Web Animation / Gridiron Heights

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Gridiron Heights is a weekly cartoon short on Bleacher Report created by Dennis Flynn, chronicling the exploits of National Football League players, coaches and executives within a fictional city known as Gridiron Heights. Started in 2016, the webtoon was the second original cartoon content that Bleacher Report created, preceded by the basketball spoof Game of Zones and followed by soccer spoof The Champions, newer basketball spoofs Role Players and Hero Ball and all-sports focused spoof, Bulletin Board Material.

The series can be found in its entirety on YouTube. It also has an official Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

Tropes:

• 10-Minute Retirement: After the Season 6 finale showed Tom Brady announcing his retirement. the 2022 Draft Spectacular opens up with Tom Brady speeding back announcing he's coming back to Gridiron Heights.
• Abandoned Catchphrase:
  • Patrick Mahomes's "Wow, what a fun and easy [Whatever he just did]" catchphrase was featured prominently in Seasons 3 and 4, but was largely abandoned with the exception of a brief cameo in the Season 7 finale.
  • Anthony Richardson's Pokémon Speak gag was phased out midway through season 9, then done away with during the QB Guru episode in Season 10.
• Abnormal Ammo: Footballs tend to double as both weapons and ammunition in Gridiron Heights, depending on what the plot demands. A character can use them as a projectile, holster them like a weapon, or in some rare instances, can be part of a weapon.
• Aborted Arc: "Gridiron Heights Live" was supposed to be every other week during Season 6. However, fan backlash killed the series halfway through its run with the show's creators acknowledging that episodes would return every week.
• AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: Cam Skattebo's commercial for his Spirit Halloween- style pop up store has him mispronounce multiple words.
• The Ace:
  • Patrick Mahomes. "Wow, what a fun, easy, sport!"
  • Fictional rookie QB prospect Brock Moxie is so good he lacks the series' trademark rookie QB baby voice.
  • Joe Burrow in his second season.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • Jimmy Garoppolo frequently confuses older quarterbacks for other equally old (or older) ones. He's mistaken Tom Brady (his former teammate) for Joe Montana, Aaron Rodgers for Drew Brees, Kirk Cousins for Alex Smith, Joe Burrow for Bill Skarsgård (that one coming literal seconds after Burrow had just identified himself), and he's even misnamed himself.
  • In the Super Bowl LX episode, Leonard Williams uses his ghost catcher to capture who he believes to be Danny Amendola, only for the ghost to protest that he's actually Wes Welker.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • Eli Manning is literally Bill Belichick’s Kryptonite.
  • When playing tennis with Deshaun Watson at the Elimination Country Club, Nick Foles takes a Groin Attack. Turns out that was the source of his postseason power, and hitting causes him to revert to "Regular Season Nick".
• Always Someone Better: Russell Wilson and Drew Brees when it comes to the MVP award.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: In the Super Bowl LVII episode, which parodies The Last of Us: Travis Kelce succumbs to Eaglemania after getting bitten by Hasson Reddick. He then transforms into a zombified version of his brother Jason Kelce.
• Anything but That!: In a bonus short for the 2025 NFL Draft, Cam Ward is depicted with a cool disposition while commentators gush over his poise and mentality. When he is drafted by the Titans, he screams in terror as two refs come to drag him out the door:
  Ward: Please, not them! I'll do anything!
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • Andrew Luck destroys his division rivals (mostly but not entirely focused on the Texans), down to torturing one Jaguars player with a blowtorch, but he never stops apologizing and complementing them.
  • During the Purge, Luke Kuechly apologizes to Luck before tackling him (Luck compliments him for the sack). Khalil Mack likewise apologizes to Derek Carr after being forced to Purge his best friend by his new team.
  • Ryan Tannehill's ghost constantly apologizes to the young players he haunts.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Purge is a time when defensive players attack quarterbacks, trash the city, steal money, and... engage in inappropriate celebrations (such as hip thrusts or mimicking weapons) while wearing cleats in non-regulation colors. Tom Brady also uses the Purge as his cheat day for his diet, as he's seen hiding behind a dumpster chowing down on a carton of ice cream.
• Art Evolution: Around midway through the first season, the show dropped the animated Title Sequence, the character design became noticeably less stiff and exaggerated, and backgrounds started gaining more details. By the start of Season 2, the show fully upgraded to the Freeze-Frame Bonus fest that has stuck for the rest of its run. Around Season 7, the animation, facial detail and even jerseys became more higher quality.
  • Brock Purdy evolves from a stick figure model to a fleshed character in the span of two episodes.
• Art Shift:
  • Three times, Gridiron Heights has done a shift to a more Anime style:
    • The first time this was done was the 2021 NFL Divisional short, which was a parody of multiple Anime franchises, with notable exceptions being Jared Goff and Aaron Rodgers.
    • The second, more prominent example was the Cowboy Bebop parody, which was done entirely in anime style.
    • The third time was the 2024 Christmas stinger, when Lamar Jackson and Lebron James are trying to figure out who will be getting the goat gift under the tree. Both characters shift from their Gridiron Heights style cartoon animation to the Dragon Ball Z-esque style of B/R's hoops focused sister show, Hero Ball.
    James: Sorry, I've been watching a lot of anime lately.
  • In the Season 10 finale, the fan-fiction treatments of the finale are shown as incomplete storyboards, with Limited Animation.
• Artistic License – Biology: Tom Brady refers to Sir Purr, the Carolina Panthers mascot, as a bear. None of the other team representatives correct him on it.
• As Himself:
  • Antonio Brown in a Season 1 episode.
  • Martellus Bennett wrote, produced, and directed an entire episode where he ends up in a Bleak Abyss Retirement Home. He also lent his voice to his brother Michael Bennett, Ray Lewis, and Terrell Owens.
  • Though B/R football insider Adam Lefkoe voices some characters in the show, most notably Ryan Fitzpatrick, he appeared as himself in the Season 5 finale parodying Margot Robbie in The Big Short, as well as the 2021 Draft Special discussing Brock Moxie. Draft analyst Connor Rogers, who also voices a few characters for the series, also played himself in the latter segment.
  • Falcons running back Mike Davis lent his voice to himself, Jameis Winston, and Sir Purr in the Falcons 2021 Schedule Release video.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Lamar Jackson. In all his appearances since 2019, he is depicted with a deep, maniacal voice and an overly-aggressive personality.
    Lamar Jackson: (regarding the Steelers) Myles Garrett messed with their heads, but I WILL MESS WITH THEIR MINDS!
  • In the “Bosa Brothers” video, edge-rushers (defensive ends and outside linebackers) Joey Bosa, Nick Bosa, Khalil Mack, Myles Garrett, Jason Pierre-Paul, Von Miller, TJ Watt, and (the other) Josh Allen are characterized as a gang of violent, trouble-making miscreants “living on the edge” led by the Bosa brothers. Ironically, JJ Watt is not part of their group, despite being a defensive end himself.
  • Every defensive player becomes a quarterback-hating brute in the “Annual Gridiron Heights Purge” other than Luke Kuechly (who becomes an Apologetic Attacker). Even JJ Watt breaks his normal mold to join them.
  • Tom Brady gets his Patrick Bateman on and literally kills Ben Roethlisberger with a (football-tipped) ax.
  • Vontaze Burfict is almost always seen in a Hannibal Lecter style mask, reflecting his real life reputation as a dirty player who deals out severe and often illegal hits.
    Fletcher Cox: You must love the Purge, Vontaze!
    Burfict: What's the Purge?
• Badass Crew: Nick Sirianni puts together a crew of ragtag group of unlikely blue collar types to take on the Chiefs and stop the three-peat. This includes Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, Saquon Barkley, the Eagles O-line, and Vic Fangio's defense.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Eli Manning is left to the thankless task of babysitting the rookie mobile quarterbacks in Season 3. One of these rookies, Lamar Jackson, has to do so himself two years later, to slightly more success.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Lamar Jackson points out that "that creep on the Browns" gets a prize while he doesn’t. While the viewers are led to think it’s Deshaun Watson, it actually is a cackling Brownie the Elf.
  • In the Season 10 Jaguars episode, Cris Collinsworth excitedly points to the big star, which in his POV looks like Patrick Mahomes at a newsstand. He pushes Mahomes away to pick up a copy of a magazine with Trevor Lawrence on the cover.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: In the 2021 Draft Special, while attending Justin Fields's Pro Day, Kyle Shanahan says to Arthur Smith he doesn't trust Fields's background, leading to Fields looking shocked. Shanahan follows it up with "You know, Ohio State?".
• Baritone of Strength:
  • Several players have one, notably DK Metcalf, Vontaze Burfict, Lamar Jackson, and Nick Foles in his “Big Nick” persona.
  • After losing his rookie year baby voice, Kyler Murray.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In a side gag in the Trubisky The Dark Knight Rises parody, after an announcer notes that Washington will be headed to the playoffs without QB Dwayne Haskins, Haskins is seen yelling, "No! I renounce my wish!", clearly implying that he had made a wish for Washington to make the playoffs but failed to specify that he'd be the starter or even on the team when it happened.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Justin Tucker
• Behavioral Transformation First: In the Super Bowl LVII episode, which is a parody of The Last of Us, Travis Kelce ends up getting infected with the Eaglemania after fighting with a zombified Hasson Reddick. While he initially appears with a glowing bite in his neck, his accidental use of Philly mannerisms, namely "jabroni" and "jawn" forces Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes to watch in horror as he transforms into a zombified version of his brother Jason Kelce.
• Berserk Button: 28-3 in some early instances seems to set off Matt Ryan. As of the season 4 finale, "comeback" or "come back" serves as this for Kyle Shanahan.
  Narrator: Next season, Gridiron Heights will come back!
  Kyle Shanahan: NO! No more comebacks! No one is ever coming back again! [begins chopping at the Gridiron Heights sign with an axe]
• Beware the Nice Ones: After spending most of the first two seasons as an mostly ineffectual nice guy plagued with injuries, Andrew Luck "goes full Liam Neeson" on the Texans, complete with a robot arm. ^note And Quenton Nelson
  Andrew: Oh golly! I don't know who you are or what you want, but I'm Andrew- Hello! I have a very particular set of skills, skills I've required over almost half a career. Skills like accuracy, good decision making, and recommending the perfect book. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you, and I'm sorry about that. If you let the AFC South go now, that will be the end of it. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you- you silly goose- and I will absolutely destroy you.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Patrick Mahomes has an exaggerated version of his “Kermit the Frog” voice, acts like a kid at a candy store, only worries about throwing his friend the football too hard... and is constantly dropping casual and coincidental Badass Boasts along the lines of how easy he finds everything right after someone else has expressed terror or nervousness. He is one of the few quarterbacks to avoid getting victimized in “The Purge”, and manages to unwittingly save Kirk Cousins and Cam Newton from Goodell’s ritual. Also, he nearly defeats both Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson in the “MVP Race”, despite a delayed start, and only stopped because he already won one.
• Big Ball of Violence: Phil Rivers and Jon Gruden get caught in one as they fight over the 7th Seed, with Rivers coming out on top.
• The Big Race: Since Season 4, every year has featured the candidates for MVP duking it out in a literal race with elements of Wacky Racing. Season 4 has them partake in a Mario Kart-style showdown, Season 5 a race down a snowy mountain, Season 6 a regatta, Season 7 a Top Gun-inspired aerial race, Season 8 a Mad Max-style off-road desert race, Season 9 a Gladiator-style chariot race, and Season 10, a skateboarding race.
• The Big Rotten Apple: The New York section of Gridiron Heights is full of shuttered businesses and constantly warring (and pathetic) teams.
• Body Horror: Brock Purdy hangs a lampshade on the premise of The Santa Clause when he takes over the Niners' QB position and his face begins to take the shape of Jimmy Garoppolo.
• Bookends: Season Four's first episode ended with Andrew Luck upstaging Antonio Brown's latest insane, desperate plea for attention by announcing his sudden retirement. Its last episode begins with Luck upstaging Eli Manning's planned retirement to announce that he and his father are launching the XFL in Gridiron Heights.
• Body of Bodies: The Washington Football Team's new mascot, Teamy the Team Monster, is a Humanoid Abomination made of the twisted bodies of various football players.
• Brain Bleach: Tim Tebow, as the ghost of Urban Meyer's past shows Meyer his time as the coach of the University of Florida. It's deemed not appropriate for any audience and when the camera cuts back to the two, Tebow hastily flies away, yelling about how he feels like his eyes have sinned.
• Brainless Beauty / Dumb Jock:
  • Jimmy Garoppolo has minor shades of this, especially in Season 4's Super Bowl Episode ("Far from Mahomes").
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Gridiron Heights Live, where the characters take questions from B/R commenters in the app.
• Broken Ace: Joe Burrow in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. While Burrow is still considered "Joe Scheisty", a few terrible games, not to mention a porous defense dampens his spirit and heightens his insecurities about how much he has to put the team on his back.
• Broken Aesop: The A Christmas Carol parody has Nick Saban tell the audience that the lesson learned from Urban Meyer's tumultuous tenure in Jacksonville is that coaches should go back to college where they are treated like kings
• Buddy Cop Show: Panthers WR Robbie Anderson claims in the stinger to the Receiver Corps episode that he and the team's mascot Sir Purr "go on adventures together and solve crimes and sh*t. It's dope as f*ck!"
• The Bus Came Back:
  • In the Knives Out parody episode, Philip Rivers and Peyton Manning return to speaking roles after having not appeared in episodes since 2020 and 2021, respectively, though Rivers made a Freeze-Frame Bonus cameo in the Week 14 Playoff Picture episode.
  • In the Super Bowl LX episode, multiple Super Bowl winning Patriots players and coaches return as ghosts, including Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Wes Welker, Malcolm Butler, and Bill Belichick. Of note, Butler makes his first appearance since 2017's Halloween episode, Edelman makes his first appearance since the 2020 "Call or Nothing" Covid short, and Gronkowski makes his first appearance since the Season 5 finale.
  • In that same episode, Eli Manning makes a last second cameo for the first time since 2021 to remark that he was not picked for the Hall of Fame, like Belichick. Brady and Belichick both yell at him that he murdered them.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Andrew Luck. In spite of being a Nice Guy, he was the frequent victim of injuries and disrespect in many videos that he had appeared in.
  • Eli Manning is also one of Gridiron Heights’ biggest punching bags, especially after Luck’s retirement. His younger self (albeit an apparition given by “Franchise the Clown”) even falls victim to a bitter Philip Rivers.
  • Daniel Jones inherited Eli Manning's title as most of his appearances in Season 5 concern his Butt-Monkey status, though his run with the Indianapolis Colts as "Indianapolis Jones" had him Take a Level in Badass.
• Call-Back: A subtle one in the Se7en parody episode, in which Teddy Bridgewater and Taysom Hill take the roles of characters played by Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt respectively. Both characters had previously been featured in (parody versions of) other roles played by those same actors: Bridgewater took on the role of Freeman's character in the The Shawshank Redemption episode, and Hill took on the role of Pitt's character in the Fight Club episode.
• The Cameo: A few examples of non-football players/personnel that have appeared in Gridiron Heights:
  • Major League Baseball: Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout made an appearance as a representative of Diamond Heights in the Hardwood Hills episode, and Baltimore Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins made an appearance in the 2022 Delaware Clams episode.
  • Kanye West appears as he did while recording the Donda album at Mercedes Benz Stadium in the "Mean Girls" episode; Roger Goodell tells him to stop hiding out in team's stadiums.
  • The Superbowl LVI episode featured Snoop Dogg, LeBron James, Eminem, Drake, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mary J. Blige as celebrity VIPs at the Bengals' Wild Teen Party.
  • National Basketball Association players James Harden, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Wiseman all appear in the Hardwood Hills episode, while both KD and LeBron, as well as Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Davis, appear as the villains in the Die Hard episode.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: After Ben Roethlisberger sacrifices himself during the AFC North snowball fight, he asks TJ Watt if he was a good man. Watt responds with "Uh... Shhhhhh".
• Christmas Special: Parodied with "Mahomes for the Holidays".
• Clamshells as Mouths: The fictional Delaware Clams mascot, Clammy the Clam opens and closes his clam shell mouth in order to speak.
  Clammy: Gurgle gurgle! Clam noises!
• Cleveland Sucks: The show does not hesitate to dump on the Cleveland Browns when the opportunity arises:
  • In a Season 2 episode, Cleveland's reputation as a quarterback graveyard is lampshaded in a Stranger Things parody when Deshone Kizer is taken into the "Upside Browns" by Johnny Manziel. When Deshaun Watson and Mitch Trubisky go to the City of Cleveland —visualized like the "Upside Down" in the original source material — to rescue him, they come across multiple spoiled draft picks, including Tim Couch, Brady Quinn, and Cody Kessler, whom they mistake for Colt McCoy.
  • In a Season 5 episode, Baker Mayfield taking the Browns to playoff contention creates a "Groundhog Day" Loop in 2020 where the ghosts of Cleveland quarterbacks past tell him that in order to restore the natural order of the universe, they cannot make the playoffs. It's only after he forces the Browns to lose to the equally hapless Jets, preventing them from clinching a playoff spot , does the calendar move forward (though the Browns did ironically make the playoffs that year despite said loss to the Jets).
  • Following Deshaun Watson's trade to the Cleveland Browns and subsequent megacontract despite his sexual assault allegations, most appearances of the Browns feature a cackling caricature of Brownie the Elf as a stand-in for Watson, referred to by other characters as some variation of "That disgusting creep on the Browns".
  • In the Season 9 Time Machine episode, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam tries to go back in time to undo the aforementioned Watson trade, however due to CJ Stroud breaking the machine because "This is the one timeline where an Ohio State quarterback works out", Haslam is stuck reliving his biggest mistake for eternity.
  • The Tag of the Season 10 Reality TV episode shows that the Browns have made a show out of their chaotic QB situation with the unfortunate name of "Brown Streaks". Joe Flacco promptly facepalms and declares he's too old for this.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Patrick Mahomes is the biggest example in the show's cast, though Jacoby Brissett comes close. Jameis Winston in later seasons, and Jalen Hurts in Season 10.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Baker Mayfield after realizing that he is reliving 2020 from the date that the Browns were eliminated from playoff contention. His curses overlap the Gridiron Heights title sequence.
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: In the 2021 Atlanta Falcons schedule release video, Josh Allen tries and fails to fight the urge to smash through the folding table holding the Lombardi Trophy.
• Companion Cube: Patrick Mahomes views the football as this, feeling bad when he throws it too hard and wanting to confess his feelings to it in Season 4's Super Bowl episode.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Aaron Rodgers appears as one, complete with a pegboard proving the CIA killed JFK (much to Davante Adams' annoyance). Gets a Call-Back in the Season 7 finale, in which Rodgers' latest pet theory regarding the NFL being scripted is proven correct.
• Cool Toy: The 7th Seed: Now even bad teams have a shot at the Playoffs!
• Cool Train: One episode sees the NFC and AFC North inhabit one inspired by Snowpiercer.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: In Season 1, Roger Goodell is obsessed with money above all else, to the point of having a Scrooge McDuck-style vault full of gold he attempts to swim in. This was toned down significantly in later seasons.
• Crash the Economy: In the Season 5 finale - itself a parody of The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street - after seeing the blockbuster Matt Stafford for Jared Goff trade which involved multiple first round picks going to Detroit, Sean Payton decides to drive up the price of quarterback stock using Taysom Hill's then-positional uncertainty as a bargaining chip. This results in astronomically higher quarterback valuations (at one point, Taysom is worth ten first round picks) which ultimately cause the quarterback market to crash. As a result, Gridiron Heights devolves into chaos.
• A Day in the Limelight: Certain episodes will highlight one specific team, depending on the parody.
• Dead Guy Puppet:
  • In the 2021 Wild Card episode, Ben Roethlisberger is a puppet being controlled by Mike Tomlin.
  • A 2025 episode has Matthew Stafford as this with Puka Nacua being the puppeteer.
• Decision Darts: Exaggerated. In a bonus short for the 2025 draft, Brian Daboll tries to determine what they will do with their first round pick alternating between their draft board (which says "Anything but a project QB" at one point) and a dart board (with Jaxson Dart's face on it.) The dart board then speaks to him with a rookie baby voice:
  Dart board: Come on, it'll at least be fun!
• Demonic Possession: In the Super Bowl LX short, Drake Maye attempts a human sacrifice of Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, which results in him being possessed by the spirit of Tom Brady.
  Maye/Brady: Never again shall we have to wait six long years!
• Descending Ceiling:
  • In the special "Packers eliminated" 2024 playoff short, Jordan Love attempts to read a series of ancient runes to open a door, with Matt Lafleur stating that "only the next great Packers quarterback can make the read to open the door." As Love ponders the runes, a spiked ceiling gradually comes down. Love admits it's not the easiest read, and Lafleur asides to the audience "Give him time!"
  • In a special 2025 season opener short, Dak Prescott and Ceedee Lamb are forced to watch as the Eagles lower their championship banner, however they end up under the banner and get crushed by it.
• "Die Hard" on an X: The Season 8 Christmas episode features Lamar Jackson playing the John McClane role after the 49ers Christmas party is crashed by LeBron James and his crew of NBA players.
• Disco Dan: Jon Gruden, who pines for how football was played back when “men were men” (ergo, back in 2002).
• Disney Death: A few characters are seemingly killed over the course of the series, only to turn up no worse for wear in later episodes. This includes Ben Roethlisberger (killed by Tom Brady when the latter gets his Patrick Bateman on)^note Although Roethlisberger would technically end up being killed off four seasons later in the 2020 Snowball Fight episode, Jimmy Garoppolo (killed by Brock Moxie in the 2021 draft special), and several characters attacked by "Franchise the Clown".
• "Do Not Fear the Unknown" Speech: In the Season 7 Finale, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins, Saquon Barkley, and Aaron Rodgers are presented with the opportunity by the NFL scriptwriter to destroy the predetermined scripts and go unscripted. Although most of them are in agreement and ready, Kirk Cousins comes out against it, admitting he likes the routine of underperforming, overperforming, and then getting paid. After Josh Allen pointedly asks him if he wants to win, Kirk admits he's not sure he can. Joe Burrow responds by saying that he's confident because when the abyss stares at him, he stares back, and Rodgers assures Kirk that, while he believes in some wacky things, he believes that any of them, even Kirk, can win. This gives Kirk the confidence he needs and he agrees to destroy the scripts.
• Doorstop Baby: Kyler Murray's introduction in the Season 3 finale has him being left on Eli Manning's doorstep, complete with a note reading, "You can have him. — Baseball"
• Dramatic Unmask: Philip Rivers, investigating who killed the Chiefs playoff hopes - interrogates Drake Maye, calling him Tom Brady despite his insistence that he's a different person. Rivers then threatens to take off his mask and starts attacking him, which causes Josh Allen, Bo Nix, CJ Stroud and Justin Herbert to panic. When Rivers is finally pulled off of Maye, it's revealed that Maye was actually Tom Brady the entire time. Later, in the post-episode stinger, Bo Nix takes off his facemask to reveal that he's actually... Peyton Manning, courtesy of a favor from the makeup artist on Chad Powers.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • The “Running Back Committee” episode reveals that Running Backs feel like they are given less respect, attention, and (consequently) money than Wide Receivers.
  • Amon-Ra St. Brown's shtick is him constantly lamenting the fact that he's gotten overlooked his entire career, even at the most inopportune times.
  • In the Season 7 quarter-season carnival episode, Lamar Jackson is extremely frustrated that he can't win a prize when other players are winning prizes for doing less.
• Dystopian Detroit: In the Joker (2019) parody, Matthew Stafford, who plays Arthur Fleck, bemoans his situation in Detroit, which serves as the Gotham stand-in. He later comes to realize that the Lions are not a tragedy, but rather a comedy.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Earlier episodes featured a different title sequence, a two segment format, a greater focus on the "Gridiron Heights" location and Roger Goodell as the Big Bad, and lacked the background jokes and Denser and Wackier plots that came to define the series. These attributes started to drop by the end of the first season and the show settled into the current formula by season two.
  • Before settling on Eli as a shrill, whiny Southern wimp starting in 2018, his voice and character varied wildly depending on the episode. Similarly, Roger Goodell's original voice from Seasons 1-4 was more gravelly and firm, before switching him to a more nasally shrieking voice from Season 5 onwards.
  • Josh Allen's original schtick in Season 3 was being The Faceless due to being too tall, referring to a common joke surrounding his draft hype. This was dropped by Season 4.
  • While the concept of rookies, and particularly rookie quarterbacks, being portrayed as children dates back to Season 1, the original implementation of this, as seen in the first two seasons, gave them voices and mannerisms that suggested roughly elementary school-aged children. From Season 3 onwards, the series shifted to a much younger characterization more consistent with babies or toddlers. Making it weirder is that this updated characterization was subsequently RetConned as being the case for rookies as far back as 2004 (as shown in flashbacks in the "Franchise the Clown" episode), which makes the different characterization of the 2016 and 2017 classes completely nonsensical. Making it weirder still, a flashback in the 2024 draft special depicted one of those same 2017 rookies (Mitch Trubisky) as having a toddler voice, even though he had had the older-kid voice in all his rookie appearances.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • Matthew Stafford in Season 6. After being traded to the Rams from the Lions, Stafford spends a good part of the season believing that he doesn't deserve good things, even publicly admitting it in the MVP Race episode. During the Super Bowl LVI episode, he ends up getting a pep talk from Eminem who reminds him that he was hardened in Detroit and ultimately opts to Take a Level in Badass by shutting down the Bengals throwing a Wild Teen Party in their stadium. When the Rams win the Super Bowl, Stafford is happy enough to cheerfully say "F**k the haters"!
  • Sam Darnold in Season 10: After spending his first three years having his soul deadened by playing on the Jets and bouncing around other teams, Darnold would find himself in a more centrally focused role with the Seahawks, expressing doubt, bemusement, or resignation to failure instead of believing in the possibility that he could take the Seahawks to the Super Bowl. When he finally does, and wins, he shows genuine excitement for the first time since his rookie year, and follows it up with a "Who do you think you are? I am!" in a special short, then in the season finale, telling his fellow 2018 draftees Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson that they too, can one day win through the power of friendship.
• Earthquakes Cause Fissures: In the 2025 Week 18 playoff party episode, a series of "Take Quakes" cause Santa Clara to split off of the mainland of Gridiron Heights, which force the playoff teams to use hot air balloons to cross the fissure.
• Elite Athlete's Aging Angst: Tom Brady uses his time at the Gridiron Heights Town Hall to talk about the harsh reality of age finally catching up to him despite his best efforts to prolong his playing career.
  Brady: I don't like how suddenly we're all waking up with aches and pains and how we all thought we could outrun Father Time forever, but now he draws ever closer with each tick of the game clock.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • When James Harrison tells TJ Watt that he's a Steeler and he should be nasty, TJ says, "like Big Ben?" Harrison hastily tells TJ not like that.
  • When the Patriots state they are going to tear the Eagles apart like Carson Wentz's ACL, Tom Brady says that's a step too far.
  • In the Season 5 MVP race, despite Brady spending most of the race being a cutthroat competitor, he appears genuinely concerned for Kyler Murray's safety when the latter attempts a terrifying aerial stunt. (Fortunately, DeAndre Hopkins is there to prevent any harm from coming to his QB.)
• Every Year They Fizzle Out: When explaining that football fans like the same six storylines, the Script Writer specifically highlights "The Chargers losing in weird ways"
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: When Sam Darnold announces the nominees for the most anticipated new Gridiron Heights character, he mentions University of Colorado two way player Travis Hunter (who is sitting in the audience), Travis Hunter (who is running the camera), and Travis Hunter (who is in the control room).
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • In the "Bosa Brothers" episode, The Watt brothers (JJ, TJ, and Derek) and McCourty twins try to stop Nick and Joey Bosa's gang of defenders "living on the edge". Their plan fails when TJ Watt reveals himself to be "living on the edge" like the Bosas' crew.
  • In the Season 8 Finale, Patrick Mahomes lampshades this through a broadcasted message in the now Chiefs-controlled Gridiron Heights.
  —Attention Gridiron Heights. I'm a villain now. Sorry.
• The Faceless:
  • An early joke with Josh Allen, which lasted only one episode in his rookie year..
  • Taylor Swift makes two appearances in Season 8, however, she is only shown from the back and not mentioned by name.
• Fake American: Zig-zagged: Patrick Mahomes in-universe is briefly depicted as having a British accent, with his unusual frog-like voice being his joke attempt at an American accent.
• Fake Scot: Ladd McConkey. Both his appearances show him affecting a stereotypical Scottish brogue.
  McConkey: Ooh, yer aff yer heid! [Laremy Tunsil] has got to have ten stones on the wee Ladd!
• Fake Memories: Ryan Fitzpatrick shows up as one of the ghosts of Cleveland Browns QB’s past. Derek Anderson reminds him that he never played for Cleveland, to Fitzpatrick’s shock and disbelief
• Fake Static: Tom Brady to Julian Edelman when Edelman begs him to reconsider going to the Buccaneers. Especially funny considering this was a Face-Time call.
• Fanon Discontinuity: In-universe, the Season 10 finale is about fans refusing to accept the outcome of the season (a la the "Conformity Gate" conspiracies surrounding the series finale of Stranger Things) and creating alternate narratives.
  Fantasy Josh Allen: Was it the Bills' year? Try the Bills' century! This is canon now.
• Feeling Their Age: In the stinger for Season 10, episode 2, Joe Flacco tries to promote the Browns QB themed sitcom Brown Streaks following the Giants QB themed sitcom. In the middle of the promo, the music awkwardly cuts and Flacco facepalms before tiredly saying "I am legitimately too old for this shit."
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Twin brothers Devin and Jason McCourty talk like this.
• Fish Out of Water: Cam Newton after moving to New England.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Loaded with them in the background, usually in the form of terrible puns on players' names or references to smaller stories from the previous week.
• Full-Name Basis: Characters who are lesser-known figures in real life will occasionally be called by their full names, presumably to make it easier for the audience to place them. This includes Tennessee Titans wide receiver Corey Davis and running back Derrick Henry (before the latter broke out to become one of the better known running backs in the league) as well as Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Elgton Jenkins.
• The Game Come to Life: Season 7, Episode 2's plot, as Kyler Murray is sucked into his video game console.
• Gentle Giant: JJ Watt. He's a big, hulking defensive end, but he donates to charity and believes that defenders should be "nice and marketable"... at least until the Purge, where he embraces his violent urges while yelling about how he hates charity.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-Universe, Brits Love Gardner Minshew; the rookie QB is irrationally embraced by the British public after the Wembley game, seemingly just because of his terrific mustache.
  Rich Eisen: London loves Mediocre Minshew!
  Lord: Gardner Minshew has solved Brexit!
• Girlfriend in Canada: In Season 5, the McCourty twins accuse Julian Edelman of pretending to have a long-distance friendship with someone named Tom- Jules insists he is real and lives in Tampa.
• Glasses Pull: In the 2025 Week 18 episode, the referees monitoring the seismic activity note that the impending "Take Quake" that is coming is at the level of the 2011-12 playoff Take Quake, otherwise known as the "Tebow Playoff Quake''. The ref then removes his sunglasses while exclaiming "Dear God!"
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: During the 2022 MVP Race, Josh Allen ostensibly has a pair of these appearing on either shoulder, depicted as miniature versions of himself in angel and devil garb (complete with white uniform and color rush red uniform respectively). In practice, however, they're usually in agreement with each other.
  Allen: (to himself) Don't make any stupid mistakes, Josh!
  (Angels appear)
  Devil Josh: Nah, do something reckless!
  Angel Josh: That sounds fun!
  Allen: Barrel roll it is!
• Goody Two-Shoes: JJ Watt was portrayed as this in the show as he believed that edge defenders should be "nice and marketable", as well as being heavily involved in charitable work. This included trying to set his younger brother TJ Watt straight when TJ adopted the Pittsburgh Steelers mentality of being tough and nasty, by saying that the Watts "Do not upset [Roger] Goodell". The only exception was during the annual Gridiron Heights purge, where Watt was allowed to let loose and commit penalties without worry of being fined.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Philip Rivers can't go a sentence without letting out a kid-friendly swear word.
• Groin Attack:
  • “Big Nick Foles”’s weakness is getting hit in the Crown Jewels, which reverts him into “Regular Season Nick Foles”.
  • Titans coach Mike Vrabel vows to cut his penis off if that’s what it takes to defeat Tom Brady and the Patriots in the Wildcard round. Vrabel actually follows through on his promise after defeating them, much to everyone else’s disgust, leaving Patrick Mahomes to tie it back on.
  • Tua Tagovailoa chucks a football at Ryan Fitzpatrick's groin before Fitzpatrick leaves for Drew Lock's concert. Fitzpatrick sarcastically says he is so happy he has to mentor Tua while wincing in pain.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop:
  • Baker Mayfield taking the Browns to the playoffs resets 2020, with the ghosts of Browns QBs past telling him the Browns have to miss the playoffs to break the loop.
  • In the Cowboy Bebop parody, Carson Wentz falls out of the same window five times, representing the ending of the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020 seasons. Each time he says something different:
    Where's my cool falling sooooooong?
    Just wait until 2017!
    Okay I'm out and they immediately won a Super Bowl, but imagine next year when they do have me-
    My decision making is sound. This will not happen ag-
    Alright fine, I'll go to the Colts.
• Grumpy Old Man: Frank Gore.
• Hair-Trigger Temper:
  • Matt Nagy, whether due to Cody Parkey or his quarterback situation.
  • George Pickens in Season 9. Most of his appearances involve him "crashing out" or picking random fights, although the one that takes the cake is a special short with the Steelers being eliminated in the playoffs. In that short, he gets offended by a random parrot that squawks at him, before chucking a compass at said bird after it says that Pickens "doesn't have the composure to be a true number 1 receiver.
• Haunted House: One appears in Season 5 (inspired by The Haunting of Hill House (2018)), haunted by the spirits of old, injured quarterbacks.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": As Kyle Shanahan shows Brock Purdy around in Santa's Clara, his introduction of Nick Bosa gets this out of the young defensive star:
  Shanahan: And this is Bosa, our sack master.
  Bosa: Heh heh, sack.
  • Played with in the Season 5 Super Bowl episode, when Gronkowski has this reaction despite there being no discernible connotation to the word in question.
    Travis Kelce: (on Brady and Mahomes) They know there's 52 other players on the team, right?
    Gronk: Heh heh, 52.
    Kelce: Wait, do you just think any number is funny?
• He's Back!:
  • After retiring at the start of Season 4, Andrew Luck returns in the season finale, introducing the XFL to Gridiron Heights.
  • Tom Brady returns to Gridiron Heights a full year after retiring for two episodes, where he conducts performance reviews for struggling teams, and where he serves as the color commentator for the Super Bowl LIX battle.
  • In the Season 9 finale, Sam Darnold announces the winner of Most anticipated new character Griddies category as "73 year old Pete Carroll?", Carroll, who hadn't made an appearance in the show since 2022, returns in his "How do you do fellow kids" outfit.
  • Luck returns again in the Season 10 Indiana Jones parody, portraying the guardian of the Holy Grail.
• Heist Episode: Roughly Once a Season.
  • Season 3: Ryan Fitzpatrick leads "the greatest con men in the NFL" to hijack the starting job with the Bucs (which is apparently located in The Casino).
  • Season 4: The NFC East competes to steal the division title from a museum.
  • Season 5: Deshaun Watson and JJ Watt recruit superstars from the other eliminated teams to form the fake Delaware Clams team in order to steal the NFC East title.
• Heroic BSoD: Tom Brady suffers one when he learns that former backup Jimmy Garoppolo had led the 49ers to a (then) undefeated record. He panics at the thought of his Patriots not being the only good team in the NFL, notes that the Niners had a good defense and “their own Gronk” (George Kittle) like his Patriots, and goes on a Madness Mantra about not being a product of Belichick’s system.
• History Repeats: In-universe, the Season 7 finale has Aaron Rodgers having a series of visions where he sees identical events playing out in multiple years, including Bill Belichick asking Bill O'Brien to be his OC, Michael Thomas being excited to definitely play in the upcoming season, Stefon Diggs being disgruntled, and Josh Allen/Jim Kelly asserting that "next year will be the Bills' year!" Not to mention having the same opening scene as the Season 4 finale (which Rodgers promptly butts in to point out, showing the earlier scene as proof).
• Hive Mind: Played for Laughs with the 49ers Running Backs (Matt Breida, Tevin Coleman, and Raheem Mostert; collectively dubbed the “Niners Sub-Committee” In-Universe), who show traits of this (most notably speaking in unison) in the “Running Back Committee” episode due to their nearly identical play styles in Real Life. Additionally, their appearances always show the three of them together.
  The Niners sub-committee: (in monotone unison) Deep Dive, Circle Back, Synergy.
• Hollywood Hype Machine: The Season 7 premiere revolves around the aftermath of Josh Allen and Justin Herbert creating a "Hype House" and the media attention brought onto it, particularly for the Eagles and Tua Tagoviloa. Predictably, the hype is too much, and the house collapses upon itself.
• Hulk Speak: Rob Gronkowski is portrayed as an incredibly strong character with limited vocabulary, save for the 2016 Thanksgiving episode.
  • Christian McCaffery talks this way when speaking to other characters; in contrast, he speaks perfectly normally in his frequent asides to the audience.
    McCaffery: You want CMC to join fake team? (Aside) It's time for a recruiting montage.
  • Teamy the Team Monster also talks this way.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Dan Campbell is portrayed as a cannibal in both the Season 5 finale and the Atlanta Falcons 2021 Schedule Release. Roger Goodell explicitly forbids this in the Season 6 trailer while cutting to a clip of Campbell.
• Impact Silhouette: JJ Watt busts through a door to deliver a note from Jack Easterby to Deshaun Watson
  • After the Running Back Committee concludes their meeting, all of the members promptly exit by busting through the walls.
• Innocently Insensitive: In the latter half of Season 10, Puca Nacua's celebrations are seen as offensive despite not actually being shown, a reference to his unintentional use of an antisemitic gesture on Adin Ross's livestream.
• The Inspector Is Coming: Gridiron Heights scrambles to get ready before the "city inspector" comes to see if the NFL has solved racism, sexual harassment, and the pandemic before the 2020 season.
• Ironic Echo: In a reference to the Progressive commercials starring Baker Mayfield who's portrayed as living at the Browns stadium, during the 2022 draft special, a disembodied voice taunts him as he struggles with the gate, saying "I thought the stadium was your home, Baker!" Baker breaks down and bemoans his circumstances.
• Italian-American Caricature: Tommy Devito is portrayed like this, wearing a bowling shirt and chain, yelling to his mother, complaining about his lack of gabagool and the fact that he has only one chicken cutlet. He attempts to eat said chicken cutlet, but drops sauce on his shirt and resignedly says, "Ah, fughettaboutit". In a follow-up appearance, he’s shown working a construction job when the backup quarterbacks recruit him for the B Team. Adding further hilarity is that Devito does all this in a toddler voice due to the series' longstanding tradition of having rookie quarterbacks portrayed with baby voices.
• It's All About Me: Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham Jr.
• Jack of All Trades: Taysom Hill. He can apparently do everything except make Sean Payton feel less broken inside.
• Jerk Jock: Tom Brady stands out as the clearest example, though in a comedic series full of athletes, any of the characters can qualify.
• Just Eat Gilligan: When Robert Saleh uses the time machine to get to the root cause of the Jets misfortunes, he arrives at the campus of Rutgers University in 1869... just to yell at two football players who are discussing the rules of their new game to stop inventing football. He's immediately penalized with an "illegal time infraction" with the refs telling him he "can't uninvent football".
• Lactose over Liquor: Zach Wilson enjoys a glass of milk in a brandy sniffer in the 2022 Week 5 short.
  • In the "QB Support Group" episode, Bryce Young remarks that his fellow rookies are driving him "to the bottle". A cutaway shows that, in keeping with the "rookie baby" theme, the bottle in question is a baby bottle filled with milk.
• Lazy Bum: "Smokin'" Jay Cutler, who puts the minimal amount of effort into literally everything. Aaron Rodgers' It's a Wonderful Plot shows a Jay with multiple Super Bowl rings who proudly says he "never quits".
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Christian McCaffrey's main trait is addressing the audience in quick asides.
  • During the Season 5 MVP race, Lamar Jackson asks if Dalvin Cook saw "last year's episode" after he falls to a similar fate as Michael Thomas, even pulling up the clip on his phone.
• Line-of-Sight Name: After being told by Roger Goodell to change the Redskins name because "the sponsors care now", Snyder comes up with "the Washington Football Team" by seeing Stefon Diggs steal a football from Josh Allen and seeing Patrick Mahomes hiding the Kansas City Royals team in the bushes.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: Patrick Mahomes' "Wow! What a fun, easy [whatever he just did]!"
• Mama's Boy: Jayden Daniels in his second season. In the season premiere stinger, he asks if his mom knows where he is, and in a special short after the Bears beat the Commanders, when Caleb Williams leaps out to scare him and Dan Quinn, he yells that he wants his mommy.
• The Man Behind the Man: Kyle Shanahan is this to Jimmy Garoppolo in Season 4's Super Bowl parody of "Spider-Man: Far From Home".
• Manchild: Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are among the most prominent examples, though the whole cast is decidedly immature. Then there's the whole matter of the rookies, who often talk and act like literal children despite being in their early 20s.
• Medium Awareness: There have been multiple instances where the characters of Gridiron Heights reference the fact that they know they are a cartoon. Specifically:
  • Roger Goodell's "We're Live" Realization where he expresses incredulity that you can make cartoons live.
  • Justin Herbert pointing out in the Mean Girls parody that one of the clique tables is "linemen we don't have the budget to animate"
  • Kyle Shanahan pointing out that Brock Purdy hasn't been animated in time for the 2022 playoff picture.
  • In the 2024 Reality TV episode, Shanahan follows Purdy to the bathroom out of view of the cameras to try to assure him that he's his "number one" and he's not too cheap to pay him. As the camera stays pointed at the static door during their lengthy dialogue, Purdy points out that this entire dialogue is a cost-saving measure.
  • In the Season 9 finale, when Sam Darnold reveals the Griddie nominees for "Most anticipated new character", he mentions Shedeur Sanders, whose appearance is pixelated. Deion Sanders then pops up and says "There will be no animation without compensation".
• Metaphorgotten: The fifth season uses a volcano that has appeared in Gridiron Heights to represent the looming threat of the COVID-19 pandemic; after the Titans experienced an outbreak that cancelled a game, James Conner referred to it as the team "testing positive for lava."
• Mo' Money, Mo' Problems: Played for Laughs in a Season 1 episode: Roger Goodell goes on a power trip, fining multiple players for minor infractions. He ends up accumulating enough funds to have a vault full of gold coins. When he attempts to jump into the gold coins, he just lands face-first.
  Goodell: This never happens to that rich, old duck
• Money, Dear Boy: The supposed season premiere of "Diamond Heights" during the Season 9 finale shows Aaron Judge asking Juan Soto what he wants. Soto plainly states that he wants $765 million, which Judge responds affirmatively.
• Mr. Fanservice: Ben Johnson in the Season 10 Playoff Picture episode, Initially he shows up wearing nothing but a hat, orange shorts, and boots while posing suggestively on a sofa. Later, when the final group shot is taken, Ben mishears Mahomes saying "Playoffs" and thinks that this is an invitation for him to go fully nude, forcing the other NFC representatives to cover him in the shot.
• Musical Episode: The first three seasons each feature one or two diss track episodes. Season 4 swapped this for a Christmas Special with parodies of Christmas Songs.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg:
  • In the Se7en Parody episode, Taysom Hill tells the John Doe Expy that "We lost good men and Big Ben" in regards to all the starting quarterbacks that were injured by week 3.
  • In the 2021 Halloween special, Patrick Mahomes points out the three masked figures terrorizing the Playoff House are "Two mascots and Kyler Murray". Despite Murray's insistence that it isn't him, Chase Claypool and Alvin Kamara both agree that he's very recognizable.
  • In the 2025 Draft Spectacular, the New York Giants quarterback room is introduced at Gridiron-Con as "the 2014 Super Bowl champion, the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner, and Tommy Devito".
  • In the Season 10 Premiere, when asked about his offseason, Josh Allen happily explains that he married his best friend, Travis Kelce got engaged, Justin Herbert went on a date with his girlfriend, and the Dallas Cowboys... had an offseason.
• Negative Continuity: The events of the 2020 Draft Special seemingly have no bearing on the rest of the series, as all the rookies are on their real-life-accurate teams to start the subsequent season despite several of them having been drafted by other teams in the special.^note Unless one posits that Goodell had the draft scrapped and done over due to the sabotage.
  • Taysom Hill is clearly an established, distinctive character who's recognized by other characters in the series... except in the Fight Club parody episode, in which he's inexplicably revealed to be a figment of Drew Brees' imagination. Most notably, even Sean Peyton doesn't know who Taysom is, despite the fact that Taysom is basically his lackey throughout the series, both before and after this episode.
• Never Live It Down:
  • The series never passes up an opportunity to dunk on the Bears taking Mitch Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 draft. Specific examples include:
    • In the 2020 Snowpiercer parody, the Bears are in the classroom section of the NFC North train and recite the phrase "We know we missed Mahomes, so please leave us alone.",
    • In the 2024 Draft Special, we see a flashback to the 2017 "Escape the Green Room" challenge where Mitch Trubisky has to explain certain less than savory tweets he posted when he was younger. After making the excuse that he was supposedly hacked, the announcer congratulates him and adds that he escaped before Mahomes, to which he surprisedly replies, "Really?"
  • In the 2020 The Dark Knight Rises parody, Allen Robinson implies he gets this a lot over his time on the Jaguars.
    Trubisky: They do constantly bring up the whole Mahomes/Watson thing. But we must fight, Catman.
    Robinson: Man, you play for the Jags once, and that sh*t follows you forever…
  • The latter half of Season 9 takes mutliple jabs at Tua Tagovailoa for his choice not to wear a Guardian Cap despite his history of concussion issues.
    • In The Stinger for the Halloween episode, he wakes to a creepy voice telling him they're trying to attack him. He briefly glances at a helmet with a Guardian Cap sitting on his bedside table, before deciding instead to just go back to sleep and ignore it.
    • In a Thanksgiving bonus scene, he laughs at Jordan Love's oven mitts because they "look dumb" and then reaches into the oven to grab a pie with his bare hands. He ends up badly burning his hands (as well as launching the pie out of frame when the pain hits him, much to Love's annoyance).
• New Transfer Student: Cam Newton to "Foxboro High" after joining the Patriots.
• Nice Guy: Andrew Luck was this to a hilarious extent... all the way to his retirement. Larry Fitzgerald and Luke Kuechly are other examples.
• No Longer with Us: When recounting what happened during the 2022 divisional episode, Patrick Mahomes concludes that those lost (the Buccaneers, Titans, Bills, and Packers) are in a better place... The Pro Bowl.
• Not Me This Time: Hinted at during the killer clown Halloween special, as Marcus Mariota is attacked by what appears to be Ryan Tannehill with a chainsaw. Mariota assumes it's an apparition by the clown, but...
  Clown: Uh, I think that's actually Ryan Tannehill.
• Older Than They Look: All of the "rookie babies" are this to some degree, as they're men in their twenties being portrayed as young children. It's exaggerated with Joe Burrow, who had a longer-than-average college tenure and consequently was older in his rookie year (23) than several characters who had already graduated past the "rookie baby" stage.
  Lamar Jackson: (to Burrow, who has just lit up a cigar) You can't smoke!
  Baby!Burrow: I'm a month older than you, bro.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations / Finishing Each Other's Sentences: The 2018 AFC Divisional episode has Tom Brady, Sean Payton, Sean McVay, and Patrick Mahomes all discussing the gameplan for the divisional playoffs, cutting to each team's respective locker rooms mid-sentence.
• The Oner: Employed in the 1917 parody depicting Alvin Kamara's journey through the NFC South (Christian McCaffrey at one point thanks the cameraman for keeping up).
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Josh Allen (the quarterback) and “the other” Josh Allen (the defensive player).
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Clammy, the fictional Delaware Clams mascot, has this attitude towards Teamy, the Washington Football Team's temporary mascot.
  Teamy: Teamy already a dead man. Washington going to get real mascot soon.
  Clammy: Only I get to kill you, ya hear? Mark my words!
• Opera Means Drama: In the Super Bowl LIX episode, Madame Butterfly, Act II: Un bel di vedremo briefly plays in the ensuing montage of the Eagles blue collar resistance against the Chiefs empire.
• Palette Swap: For the crowd shot in the Season 10 finale, Mitchell Trubisky's sprite is used twice, with one having blonde hair and the other with a fro. Similarly, two ref characters are inserted into the crowd, one without sunglasses and a hat and one with a cap. JJ Watt's mother also makes a cameo in the crowd shot as well.
• Papal Election: Parodied: In the Jaguars episode in Season 10, Adam Schefter reports live from Gridiron Heights HQ about the controversy behind the decision to air said episode. When teal smoke emerges from the building's chimney, Schefter announces the episode will proceed.
• Parody Episode: The series has been comprised primarily of these since Season 2. Subjects have included Stranger Things, John Wick, American Psycho, Ocean's Eleven, Rocky (1976), The Purge, Taken, Fight Club, It's a Wonderful Life, Avengers: Infinity War, Se7en, Joker, It, The Mandalorian, GoodFellas^note with elements of The Godfather thrown in for good measure, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Footloose, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, G.I. Joe,1917, Snowpiercer, Jingle All the Way, Groundhog Day, The Dark Knight Rises, the World Series of Poker, Dragon Ball Z^note and Anime in general, including Pokémon, Attack on Titan, and Naruto, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Big Short, Mean Girls, The Third Man, The Strangers, Remember the Titans, Cowboy Bebop, Succession, A Christmas Carol, The Matrix, Yellowjackets, TRON, Forgetting Sarah Marshall^note and rom-coms in general including Jerry Maguire, Brokeback Mountain and Along Came Polly, The Bear (2022), Only Murders in the Building, Paranormal Activity, The Hangover, Top Gun: Maverick, Fargo, The Santa Clause, Behind the Music, Avatar: The Way of Water, 8 Mile, The Last of Us (2023), Saw, Five Nights at Freddy's, Mad Max: Fury Road, The A-Team, Die Hard, Mortal Kombat, WWE, X-Men '97, The Ring, a mashup of The Godfather and The Sopranos, Gladiator, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Game of Thrones, Squid Game, Severance, '90s TV sitcoms, The Pitt, Indiana Jones, Weapons, Scream, various Tony Robbins-style life coach seminars, Knives Out, The Polar Express,the Winter Olympics, various underdog movies, Ghostbusters, and the Conformity Gate theory for the Stranger Things finale as part of a broader lampooning of fan fiction. An early season 8 episode takes the cake for maximizing this format, with parodies of The Summer I Turned Pretty, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Never Have I Ever, Riverdale, and The O.C. all in the same episode, all under the umbrella of a broader parody of the Reality TV genre.
• Perpetually Protean: The Scriptwriter in the Season 7 finale is represented by a wall of TV screens that show a different emoji to convey what the scriptwriter is saying.
• Perpetual Smiler:
  • Andrew Luck and Larry Fitzgerald, due to their Nice Guy personalities, are drawn with constant smiles that border on creepy.
  • Matthew Stafford and his fellow serviceable QBs on weaker teams adopt this during the Joker parody episode.
  • For some reason, Mac Jones is always sporting a rather intimidating one.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Kyler Murray is tiny compared to every other character on the series, likely due to how much his size was a topic of discussion ahead of his rookie year.^note The real Kyler Murray is 5'10" — shorter than average for an NFL quarterback, but comparable in height to several other characters who appear on the series (most notably Russell Wilson) and certainly not half the size of everyone else. Highlighted in the episode based on The Mandalorian, in which Kyler is literally a Baby Yoda Expy.
• Pirate Episode: The Super Bowl LV episode is a parody of Pirates of the Caribbean, with Tom Brady playing Barbossa and Patrick Mahomes playing Jack Sparrow.
• Pirate Song: In the Pirates of Gridiron Heights Episode, sung by Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Pit Trap: In the "Chargers Eliminated" 2024 special short, Jim Harbaugh starts punching and shoving Justin Herbert while exclaiming that he is a beast. Herbert protests in between punches, explaining that they need to stay focused, but as he's explaining that the Chargers need to avoid the usual pitfalls, Harbaugh accidentally pushes him into a pit trap.
• Please Subscribe to Our Channel: Starting in Season 4, videos posted on YouTube had a post-episode "please subscribe" bumper delivered by one of the characters, mostly tied into the episode with certain bumpers repeating themselves (Tom Brady pushing his pliability rhumbas before Julian Edelman taking over, Philip Rivers g-rated swearing chastising lurkers for not subscribing, Devin and Jason McCourty finishing each other's sentences while confusing each other for the other, and Joe Burrow demanding "Odell money" for his appearance) This was done away with after the 2020 season, with the last notable repeated bumper Teamy the Team Monster begging the user to subscribe to the channel before asking for a hug.
• Picture Day: Every season since Season 2 has the Week Fourteen "Playoff Picture" episode. A guest photographer (from the media) will take the picture, with Troy Aikman doing it in S2, Jason Witten in S3, Rob Gronkowski in S4, Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport in S5, Peyton and Eli Manning in S6, Scott Hansen in S7, Stephen A. Smith in S8, Jason and Travis Kelce in S9, and Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and Travis Kelce (again) in s10. Most of the episode consists of getting the non-playoff teams out of the picture and moving the contenders around, with the odds on favorite (or, in later seasons, anyone who's been the focus of a lot of media attention) taking up the entire shot at the end.
• Poisoned Drink Drop: In the Indiana Jones parody stinger, CJ Stroud attempts to drink from the Holy Grail, however, much like Walter Donovan, he chokes and drops the fake grail before turning to dust, leaving behind his skeleton.
• Pokémon Speak: Used in the 2020 NFL Divisional round episode (a Parody Episode of various Anime, including Pokémon), where the Los Angeles Rams take the role of Sean McVay's Pokemon and speak only their own names.
  • Also a trait of Colts QB Anthony Richardson, beginning with the 2023 Draft Special when the rookie QBs are pitching themselves. It takes until the middle of the 2024 season to drop it, out of the horror of realizing he's regressing as a quarterback, although it comes back again briefly in the 2025 season... only for Daniel Jones to angrily cut him off and perform his own take on it.
    CJ Stroud: I went to Ohio State, but I swear I'll work out!
    Bryce Young: Of course I'm short, my name isn't Bryce Old.
    Will Levis: We fit together like coffee and mayo.
    Anthony Richardson: ANTHONYYYYYYY RICHARDSONNNNNNN!"
• Pooled Funds: Roger Goodell accumulates enough money in ridiculous fines to fill a vault full of gold coins. He gleefully attempts to dive headfirst into one of the mountains of coins, but faceplants, lamenting that that this never happens to that rich, old duck
• Poor Communication Kills: In the 2020 Halloween special, Drew Lock misunderstands an instruction to lock the door until it's too late.
  Minkah: Drew, lock the door!
  Drew Lock: What about the door?
  Everyone: Lock the door!
  Drew: Oh... (gets attacked by ghost Tannehill)
• Potty Dance: In the "Failgate" episode, Alex Smith is briefly seen doing this while imploring the people in the Port-a-Potties to hurry up.
• Potty Emergency: After Lamar Jackson outlines to the rookie quarterbacks the plan to dethrone Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, he inexplicably gets a stomach cramp and runs offscreen, a reference to his alleged need to use the bathroom in the middle of a 2020 game.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: In the The Polar Express parody, Mack Hollins, famous in real life for his Bohemian lifestyle, shows up to the North Pole to urge Santa to make a decision on whether to put Puca Nacua on the nice or naughty list. Annoyed by this, Santa claps back by telling him to put shoes on. He later shows up in the Super Bowl LX episode in a suit but without shoes.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Drew Lock has a rap career that's attended only by other white middling quarterbacks; the Receiver Corps list of "Pending Missions" has the status of "Make Drew Lock cool" listed as "Impossible".
• Punny Name: Numerous gags (including many of the Freeze Frame Bonuses) involve plays on the names of players and other notable NFL figures.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Discussed in the 2023 Draft Spectacular. Roger Goodell mentions that with the new characters coming in, certain characters will likely be retired, stopping the new monorail at a storage facility. Jerry Jones is saying goodbye to Ezekiel Elliott while Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan look on. Later on, in a post-episode tagline, Wentz cheerfully talks about going to a nice team upstate, Ryan bleakly looks on saying that they'll come back for them, and Joe Flacco insists that the Ravens will come calling. It's then shown that the storage facility is overloaded with characters insisting they'll be back, with Ryan Leaf begging to get out.
  • Teamy the Team Monster and Clammy the Clam have both stopped appearing, with Clammy's last appearance being the 2020 season finale and Teamy's being the 2023 draft spectacular (after last being seen in Season 6). The Season 7 finale has Roger Goodell mentioning that Clammy was supposed to come back for the next season, but it never happened (potentially because the relevant script was deleted in-universe).
• The Quarterback: Half of the cast are National Football League Quarterbacks.
• Quicksand Sucks: In the "Commanders Eliminated" short, Terry McLaurin and Jayden Daniels end up in a quicksand bog. Despite McLaurin telling Daniels not to scramble, Daniels insists he can outrun the quicksand, only to get quickly sucked in. McLaurin then asides to the viewer "Hey, still beats Dan Snyder."
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The "B-Team", assembled of a colorful cast of QB backups, is set up as this (though Jameis Winston is notably too weird to join).
• A Rare Sentence: Mike Tomlin's aphorisms tend to draw bewilderment or outright confusion by his players, specifically his quarterbacks. Justin Fields in particular has a hard time understanding him.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Obviously this is a series that focuses on what happens in the NFL and parodies it on a weekly basis.
• Red and Black Totalitarianism: When Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs take over Gridiron Heights in the finale, the buildings are draped with red banners with the Chiefs logo, and the refs wear red and black uniforms with motorcycle helmets.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • Bengals Coach Zac Taylor asserts himself as being an important character in both the Mandalorian episode and the closing seconds of the Season 4 finale, despite being the new coach of the then perpetually irrelevant Bengals.
  • While trying to get the rookie quarterbacks to go to bed in a season 5 episode, Lamar Jackson corners them behind a couch. He proceeds to pull out Jacksonville Jaguars backup QB Jake Luton from behind the couch, leading to this exchange:
  Lamar Jackson: Children are not the future. I am the future! (pulls Jake Luton from behind the couch) Wait, who are you?
  Jake Luton: Hi, I'm future trivia answer Jake Luton.
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: In the 2021 Halloween special, Rodrigo Blankenship accidentally starts an old record:
  I love you, but just one question. Are we all doomed for regression?
  *skip* Doomed for regression?
  *skip* Doomed for regression?
  *skip* Doomed for regression?
• Retroactive Legacy: The "100 Years of Gridiron Heights" episode portrays the cartoon as 100 years old, with Johnny Unitas as its first breakout star and with multiple "lost" episodes.
• Running Gag:
  • An NFC team barely in the playoff hunt in their own division shows up as the NFC East leading "Delaware Clams" in order to get in on the playoff picture. In a Season 5 episode, this is fleshed out into a full-on Heist Episode with Deshaun Watson and JJ Watt recruiting star players to form the Clams to steal the NFC East title.
  • Ryan Fitzpatrick incorrectly remembering the teams he’s played for, particularly ones that start with the letter “B”.
• Sadistic Choice: Parodied in the Saw spoof.
  • Stefon Diggs has to either pledge to not blame others for his problems or be thrown by a tablet.
  • Aaron Rodgers is allowed to leave, but only by way of artificial turf. He tries, but it gets the better of him.
  • Bijan Robinson has to cut off his own hand ("Running backs only need one!") or shave his coach Arthur Smith's mustache.
  • Travis Kelce needs to either let his brother Jason die or publically admit that Beyoncé's concert tour is better than his girlfriend Taylor Swift's (and thus be torn apart by her rabid fans).
  • Subverted by Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua. Their captor tells them that either one can kill the other and survive, or they'll both be subject to the "blades of death", a series of spinning knife-like fan blades. They refuse to play along, with Kupp citing the fact that, as Rams, they "know how to deal with opposing fans".
  • Lions coach Dan Campbell doesn't even wait to hear his, sawing off his own chained leg immediately after waking up despite the key sitting right next to him.
  • A bonus scene shows Kyle Shanahan being offered the choice of continuing the 49ers losing streak, or signing a quarterback to a second contract. Shanahan resignedly says he can't and is immediately attacked by Who Dey.
• Sadistic Game Show: The 2024 NFL Draft Spectacular episode focuses on the rookie class being forced into an escape room -like game show, Each of the rookies is tasked with escaping the green room before the conclusion of the first round, with some players faring better than others. As Roger Goodell puts it, "What's everyone's favorite part of draft night? Watching the children squirm as we decide their future!"
• Scary Black Man: Zig-zagged: In the 2025 Draft Spectacular, Deion and Shedeur Sanders and Abdul Carter run into Ashton Jeanty at Gridiron Con, who is revealed by a thunderclap and flash of lightning dressed up as Michael Myers. When Deion complements him on his cosplay, Ashton replies, "What cosplay?" Later, another thunderclap and flash of lightning reveal Jeanty holding what appears to be a knife, which scares Deion, but as it turns out, it's an ice cream cone with two scoops.. Later, in a bonus short, Roger Goodell and a ref are scared away by his silhouette, as yet another thunder and lightning clap reveal him standing next to them. He then says "This is just how I stand."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Discussed, then later averted. In the Tight End University stinger, Urban Meyer holds a press conference to announce he's leaving the Jacksonville Jaguars to coach TEU. When informed that it's not a Power 5 school, Meyer hastily backtracks, reaffirming his commitment to the Jaguars before letting out a resigned sigh.
• Secret Weapon: The Tampa Bay receivers create one for the Receiver Corps: a ticking Time Bomb boasting Antonio Brown's distinctive hairstyle.
• Send in the Clones: In a bonus short for the 2025 NFL Draft, Travis Hunter is depicted as being selected by the Jaguars. Mel Kiper says that he can do anything, even draft analysis, before pulling off a face mask to reveal that he is actually... Travis Hunter. Hunter then says that the fans are excited for the pick, before cutting to multiple Travis Hunter clones celebrating.
• Sentient Vehicle: In reference to his nickname "Maserati Marv", Marvin Harrison Jr. is a literal Maserati who speaks in a robotic/mechanical voice.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the Running Back vs. Receiver stock episode, which is portrayed as both position groups on stock trading floors, the running backs are having a particularly productive week, while the receivers are shown having a disastrous week. When the running backs attempt to cash in, they see their stock drop significantly, while the receivers point out that, no matter what, running backs will never be valued.
• Shaking the Rump: Twice in Season 1.
  • In the original title sequence, Antonio Brown is seen twerking outside of his barbershop.
  • In the Christmas special, Santa Claus uses his magic to make an angry Roger Goodell twerk, to Antonio Brown's delight. Goodell later does it again at the end.
• Shared Universe: In a "Blink and you'll miss it" moment, when Deshaun Watson and JJ Watt ride the subway to Hardwood Hills, the map shows that The Champions Mansion is the next stop on the line. Additionally, "The studio they used to shoot Game of Zones" is a spot on the Hardwood Hills map.
• Shout-Out: The tagline for the Brock Purdy Santa Clause episode is a reimagining of the classic M & M’s commercial where Red and Yellow run into Santa, to the point where Purdy as Santa and Tom Brady both exclaim “He does exist/They do exist!” and faint.
  • An episode in Season 9 portrayed Aaron Rodgers as a Mafia Don, much like Tom Grossi Comedy had begun doing in one of his series several weeks earlier. A season 10 episode portraying Daniel Jones as Indianapolis Jones came two weeks after Grossi started the bit in his videos.
• Showdown at High Noon: A Season 10 episode has Sam Darnold and Matthew Stafford do battle in an Old West style gunfight, with Stafford winning, and Darnold saying he'll be back in a month... then again in the playoffs. In the stinger for that same episode, Patrick Mahomes and Bo Nix also do battle, with Nix dispatching Mahomes, and Mahomes saying that he thinks this season shouldn't count.
• Sickly Green Glow: The Washington Football Dump has multiple leaks with green toxic waste coming through the cracks, at least until Dan Snyder patches everything over with the Commander Hogs Trash Palace. Even with the cosmetic improvements, the dump still falls apart.
• "Signature Sport" Stereotype: Any instance of hockey players appearing in the show, regardless of nationality or team has them affecting a very stilted Canadian accent. It's especially noticeable when Zach Wilson ends up accidentally driving his fellow rookies into Zamboni Bluffs.
  Hockey Player [while beating Wilson's van with a hockey stick] Get outta here ya pig tossin' hosers!
• Silence in the Library: Nick Sirianni goes to recruit AJ Brown for the Eagles battle against the Chiefs, coming across him in a library reading a book. Sirianni then loudly asks if Brown is interested in joining him. Brown shushes him, but responds by holding up a book titled "Son of a bitch, I'm in."
• Single-Minded Twins: Devin and Jason McCourty. Played for Laughs, especially with the two of them getting confused on who’s Devin or Jason.^note The cue for viewers is their jersey numbers — Devin wears #32, Jason wears #30.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot:
  • Baker Mayfield. Played for laughs during his rookie season, when his toddler voice contrasted with his vulgar dialogue.
  • Played With with regards to Philip Rivers. He swears a lot... but only with kid-friendly cuss words. He finally swears for real after taking out his anger on an apparition of a younger Eli Manning.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Caleb Williams to Troy Aikman. Aikman makes snarky comments about Williams's decision making when he's halloween costume shopping, then in the Scream parody, shades Williams again by saying that he's not the Football Face Killer.
• Slash Fic: One of the Fan-Fiction treatments of the Gridiron Heights finale has Matt Lafleur emerging from the shower only to bump into Ben Johnson, with the two of them apparently close to getting... intimate. Roger Goodell cuts in to acknowledge the existence of, and show the alternate Gridiron Heights finale.
• Ski-Resort Episode: The Season 5 MVP Race takes place on a mountain, as the MVP candidates race down the slopes while the OK QBs sit back at the cabin reading slam poetry. DeAndre Hopkins is also briefly seen sitting in a cafe, as he casually catches Kyler Murray from an aerial stunt.
• The Smart Guy: Real-life aerospace engineer Josh Dobbs is cast in this role on "The B-Team"... before he gets benched.
• Smoking Is Cool: Jay Cutler usually has a cigarette in his mouth in his appearances. Joe Burrow is usually seen lighting up a cigar in his appearances, Played for Laughs in his rookie season given his baby voice.
  Lamar Jackson: You can't smoke!
  Joe Burrow: I'm a month older than you, bro.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen: Pete Carroll dresses up like the "How Do You Do, fellow kids" meme character and speaks in teen slang during the Season 7, Week 2 episode, and later in the Season 9 finale when he's (re)introduced as the most anticipated new character during the Griddies.
  Pete Carroll: Excited to go sicko mode on these beta-opps, ya feel?
• Special Edition Title: While some of the parody episodes have a themed title card, most notable seen during the cold open for the Season 7 finale when Rodgers tries to do a Title Drop, the 10th season of Gridiron Heights has a special "Season 10" sub banner in the stinger credit.
• Split Personality: Taysom Hill is a Tyler Durden-type one for Drew Brees.
• Split Screen: The MVP Racers enter one in the last leg of the Season 5 race shortly before they are all knocked out by an avalanche; Patrick Mahomes notes he was left out as he pulls to the finish.
• Sports Dad: Deion "Primetime" Sanders is depicted as being this to his son Shedeur. In the Season 9 finale, he refuses to let Shedeur be shown on camera until an agreement for compensation is reached, and in the 2025 Draft Special he's shown bossing Shedeur around and threatening to make him wait in the car; a bonus scene also depicts him barging in on and taking over Shedeur's first NFL press conference.
• Spot the Thread: The "Delaware Clams"' attempt to steal the NFC East playoff spot is exposed when "Coach" Zac Taylor mentions that he never doubted his team for a second.
  Joe Judge: Wait... you NEVER doubted an NFC East team?
  Doug Pederson: That doesn't seem right...
  Jerry Jones: They're frauds!
• Start of Darkness: During the 2024 Draft Spectacular, we see what Aaron Rodgers experienced during his time in the 2005 "Escape the Green Room" game, which was anger and frustration as 23 other players escaped before him. When it cuts back to Rodgers, he vehemently denies that this is a villain origin story, and insists he's well-adjusted, it's just that he hates watching the spectacle.
• Stereotype Flip: When Cooper DeJean is asked to pick his position during the Draft spectacular, he indicates cornerback, rather than safety, flashing an error message on the screen,The host responds, "Really? But you're... you know", a reference to the fact that a white cornerback is a rarity in the NFL nowadays.
• The Stoic: Sam Darnold tends to deliver his lines with very little emotional range, as a result of his soul being deadened from playing on the Jets.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Tom Brady’s portrayal In-Universe, when he isn’t acting like Patrick Bateman. His coach, Bill Belichick, is also this.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Once the playoffs begins, Nick Foles turns into the bigger and much more aggressive "Big Nick". The only way to turn him back is to hit him in the groin... or bring back Carson Wentz from injury.
• Super Mode: Andy Reid after winning the Super Bowl for the first and second time.
• Surfer Dude: The characterization of Justin Herbert following his rookie year, with his accent being so thick that some other characters struggle to understand him.
• Take That!: When Lamar Jackson accidentally wakes up Bronny James in the 2024 Christmas special, Bronny asks him why he's stealing Christmas, to which Jackson refers to him as a "sweet nepo tot", a reference to Bronny getting into the NBA purely on his father's legacy.
• Terminator Impersonator: Fictional QB prospect Brock Moxie exhibits many of the characteristics of the trope: a large, muscular artificial lifeform with glowing red eyes and a propensity to kill (even going to far as to kill Jimmy Garoppolo).
• There Was a Door: When Roger Goodell highlights Kool-Aid McKinstry's escape room during the "Escape the Green Room", we cut to him busting through the wall a-la the Kool-Aid man, with a door just to his right perfectly untouched (although one would assume the door was at least locked, in keeping with the escape room concept).
  • Earlier in the episode we have a downplayed example, as Jayden Daniels attempts to break down the door, to the shock of the announcer. He ends up messing up his elbow in the process, although he insists it's fine (a clear reference to the real Jayden Daniels being photographed with a very abnormal-looking elbow, which he similarly insisted was nothing to worry about).
  Daniels: (with his misshapen elbow clearly visible) This is normal. STOP THE CAP!
• They Killed Kenny Again: Ben Roethlisberger. Although his appearances in the series were sporadic, in all but two of them, he is either killed or already dead. Specifically:
  • In the American Psycho parody, Tom Brady dispatches of him with a football shaped axe a-la Patrick Bateman.
  • In the Se7en parody, he is one of the victims of the Seven Deadly QB sins, Sloth. Taysom Hill even mentions to the John Doe stand-in, "We lost good men and Big Ben.
  • In the 2019 Halloween special, a parody of It Chapter 2, he is chased by his (then) backup quarterbacks Mason Rudolph and Devlin "Duck" Hodges, represented as a demonic reindeer and duck respectively.
  • In the AFC North snowball fight, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice, taking multiple snowballs and dying in TJ Watt's arms. When he asks if he's been a good man, all Watt can say is Uh... shh! Adding insult to injury, Baker Mayfield runs over him with a snowplow.
  • In the 2022 Wild Card short, as an indirect sequel to the aforementioned snowball fight episode, Mike Tomlin uses his corpse as a Dead Guy Puppet when facing off against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. He's later shown face down on the poker table.
  —Tomlin!Roethlisberger: I'm alive, I swear!
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Aaron Rodgers is grabbed by the Jersey Swap machine, he excitedly says "Oh no! You got me!" with the expectation that he'd be getting a new jersey. When the machine gives him a new Packers jersey, he deadpans, "Oh, this is just my life forever now, is it?"
• Tiny Tim Template: Trevor Lawrence takes on this role in a Season 6 episode — with Urban Meyer in the role of Scrooge — although he objects to the moniker "Tiny Trevor" given that he's 6'6". Meyer, however, is unaffected.
• Title Drop: Averted, Aaron Rodgers tries to alert the viewers that he and the other NFL players are in a scripted show. While being dragged away by refs to a "darkness retreat", he nearly says "Gridiron Heights", but is cut off by a compilation of themed Gridiron Heights Title Cards that ends on the traditional sign logo.
• Token Evil Teammate:
  • In the “Purge” episode, Drew Brees (in disguise) is the only quarterback who is in league with the “New National Football League”, the entity in charge of the “Annual Gridiron Heights Purge”, and seeks to sacrifice Cam Newton and Kirk Cousins in Roger Goodell’s ritual.
  • TJ Watt is this compared to his brothers JJ and Derek. JJ is arguably the nicest defensive player in Gridiron Heights, and Derek is essentially the Generic Guy among the three. TJ, on the other hand, engages in acts of mischief under James Harrison's influence, and joins the Bosa brothers and their crew of defenders "living on the edge" in wreaking havoc on Gridiron Heights.
• Tomato in the Mirror: When Aaron Rodgers has his performance review with Tom Brady, Rodgers points to forcing a coaching change and bringing in old new talent in order to fix the Jets. He then vows to figure out the reason why the Jets are a mess, with the shot showing his reflection in the window.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Jameis Winston. He mindlessly walks off a boat in the “Florida” episode, and in Gridiron Heights’ parody of IT, Jameis becomes “Franchise the Clown”’s first victim when he quickly falls for his trap (crab legs) and jumps into the sewer without hesitation. Even the clown is surprised by how easy it was.
  • Antonio Brown becomes this in Season 4. He builds a rickety house that immediately falls off a cliff, and freezes his feet in blocks of ice.
  • Patrick Mahomes very nearly mistakes lava for ketchup.
  • Tua Tagovailoa gets this characterization in the latter half of Season 9. In the Halloween episode, he hears a creepy disembodied voice calling him by name and informing him they're trying to attack him and chooses to completely ignore it, and in a bonus Thanksgiving scene, he gets severely burned after trying to grab a fresh-out-of-the-oven pie with his bare hands (after making fun of Jordan Love for wearing oven mitts).
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Zac Taylor initially was introduced as "Bengals Coach" in his Gridiron Heights debut, but after guiding the Bengals to a division title and a Super Bowl appearance, he gained a more prominent role in the series.
  • Matt Stafford was treated mostly as The Woobie due to his tenure on the Lions. Even after being traded to the Rams he was portrayed as not trusting his success. During the Super Bowl LVI cartoon, Stafford finally learned to stand up for himself thanks to a well-timed pep talk from Eminem, culminating in him using a flamethrower to disperse Joe Burrow's Wild Teen Party.
  • Jared Goff's early appearances go back and forth between him being an underperformer and just generally unremarkable, but in later seasons he becomes a standard-bearer for Dan Campbell's kneecap-biting philosophy.
• Tunnel of Love: The Tunnel of Jordan Love, to be specific; quarterbacks and their backups go through it during the quarter season carnival, to mixed results.
• Unconventional Dueling Weapon: An Abnormal Ammo variation: In the NFC West shootout episode, Matthew Stafford challenges Sam Darnold to a Showdown at High Noon over control of the NFC West. The two end up using footballs as stand-ins for pistols. and after an initial hiccup where their receivers (Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Puca Nacua) catch their first volleys, Stafford dispatches Darnold on the second volley. In the episode stinger, Patrick Mahomes and Bo Nix have their own battle - also with footballs as weapons, with Nix dispatching of Mahomes.
• The Un-Favorite: Ironically, Tom Brady appears to be this in the eyes of Bill Belichick. Belichick often shows disappointment with his star QB while also lavishing praise on former Patriots backup (and current Niners starter) Jimmy Garoppolo.
  Brady: I lied to Hulu. I'll do it, I'll move!
  Belichick: I don't think about you as much as you think I do.
• Unwanted Assistance: Deshaun Watson tries to use the “Bullet Bill O’Brien” power-up to catch up with Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson in the MVP race. The power-up ends up all but ruining his chances to win, as it brings him to a mud pit way behind Wilson and Jackson.
• Verbal Tic:
  • Jon Gruden's habit of adding "man" to the end of his sentences.
  • Sean Payton yelling "TAYSOM!"... even when he's not addressing Taysom.
  • Kyler Murray tends to end his sentences with "fam".
  • Zac Taylor adding his name in front of words that rhyme or sound similar, e.g. "Zac Nap" "Zac Stacks", etc.
  • "ANTHONY RICHARDSOOOOOOON!"
  • Drake Maye's tendency to drop an "Old Sport" somewhere in conversation.
• Verbal Backspace: While explaining the Patriot way to Cam Newton, Julian Edelman explains that only Rob Gronkowski was allowed to have fun "Because he's whi-yy we were winning".
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • Rookie quarterbacks are given little kid voices despite the fact that they are in at least their early 20s. Some rookies at other positions have this as well, though it's not especially common with non-quarterbacks.
    • Played With in regards to Nick Bosa. Bosa still has a kid’s voice in his rookie year, but he sports a shrill, angry tone (to represent his mischievous attitude) in comparison to the other rookies’ more toddler-like voices.
    • Kyler Murray is the sole exception among the rookie QBs due to his animated appearance as an actual baby. That is, until his voice drops dramatically in his second year with zero change in his physical stature.
    • In the Hardwood Hills episode, JJ Watt bumps into a towering James Wiseman, who asks him in his rookie baby voice, "Are you lost, little boy?"
    • In the 2021 Draft Special, hulking offensive tackle Penei Sewell is given a rookie baby voice.
      Penei Sewell: Remember, this draft season, focus on your o-line!
    • Brock Purdy loses his baby voice very quickly after filling in Jimmy Garoppolo's role, Santa Clause-style.
      Brock Purdy: [looking at himself in a mirror as his voice changes and he grows a beard] My cheekbones are more photogenic...and my voice is deeper? Oh no, is this a horror story?
    • Trevor Lawrence keeps his baby voice in his 2022 debut because according to him, last season didn’t count. However, he does appear without the baby voice later in the season.
    • After losing his baby voice in the Season 8 finale, Anthony Richardson reverts back to his rookie voice (while simultaneously ending his Pokémon Speak tic) in his midseason review with Tom Brady in season 9 episode 10:
      Brady: It says here you've been sleeping on the job, Mister...
      Richardson: ANTHONY [voice changes back] RICHARDSON! ...Oh no, I'm regressing!
    • Like Purdy before him, Tyson Bagent loses his rookie voice almost immediately singing during the Chicago Bears' performance in the Untalented Show:
      Bagent: [in rookie voice] We will never forget our domination... [voice suddenly matures] of the Raider Nation!
      Matt Eberflus: Tyson, no! You're too good!
    • CJ Stroud's rookie baby voice is inconsistent. While his appearances in the Draft Spectacular and the MVP Race episodes have been consistent with him being voiced by a toddler, in a flashback during the QB support group, his voice and mannerisms are more consistent with that of a preteen.
    • Bo Nix's debut in the opening episode of Season 9 has him speaking without the baby voice, a jab at him being rather old for a rookie and having started more games in college than any prior QB. This is further lampshaded in the Season 9 finale, when a heckler asks why Nix doesn't have a baby voice.
  • For a non-rookie example, we have Patrick Mahomes and his "Kermit the Frog" voice, although in the Season 8 finale he abandons this for a deeper, more malevolent sounding voice.
  • Carrie Underwood develops a possessed man's voice in the "Thursday Night Football" episode when saying that Titans-Jaguars is the ultimate TNF matchup.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: During the 2024 Draft Spectacular, after Caleb Williams escapes the green room (or to be more accurate, the door just opens for him), when he goes to give Roger Goodell a hug, Goodell exclaims in horror that Williams has a pink phone case, even though it's not Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and proceeds to vomit offscreen, to Williams's surprise.
• Waxing Lyrical:
  • In the 2019 MVP Race special, Russell Wilson tries to remember what Ciara always says in order to finish the MVP race. After initially dismissing her comment that she'll only stay in Seattle if he dresses better, he remembers the opening lines to her hit song:
  Ciara: Automatic, supersonic, hypnotic, funky fresh.
  Russell Wilson Let me do the 1,2, step!
  • In the 2024 Playoff Picture episode stinger, Kirk Cousins is applying green makeup to cosplay as Elphaba from Wicked. He attempts to pump himself up by insisting he is going to be popular before briefly breaking into the iconic lines from the musical. However, this is short lived as Michael Penix pops in to tell him to break a leg, to his annoyance.
  Cousins: You're gonna be popular. You're gonna be Pop-You-Lar. You're gonna be...
  Penix: Break a leg, Kirk!
  Cousins: MICHAEL, IT'S NOT YOUR TURN YET!
• We Can Rebuild Him: Jerry Jones attempts this with Tony Romo in an early episode, creating "Robo-Romo". At first it works too well and he fires a football out of his Arm Cannon so hard it severs Dez Bryant's hands. Then he immediately falls to pieces.
• "We're Live" Realization: In the Season 6 trailer, Roger Goodell ends his press conference explaining the new rules for Gridiron Heights by asking if they can do a take where everyone applauds. The producer informs him that they were live, to Goodell's shock.
  Goodell: You can make cartoons live!? Oh God!
• We Used to Be Friends: In the Purge episode, Carr invokes this when he's set to be purged by his former teammate Khalil Mack. For Mack's part, he seems genuinely distressed at having to do this to his former friend, but feels he has no choice.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tom Brady desperately looks for approval from his coaches, first Bill Belichick, then Bruce Arians.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: The "Super Bowl Hangover" episode takes this to absurd extremes, with Matthew Stafford, Zac Taylor, and Joe Burrow waking up eight months after the Super Bowl with no idea what happened in the interim. Taylor mistakes his own team's mascot for a real tiger, no one can find Allen Robinson (and Stafford can't even remember what he looks like), Burrow is the only one who even remotely has his wits about him, and they end up having to look through the security footage to piece together how they ended up where they are.
• When I Was Your Age...: Ryan Fitzpatrick gives a speech to this effect to a very bemused Tua Tagovailoa.
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Drake Maye in Season 10, particularly his accent and mannerisms.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Lampshaded in the Season 7, Week 4 episode. After a parody of The Bear centered around the Broncos, Justin Fields complains that it didn’t make sense, given the fact that 1) his team is actually named the Bears, and 2) The Bear is set in Chicago.
• Wild Teen Party: The premise of the Super Bowl LVI episode. Joe Burrow and the Bengals invite themselves to the Rams' house and start a rager with several celebrity bandwagoner VIPs. It devolves into a "football themed fight at a well produced hip hop dancery" when Matt Stafford breaks up the party using a flamethrower and the fire alarm.
• Worst Aid: A Season 10 episode centers around Aaron Rodgers trying to "heal" his fellow players with crystals and the like.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Meta example: in the Super Bowl LX episode, the Seahawks use Bad Bunny music to chase out angry Patriots ghosts. However the song used is a generic reggaeton audio snippet. Dennis Flynn confirmed that they could not secure a licensed track and had to pivot to getting a royalty free clip from the Warner Media library.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: The framework of the Season 6 episode about Urban Meyer's firing from the Jaguars.
• You Are Number Six: In the Gridiron Heights Germany special, Geno Smith refers to Tyler Lockett by name. Tyler gets emotional, confessing that Russell Wilson always referred to his teammates by their number.
• You Meddling Kids: After Philip Rivers reveals that Tom Brady - as Drake Maye - murdered Patrick Mahomes, he delivers the aforementioned line, before adding ..."And 44 year old Phil Rivers!"
• You're Not My Father: After Sean McVay finds Zac Taylor passed out on the floor of the Rams house, he questions how Zac got there. Zac hastily replies he had a little Zac nap and then defensively asserts that he has the right to have fun, culminating in him angrily shouting "You're not my dad anymore!" Sean then responds that Zac is two years older than him.
• Zombie Apocalypse:
  • A Season 5 episode features the quarterbacks hunkered down in the midst of one (with the zombies all being pass-rushers).
  • The Super Bowl LVII episode is a parody of The Last of Us (2023) with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes escaping a horde of zombie Eagles fans and players, while Travis Kelce gets bitten and transforms into "the Eagle Kelce" (his brother Jason).