"Hail Mary"

Tagline – “Believe”

“25 words or less” summary – An eccentric billionaire turns around the hapless Detroit Lions with the help of an unemployed auto worker and college-aged Madden NFL video game champion

Full summary:
After the Detroit Lions finish the season 0-16 and the Ford family is forced to sell the team due to their declining fortunes, Jonathan Arnett, an eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire and the Lions #1 fan, decides to buy the team and sets in motion a radical course of action to turn around both the fortunes of team and the city of Detroit.

Jonathan hires his friend, Tony Williams, a recently laid-off assembly line worker for Ford, as the team’s new GM. Tony has no football experience and his only success in Jonathan’s eyes is winning their fantasy football league championship three years in a row. In turn, the new GM decides it’s time for some fresh thinking at the coaching level so he looks for his new head coach at the State of Michigan NFL Madden 2010 Championship Finals. There he finds Howie Glenn, a college senior slacker whose only skill in life is playing video games. Once Howie wins the video game championship, he’s hired on the spot by Tony and Jonathan to be the new head coach of the Lions.

Howie Glenn immediately undergoes a makeover so that he can lose the slacker look and fit the mold of a traditional NFL head coach. Then he puts his playbook into action during summer practice, a playbook that relies heavily on his video game experience – every defensive play is a blitz, he only runs a handful of plays, he never kicks a field goal, he throws a hail mary at the end of each half – much to the consternation of his players.

When the Lions start the season at 0-4, the management team has to stave off constant criticism from both local and national sports journalists and a near mutiny from the players. Although Tony starts having serious second thoughts, Jonathan takes everything in stride and supports Howie who firmly believes that he can turn the team around.

Jonathan tells Howie that if he can gain the respect of his players then he can turn around the fortunes of the team, so before the next game Howie gives the team a rousing speech in the locker room and rallies them around him and each other. The team does in fact turn things around and eventually puts themselves in position to get a wild card spot with a win in the final game of the season.

In a hard fought game, the Lions beat the Miami Dolphins, who were also going for a playoff spot in their own division, and make it in to the playoffs as a wild card team; bringing the dawn of a new day to the people and city of Detroit, a new era of hope. The players, who once hated Howie with a passion and showed him no respect, carry their head coach off the field as the home crowd erupts in celebration.Hail Mary Screenplay