If the NFL season gets canceled this fall, at least Peyton and Eli Manning can fall back on their acting careers. Check out the trailer below for Football Cops, a fictional show from DirecTV and ad agency Deutsch New York (along with director Bryan Buckley), in which the Mannings play police buddies and former pro football players who keep criminals in line by chucking black footballs at them—which turns out to be a good way to impale them, or at least knock over their martinis. Peyton Manning got pretty stale as an advertising pitchman quite a few years ago, but here, with his mustache and aviator sunglasses, he looks enough unlike himself to be palatable. The deadpan, hangdog Eli is the funnier of the two, anyway, and the Fu Manchu mustache suits him perfectly. The endless football puns are actually somewhat funny, as is the stupidity of the action sequences, and Buckley makes it all look great—better than most of prime time, actually. The video is designed to obliquely promote DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket, but with a wink toward the lockout that might force fans to watch reruns of cop shows instead of their favorite teams this year. They might want to start production on this show, too, just in case.



CREDITS
Client: DirecTV
Spot: "Football Cops"
Agency: Deutsch, New York
Partner, Chief Creative Officer: Greg DiNoto
Group Creative Directors: George Decker & Morgan Carroll
EVP, Executive Creative Director Interactive: Steve Nesle
Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Judd Counsell
Art Director: Robert Fraze
Director of Content Production/Producer: Joe Calabrese
Associate Producer: Nicole Euell

Deutsch NY Interactive (footballcops.com):
SVP Director of Interactive Production: Stephanie Lee Pang
EVP Executive Creative Director, Interactive: Stephen Nesle
Art Director: Aliza Adam
VP Lead Information Architect: Dan Machlin
Senior Producer: Laura Hossenlopp
Producer: Kristina Trimmer
Senior Technical Lead: Michael Nicosia
Digital Designer: Joe Barrile

Production Company:
Hungry Man/New York NY
Director: Bryan Buckley
Director of Photography: Scott Henriksen
Executive Producers: Kevin Byrne, Cindy Becker
Producer: Mino Jarjoura

Editorial:
Cosmo Street/New York NY
Editor: Tom Scherma
Assistant Editor: Mark Potter
Producer: Jennifer H. Parikh

Post Facility/Visual Effects Company:
The Mill/New York NY
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Producer: Charlotte Arnold
Graphics: Tristian Wake

Music/Sound Design:
Human/New York NY
Composer: James Leibow
Sound Designers: Mike Jurasits, Daryl Pinsdorf

Audio Post Company:
Sound Lounge/New York, NY
Mixer: Philip Loeb