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| "Ya find out life's this game of inches . . . so's football . . ." |
We at the Backup Quarterback Blog had a few friends over for July 4th. Prior to the evening's fireworks display, we were flipping between the various patriotic concerts and -- one of my favorite things of any July 4th -- old-school patriotic movies. I happened to walk 2 guests into the living room during
Bill Pullman's epic (?) speech in the 1996 movie Independence Day. After we ceased all conversation and immediately fixated upon Pullman (portraying U.S. President Thomas J. Whitmore), conversation turned to the
Twitter feed of Grantland's Bill Barnwell. In Tweets throughout the day, Barnwell and his followers discussed the prospect of re-casting Independence Day using today's stars. Among the highlights: LeBron James or Russell Westbrook as Will Smith's character, Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell on Mad Men) as Jeff Goldblum, Will Farrell as Goldblum's character's father, and Bill Pullman's President Whitmore played by . . . Bill Pullman.
A few days later, we found ourselves flipping channels and stumbled upon Oliver Stone's 1999 football drama,
Any Given Sunday. Arguably our favorite football movie of all time ("The Program," "Little Giants," "Rudy," "Necessary Roughness," and "Varsity Blues" also merit consideration, with 'The Replacements" finishing in roughly 1,775th place), we thought we'd try the same exercise here -- recasting Any Given Sunday, except with current players, coaches, and other NFL-related personnel. Mr. Stone, if you're looking to produce a remake, you can find our cast list after the jump . . .
