Home Team: 5 Of The Funniest (And Most Emotional) Scenes
In January 2022, Netflix released a family-friendly film by Happy Madison Productions, Home Team. Starring Kevin James, the comedy focuses on an NFL coach (Sean Payton) in the middle of a scandal who heads home to Texas to spend time with his son. Little does he know, he soon coaches his son's football team, ensuing plenty of laughs and life lessons along the way.
Due to the family ties and the ups and downs of children's sports, Home Team had as many emotional moments as it did hilarious ones. From Payton's humorous motel stay to Payton's son's troubles with accepting a distant father, Home Team brought the laughs and the tears.
When Coach Payton leaves New Orleans for the small town of Argyle, Texas, to be closer to his son Connor, he stays at a nearby motel. With Payton's job suspension, he wasn't sure how long he'd stay at the motel, which brought plenty of silly moments between him and the front desk worker, Eric.
Eric wasn't the main character but he was likable due to his nonchalant attitude. Any time Payton had a question or a complaint about his stay, Eric's answer was always hilarious because there was no real resolution. From the noisy hot tub to a bagel-free breakfast bar, every scene at the motel was a fan-favorite.
Fans of movies like Home Team enjoy family-friendly scenes that are fun for the whole family. Coach Payton's struggles as an adult in his career and as a parent can be relatable for viewers.
After coaching his first game for his son's team, Payton was surprised when they lost because he gave them a big playbook the day before. But as he found out, no one understood the plays. Payton made the bus pull over for food and he taught the team each play using things like hot sauce, chips, and napkins. Thanks to these items, the team finally understood the plays. The fact that some payers were eating the chips during the lesson made it a funny scene.
Football fans were looking forward to this Netflix show once they saw the trailer. Once Coach Payton accepted the coaching position, he wanted to see what he was working with. He lined up all the players and told them the last person to the endzone would be running stairs until the end of practice. This created a humorous hustle to the line.
From there, Payton had the boys doing agility ladders, sprints, and tackles. As expected, the boys weren't all that athletic and mistake after mistake in between falls and bruises. The team's reactions to their new reality were priceless.
With Payton being an NFL coach in New Orleans, his ex-wife and son remained in Argyle, Texas. When Payton went back to Argyle to see his son play football, he found out his ex-wife Beth remarried a man named Jamie.
Jamie's scenes were some of the funniest in the movie because he didn't understand football. He went to the games because he loved his stepson. Jamie called touchdowns "goals," brought a Snuggy to the game, and made homemade granola bars for the team that ended up making everyone sick. His opposing views and vibes from everyone else made him one of the best characters.
Before Coach Payton came along, the Warriors were coached by Coach Lambert and Coach Bizone. Coach Bizone wasn't the best coach of all time but he did care for the kids.
More than his position with the team, Coach Bizone ended up being one of the funniest side characters in the movie. Due to drinking too much "coach juice," Coach Bizone was only allowed to ride his bike around and the boys loved it. However, he didn't know how to ride a bike well, which made most of his interactions hilariously awkward.
After a few days of Payton coaching Connor's team, the two started talking more, which made them realize how much time had gone by. In one scene, the father and son were having a heart-to-heart in the car when Connor admitted how hard it's been for him to not have a dad around.
He said when people asked him about his famous dad he had to make up the answers because even he didn't know anything about him. Payton assured Connor he could ask him anything he wanted but it was emotional to see how disconnected the two were. These two rebuilding their relationship made Home Team a great family-friendly movie.
When Payton first got to Argyle, Connor was anything but thrilled. He rarely saw his dad and didn't appreciate him showing up and coaching his team without talking about it first.
Connor didn't want a ride to practice from his dad, didn't want his dad at games, and certainly didn't want him coaching his team. The two had a lot to catch up on but Connor was reluctant because of his dad's absence. To make things more emotional, Connor knew this was all temporary and that his dad would leave as soon as his NFL job was open again. Their relationship made this a great father-son movie worth watching.
Harlan was the Warriors' kicker. He had the ability to punt the ball far but had problems focusing because his crush always went to his games. Whenever he had to kick the ball, he'd look at her and mess up.
Eventually, his team finally showed him support and encouraged him to face his crush head-on. With the team's help, Harlan showed up at her house and sang her a song with his team behind him. It was emotional seeing how much the team supported Harlan and wanted him to face his fear. This emotional moment made Home Team one of the best Happy Madison projects.
In one of the final games of the season, Coach Payton wanted to beat the opposing team because it would be monumental for the team and a small accomplishment for Payton during a hard time in his life.
To beat the Porcupines, Payton made some changes. He sat three lesser-known players and made other, better players play more minutes. Although it was the final game, he wasn't given the entire team a chance to play. It was emotional seeing those three faces sitting on the bench. Payton eventually learned his lesson and put the three players in, which led to another emotional moment...
During the first game of Connor's that Payton went to, Beth told him that the officials shut off the scoreboard when a team is losing by 40 points. Payton uses this information as inspiration for the team when he coaches them.
He promised them that in one of their final games, they'd be so good that the scoreboard would be turned off on their opponents. In the final game against the Porcupines, Harlan ended up kicking a ball that went past the endzone and hit the scoreboard, causing it to go off. The Warriors lost the game but they did turn off the scoreboard, which was an endearing and emotional moment in this sports movie.