The Tuck Rule is 30 for 30, Manningcast-Style 

Can you make an entire documentary about one play? That’s the question raised by the first ESPN 30 for 30 documentary of 2022, The Tuck Rule. It looks back on the AFC Divisional Playoff game between the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders on January 19, 2002, timed for its 20th anniversary, when a controversial replay call led to the first of Tom Brady’s even Super Bowl championships. 

The Tuck Rule, which debuted Sunday night, looks back at that overall game, which was played in a snowstorm, and also doubled as the final game played at the old Foxboro Stadium. It all hinged on a rule, involving the movement of the quarterback’s arm determining whether something is a fumble or complete pass, that about 99 percent of fans, and even some of the players, had never heard of until that night. That play, initially ruled a fumble that would have essentially sealed the game for Oakland, was overturned due to the titular rule, and Brady led to Pats to a win. 

Various players and coaches who took part in the game are interviewed, and it’s clear that some Raiders players are still upset about the outcome even two decades on. 

But the “main event,” so to speak, has star players from the two teams, Brady and then-Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson, sitting on a couch together to watch the famous game. The two men were teammates at Michigan a couple of years earlier; Woodson entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year and Brady is a shoo-in to join him. Their chemistry together is winning. 

The idea appears to be an attempt to re-capture the popularity of the Manningcast, the weekly Monday Night Football alternative broadcast in which retired quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning banter, along with special guests, as they watch the game. It feels a lot like that, especially when the game reaches the controversial play itself. 

We hear from many of the key players on both teams, as well as Bill Belichick, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, but then again that’s how Belichick has looked in the vast majority of interviews throughout his career. We even hear from referee Walt Coleman, who made the famous call. But perhaps, needless to say,  the man who coached the Raiders in that game, Jon Gruden, is not involved in the documentary, following his racist email scandal last year. 

Borrowing a page from The Last Dance, the interviews for The Tuck Rule are held in a beautiful waterfront mansion, which implicitly belongs to Tom Brady. The house in Last Dance isn’t really Michael Jordan’s but was rented for the production; whether this is actually Brady’s home is unclear. 

The Tuck Rule is the latest in a long list of Brady-related content, even prior to the recent announcement of his retirement. A ten-part docuseries called The Man in the Arena, also an ESPN project, just finished airing a couple of weeks earlier, and the long Patriots run was also the subject of the recent book about the Brady-Belichick run, “It’s Better to be Feared,” authored by longtime ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham. 

The new doc has something else in common with The Last Dance: It was produced, in part, by Brady’s own production outfit, 199 Productions (as was The Man in the Arena.) This is clearly the direction sports documentaries are going, which is somewhat unfortunate. 

The Tuck Rule was co-directed by Ken Rodgers & Nick Mascolo; Rodgers has directed previous 30 for 30 installments about the NFL, including 2018’s fine The Two Bills (about Belichick and Bill Parcells) and last year’s Al Davis vs. The NFL, which was a fine examination of the ’70s NFL, marred by the inexplicable and ethically dubious decision to include interviews with “deepfakes” of Al Davis and Pete Rozelle. 

The new film doesn’t go as far, although it does make a pretty ridiculous decision in the final ten minutes. It offers a brief, imaginary simulation of the Raiders winning the game, and going on to play in (and win) the Super Bowl, and the next year’s as well. This leads into some what-if speculation about the direction Woodson and Brady’s careers might have taken if the replay call had gone the other way- including the possibility that the Patriots might have gone back to Drew Bledsoe as the starting quarterback the following season. 

Again, the speculation is unnecessary- the real story is fascinating enough, so why embellish? And after the season Brady had in 2001, even a second-round playoff loss would likely have been enough to keep him as starting quarterback the next year and beyond. 

Alternate history or not, I’m not getting the sense ESPN cares very much anymore about 30 for 30. Only three were produced in 2021, including the two-part one about the 1986 Mets, and The Man in the Arena, much like The Last Dance, was an ESPN-produced documentary series that did not have 30 for 30 branding. Furthermore, no more new ones have yet been announced. 

The Tuck Rule is an entertaining 30 for 30 installment, but it shows that the future of special programming on ESPN will look more like The Last Dance– and the Manningcast – than the 30 for 30 we’ve known.