a professional football team in the NFL is going to just allow this.
Anyway, let’s move on to scouts starting to look at Bo Callahan to dive deeper into him and see how bad his off-the-field issues are. One damming thing they found is a website where he dedicates it to all the relationships that he has had with women and does an analysis of this poorly organized scouting report. Wouldn’t that website be a violation of the law and get him arrested or something? Plus if he is a highly touted prospect who has been deeply scouted by many teams how did it take them this long until they discovered the website?
Then we get a quick glimpse into Seattle where the fanbase is protesting for trading the 1st Overall pick and losing on the chance to select Bo Callahan. Ok, I get that fans may be upset about losing a so-called “talented QB’’, but do you mean to tell me that there are fans upset even though they got a ton of draft capital in the trade? More than they should have gotten. Also, it does not seem like a protest when there are only 10 people holding signs up.
Brian Drew Destroys GM’s Office?
So time passes and we get to the scene where Brian Drew is pissed off and is trashing Sonny Weaver’s office along with demanding a trade due to the Browns acquiring the 1st overall pick. I get him being angry with Sonny Weaver, but is it a good idea to trash the GM’s office? Especially as it could destroy your chance of getting another job in the NFL when you have durability concerns along with being a journeyman. Also, why doesn’t Sonny just call security on Brian Drew after he trashes his office? Oh and just to let you know, there was no mention of Drew getting fined or suspended for trashing the GM’s office.
Anyway so the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, both make offers in trying to acquire Drew in a trade, but Sonny declines both offers after another boring conversation with Ali. I swear I legit contemplated skipping these parts of the movie every time we get these conversations between these two.
Now we get many scenes of Bo Callahan not being a team player as he did not read the playbook as there was a 100-dollar bill at the end of the book. So basically they pulled a Jamarcus Russell but instead of tapes, it was just a playbook. Also, they mentioned something about his birthday party and that no teammate came to it. What they don’t mention is whether the party was a private or public one. That would be my next question if I was Sonny, but for some reason, he never asks it.
Also, it was at this scene I noticed the draft boards that teams use for prospects in the NFL Draft, and I have to say these boards are just way too small for franchises to be using on Draft Day. Heck normal draft boards are an entire wall of a Draft Room for franchises, how did any writer or director not see this being an issue?
Ok, so Sonny’s mom comes in and asks him if he can take time to be a part of a ceremony to dump Sonny’s dad’s ashes in the practice field. He declines because of work and has to deal with the NFL Draft. I don’t want to be that guy, but this honestly could have been cut from the movie and nothing would change in regards to the plot.
And the 1st pick In The Draft Day Is?
Now we get to the red carpet where the main prospects Callahan, Mack, and Jennings are going into the Green Room. So when Roger Goodell comes out we see many fans unrealistically giving him praise. Uh, movie you realize that this never happens in real life.
So we get to Cleveland being on the clock and for some reason, Sonny is nowhere to be found. Gosh, what type of GM decides not to be around or in the draft room when the team is on the clock? So the pick gets turned in and the player they take is LB Vontae Mack. Well, now that’s a completely stupid move trading up and selecting a player you were going to get 7th overall. The owner of the Browns Molina was also at the Draft in person and got frustrated and threw the Jersey to the floor. He then decides to leave the draft and go to Cleveland to vent at Sonny and drop the firing hammer on him. Keep this in mind I’m not done with it yet.
The reaction is anger in the Browns war room and Bo Callahan gets super angry and leaves the Green Room to go outside and calm down. We get this awesome shot of Vontae Mack being shocked that he is the 1st Overall Pick. I have to say Chadwick Boseman is a fantastic actor and he did an excellent job in this scene acting shocked. I wish he was still alive as he is one of my Top 10 favorite actors of all time.
The Stupidest Scene In Draft Day
Going back to the movie we get to the most ridiculous part of the movie where I contemplated walking out of the theater at the time. So the Jacksonville Jaguars called and they want to know why Bo Callahan who for some reason is dropping even though he is the quoted best QB in the draft. So the Jaguars GM Jeff Carson played by Pat Healy is a rookie GM and is starting to panic due to the drop and they have the 6th Overall pick. So what does Sonny do well? He offers a trade for the 6th overall pick. He offered 3 2nd round picks to get the 6th overall pick and what do the Jaguars do?
THEY ACCEPT THE TRADE!!!! WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?
I mean that has got to be the stupidest trade that I have ever heard in my life. The top 10 overall picks are meant to be franchise stars and excellent players. There is no way you would get the same value out of some second-rounders or trade out of the Top 10 of the draft without receiving a 1st round pick at minimum. This movie made Jeff Carson the “GM’’ of this team be the most incompetent GM in the NFL and makes Adam Gase look like a genius. It is so dumb that I am still getting a headache thinking about it.
So when Coach Penn realized what Sonny did he decided to quit the team as he couldn’t work with a team that had poor draft capital to help build the team. Sonny convinces him not to quit yet so he can see what he is doing. So Sonny now jumping the Seahawks owns the 6th pick and decides to try and re-acquire his picks back.
So The Browns Owner Can Teleport?
Now while he is on the phone the owner of the Browns Molina shows up angry with what Sonny did, ready to fire him and… wait a minute. How in the world did he get here so quickly?
The owner “Molina’’ left Radio City Music Hall right when the 1st overall pick occurred and got in his Limo in the middle of New York City Traffic. Drive over to probably an airport which normally takes around 30-45 minutes if you are lucky. A flight from Cleveland to New York City normally takes 1 hour and 30 minutes, plus another drive to Cleveland’s practice facility from the closest airport takes maybe around 10-15 minutes. So in total, a travel back time-wise is 2 hours and 15 minutes if you are lucky.
I call absolute nonsense here as the normal time for the draft to take place in between the 2nd and 6th pick is around 40 minutes (10 minutes per pick). I am guessing he got here this quickly because he has the power to teleport. So Molina is angry that Sonny decided to pass on Bo Callahan and is about to fire him, but does not because of reasons and we have like a half an hour left to finish this movie.
Getting the Picks Back
So Sonny decides to call Tom Michaels and the Seattle Seahawks to inform them that they have the 6th overall pick. Tom starts to panic as they realize they could lose Bo Callahan now that Cleveland has the selection. So they start to negotiate and Tom offers 2nd round picks for the 6th overall selection. Sonny declines and is trying to get his 1st round picks back.
Tom agrees to the deal, but Sonny decides to mute the call and asks what else we need for the draft room. The entire room says that they need special teams help, especially a punt returner, and wait what? How is a punt returner a bigger need for this team than any position on offense? Like Coach Penn keeps saying that their offense was ranked 28th, wouldn’t Sonny want to try and acquire offensive help to try and get the coach to not quit on the team?
Also, the player’s name that they wanted in the deal is Putney, get it because it sounds similar to Punt and he is a special teamer and Comedy am I right? Gosh, the writing is garbage in this movie. So Tom trades PR David Putney and the Brown’s 1st-round picks back in exchange for the 6th pick so they can take Bo Callahan.
The Post Day 1 Draft Party
So the Browns now pick 7th and of course, they take Ray Jennings so the coach is happy he can get his running back. So we then cut to a draft party at around midnight around 1 hour before the draft ends. We see them celebrating for a good job drafting. So then in the distance, we see Vontae Mack and Ray Jennings going onto the stage.
Wait a minute, How did they get from New York to Cleveland in just under an hour? You know what I legit don’t care anymore as I will get a headache if I just think of it. Wait never mind because the crowd decides to give me a headache, by chanting that this team will go to the Superbowl with these two players. Do you know a team does not go to the Super Bowl by just adding two new players? Why are they chanting for a team that was ranked 28th in offense to go to the Super Bowl?
Oh and one other thing where Mike Mayock and Rich Eisen are speaking about what the Browns did. I don’t know who said this but they were quoted saying that “Sonny Weaver turned nothing into a big-time something”. I am hearing him say this and I am like Nothing??? They traded for the 1st overall pick, how is that nothing? Also who says big time something like ever?
So we get to have Sonny speaking with his mother, apologizing, talking about his father, and telling her that Ali is pregnant. So now we get to the next few rounds of the draft and wait so we’re going to ignore rounds 2-7 of the NFL draft. Are you serious? You do realize that the other rounds of the draft are as important as the 1st round. So then the movie ends where it is Week 1 of the NFL Season and all of the Cleveland Browns players run to the field and fade to black.
Final Thoughts On the Movie Draft Day
Wow, this movie was terrible. There were a lot of dumb things that happened in this movie and its honestly Thor Ragnarök level of stupid. First off this movie had a ton of unrealistic moments made throughout this draft. Yes, I know that it is a fictional movie, but when a majority of your target market is NFL Fans it might be a good idea for there to be a hint of realism.
Here is another major problem with the movie, it is obvious that the writers did not do their research or proofread when making this script. At the time of this movie being made the Seahawks in real time won Super Bowl 48 and yet out of all the teams in the NFL you decided to give the 1st overall selection to the team that won. They did not do their research regarding how the fans would cheer for Roger Goodell.
The writers did not understand how trades work at all. Also when Tom Telesco GM of the Las Vegas Raiders calls the movie bizarre and unrealistic you should immediately burn everything and start from scratch. Don’t listen to Steve Keim who said that this was realistic and I get he was an actual GM in the NFL, but he legit either A) has not seen the movie or B) does not know what he is talking about.
Plus the script has super cringy lines that I don’t understand how they got approved to be in this movie. This is why I feel bad for Kevin Costner and Chadwick Boseman who tried their best but they could not work well with the materials that were given to them. All the other characters had no development at all and If it wasn’t for Google I would forget their names.
There are legit 20-30 minutes of this movie that they could have cut and nothing would change. Especially everything involving Sonny Weaver and his mother having difficulties and the long boring conversations between Sonny and Ali, the movie would not change one bit.
It is such a shame because this movie had a lot of potential to be a good movie, but they completely messed it up. It’s no wonder that this movie flopped at the Box office. This movie also apparently had a budget of 25 million dollars which is way too low of a budget nowadays to create a movie and it showed throughout the movie. The worst part is that this movie was strictly made as an expensive NFL Ad campaign when it could have told a fantastic story.
I am rating this movie a 2/10. I would not recommend this movie to anyone at all unless you have a bad movie night or want to lose brain cells watching a sports movie.
