It Took A Denver Broncos Beatdown to Fulfill the Promise of This Kevin James Meme

Social feeds were unexpectedly full of the sheepishly smiling face of Kevin James yesterday, a phenomenon that might have had you asking, “Dear God, why?”

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The reason requires following some obscure pop-culture bread crumbs. The first thing you need to know is that the Miami Dolphins laid a smackdown on the Denver Broncos yesterday, piling up 70 points in a crushing victory. That 70 number is significant — it’s the most points scored in an NFL game since the Washington Slurs put up 72 points way back in 1996, and within 3 points of establishing an all-time record.

So what does the ineptitude of the Denver Broncos have to do with Kevin James? The Broncos’ new head coach and would-be savior is Sean Payton, a Super Bowl winner with the New Orleans Saints before stepping down after the 2021 season. While Payton has won an NFL Coach of the Year Award, he was also suspended for the entire 2012 season for allegedly paying his players to knock out guys on other teams. 

… Again, what does that have to do with James? While Payton was on forced hiatus back in 2012, the presumably bored coach took over his son’s sixth-grade team, the mighty Liberty Christian Warriors. Payton enlisted NFL coaching legends like Bill Parcells to help break down game film of another sixth-grade team to win the pee-wee championship (or whatever it was called). Payton’s team still lost, but according to some accounts, it was a closer game than anticipated thanks to the professional meddling.

Which finally brings us to James, a presumably bored comic actor who portrayed the presumably bored Payton in Home Team, a 2022 Netflix movie glorifying middle school athletes receiving a painfully unfair advantage. Why would Netflix make a movie about a guy coaching 12-year-olds while being punished for unethical professional play? Your guess is as good as ours. 

In Home Team, the sixth-graders start out as league punching bags, getting blown out by every team they face. The 2023 Denver Broncos seem like the professional version, and with Payton not getting the job done, some fans are calling for James to take the reins.

And that connection seemed to spur even more Kevin James viral action because, we guess, Kevin James?

The Internet is a weird place.