Philly Front Office

The Super Bowl has come and gone and we are in that brief lull where this season has ended but next season hasn’t begun. That means, despite it not being for two more months, it’s the best time in the world to have an incredibly silly important mock draft. Last year, I compared teams to 90’s pro wrestlers and Fast and the Furious characters. This year, I’m going to a much more accurate system: 80’s and 90’s action movies. Spoilers galore. Let’s get started.

1. Las Vegas Raiders – Bloodsport
   • Fernando Mendoza – QB – Indiana
   • Mendoza is Frank Dux, Army Captain gone AWOL to test himself against the best of the best in bare knuckle fighting in the secret Kumite tournament in Hong Kong. This is the true story of how Dux brought down the evil Chong Li setting numerous records in the process. Except it isn’t. Turns out the real Frank Dux made up the whole thing and the odds of Mendoza turning around the moribund Raiders are equally dubious.
2. New York Jets – Predator 2
   • Arvell Reese – LB – Ohio State
   • With no one returning from the original, Predator 2 was a tremendous let down. Danny Glover, really? That makes it perfect for the Jets, the eternal second team of the NY/NJ market with absolutely nothing redeeming to hold on to. You want the most irrelevant big budget action movie of the period? It’s this one. This also sets up a very obvious joke for the Giants in a few picks.
3. Arizona Cardinals – Rocky 2
   • Francis Mauigoa – OT – Miami
   • Pick: People don’t remember that this is a bad boring movie to start, then Rocky completely ignores the plot of the first half (literally not being able to fight) to have an awesome rematch with Apollo. The Cardinals are equally boring with very little going for them, but will be in a spot where they can get either Mauigoa, Reese, or Rueben Bain. It all just works out.
4. Tennessee Titans – Daylight
   • Rueben Bain Jr – EDGE – Miami
   • Pick: The Titans have little going for them after last year’s debacle of a season. Cliffhanger underground was not a good movie, but it did have pre-Aragorn Viggo Mortenson before hitting his stride. If that is Cam Ward then Tennessee might just be able to see some…Daylight.¹
5. New York Giants – Predator
   • Carnell Tate – WR – Ohio State
   • The Giants have sadly become watchable now unlike the previously mentioned Jets and Predator 2. That, plus John Harbaugh is like Dutch and his elite mercenary team brought in to rescue the possible survivors of a downed helicopter in the jungle. Can Harbough save NY against all odds? I hope not. We all know why this is really here though, the revelations that Giants owner Steve Tisch is connected to Jeffrey Epstein makes the Predator connection too easy.
6. Cleveland Browns – Showdown in Little Tokyo
   • Jordyn Tyson – WR – Arizona State
   • No, this is not the Kurt Russell movie (get to that later). This is the Dolph Lundgren – Brandon Lee movie that absolutely no one saw except me and my future wife on our first date together. It is a total mess of a movie with two kind-of stars in it not unlike the Browns with Myles Garrett. The movie cost only $8m and still lost a ton of money. Just very Browns all the way around.²
7. Washington Commanders – Big Trouble in Little China
   • David Bailey – EDGE – Texas Tech
   • I didn’t make you wait long. BTiLC has a cult following because it is a 10/10 shitshow. Outside of Kurt Russell being at his Kurt Russelliest I couldn’t tell you a thing that is going on here. Outside of Jayden Daniels, what the hell is Washington doing? Without their stars, both are unwatchable.
8. New Orleans Saints – Mission: Impossible
   • Spencer Fano – OT – Utah
   • Was Kellen Moore taking over a Saints team that wasn’t only in cap hell but also devoid of basically all talent and then coaxing that team to a borderline astounding 6-11 record the same as Ethan Hunt walking into an ambush, losing his whole team, then breaking into CIA headquarters in order to flush out the mole within the IMF to clear his good name? Yes.
9. Kansas City Chiefs – The Matrix
   • Peter Woods – DT – Clemson
   • Easiest one on the list. The Chiefs have Neo at QB who can seemingly do everything on a football field. While the Matrix was unbelievable when it first came out and is still phenomenal, it spawned now 3 sequels that have had increasingly diminishing returns to the point that absolutely no one saw the last movie. Like the Matrix franchise, the Chiefs are dead.
10. Cincinnati Bengals – Highlander 2
    • Caleb Downs – S – Ohio State
    • It was a great decision to bring in Sean Connery and Joe Burrow to each of these franchises. From there, no other decision has made a lick of sense. Highlander 2 is one of the worst movies you’ve ever seen. It has gone through extensive revisions in the years following its theatrical release, but they have made it only less terrible, not actually good. This is not unlike the Bengals continuing to try to tweak the defense and offensive line only to leave Burrow out on a wire trying to salvage things himself. Such a waste.
11. Miami Dolphins – Broken Arrow
    • Ty Simpson – QB – Alabama
    • The term broken arrow is used in a nuclear incident where a nuclear weapon goes missing or rogue. That’s the Miami Dolphins cap situation. Tua Tagovailoa (and his absurd contract) is John Travolta’s “Deak” Deakins who has hatched the plan to create the broken arrow incident. Tua went off the reservation this year by playing badly, making outrageous claims about teammates, and giving bizarre answers to press questions. Now the Dolphins need to real him and get rid of his contract before he blows up their 2026 season. The movie and the team are also both expensive, highly entertaining, and not good at all.
12. Dallas Cowboys – ConAir
    • Keldric Faulk – EDGE – Auburn
    • Is ConAir a good movie? No. Is it entertaining as anything when it goes off the rails because the people in charge of making it gave in to all of their craziest ideas? Absolutely! Jerry Jones trading Micah Parsons, bringing in George Pickens, giving Dak Prescott the biggest contract in football, and all the rest are an absolute thrill ride. The coach is just poor John Cusack stuck on the ground while all hell is breaking lose on the field and in the air.
    • If you were a Charlotte Hornets AND Nicolas Cage fan in 1997, would you have rather had Kobe Bryant, Larry Johnson, and Alonzo Mourning OR The Rock, ConAir, and Face/Off?
13. Atlanta Falcons (to LA Rams) – Roadhouse
    • Caleb Lomu – OT – Utah
    • The 2025 Atlanta Falcons were a total mess after years of poor decisions left them overrun with bad contracts and misused talent. They need a cooler, someone to run out the riffraff and fix up everything that has gone wrong, not unlike what happened with the Double Deuce. The Falcons are hoping that Matt Ryan is Patrick Swayze’s Dalton. Does this mean Ryan can do Tai Chi, identify boot knives, and rip someone’s throat out if need be? Only time will tell. He will probably need to call Sam Elliot.
14. Baltimore Ravens – Air Force One
    • Mansoor Delane – CB – LSU
    • AF1 has a star in Harrison Ford and did great at the box office. The Ravens have Lamar Jackson and a history of great records and making the playoffs. Are either any good? No. 90s action movies are supposed to be rewatchable. It’s their best quality. Many movies on this list I’ve seen 100 times. Not this one. It was a huge letdown and not something I would ever be fooled by again.
15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Executive Decision
    • Sonny Styles – LB – Ohio State
    • This movie was marketed as a Kurt Russell/Steven Seagal action movie with both at the height of their powers, taking down terrorists who have a bomb on a 747. Everything seemed awesome at first, Seagal’s elite military unit needs to get onto the moving jet midflight via an experimental docking device. Except 20 minutes into the movie, Seagal’s Austin Travis unexpectedly sacrifices himself to save the rest of the team. Total disappearing act, just like early MVP candidate Baker Mayfield disappeared for the Bucs this year and the rest of the team sank, losing 7 out of 9 and missing the playoffs.
16. Indianapolis Colts (to the NY Jets) – Cutthroat Island
    • Caleb Banks – DT – Florida
    • The Colts had a cool idea. They doubled down on the cheap breakout of Daniel Jones and spent big to get Sauce Gardner to really go for it. He should have been the final piece to really take this seemingly loaded team over the top. Unfortunately, nothing worked out. Cutthroat Island was a big budget pirate movie with enough action and comedy for everyone, that didn’t work out either. Both placed their bets on stars who just weren’t stars. In the end, everyone lost. The Colts were outsmarted by the Jets and Cutthroat Island is one of the I’m sorry, but Daniel Jones is the Mathew Modine of QBs.
17. Detroit Lions – Demolition Man
    • Olaivavega Ioane – OG – Penn State
    • The Lions were one of the best teams in football this year but didn’t make the playoffs. The schedule was incredibly tough and they were beset by injuries and the losses of their coordinators. They were still built right and could be thrilling at certain points. Demolition Man is one of my favorite movies, but it’s lost in all the other 90s thrillers and even Stallone’s own catalogue. Looking back on both the movie and the 2025 Lions, there were memorable performances from the stars and some incredible individual plays, and it’s a shame this isn’t a playoff movie.
18. Minnesota Vikings – Twister
    • Jeremiyah Love – RB – Notre Dame
    • When the pseudo-sequel Twisters came out recently, I tried popping in the original and…damn. It did not hold up at all. The special effects for the day I remember being good! They were not. When the Vikings decided to go with JJ McCarthy over Sam Darnold, that similarly did not age well. Now this a completely unwatchable movie with none of the nostalgia of the rest of this list.
19. Carolina Panthers – US Marshals
    • Jermod McCoy – CB – Tennessee
    • Did the Fugitive need a sequel featuring the cops who tracked down Dr. Richard Kimball? I mean, it wasn’t a bad idea. Unfortunately, getting big stars like Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey Jr. did nothing to help this movie. The first had great action and great acting, the sequel had neither. The Panthers made the playoffs this year just like US Marshals made money, but that’s only because they were in a horrible division. They weren’t any good. This wasn’t the comeback that Bryce Young and Robert Downey Jr wanted it to be either.
20. Green Bay Packers (to Dallas Cowboys) – Batman Forever…but maybe Batman and Robin
    • Avieon Terrell – CB – Clemson
    • The Packers had Brett Favre, then Aaron Rodgers, and are now on Jordan Love. He’s not bad, but he’s also not nearly as good as the first two. Does this make Love Val Kilmer or George Clooney? Either way, they aren’t nearly as good as Michael Keaton. Batman is one of the heavy hitters of the comic world and this is when it slid into oblivion. The Packers are slowly doing the same as their QB and coach continually do not deliver.
21. Pittsburgh Steelers – Lethal Weapon 4
    • Makai Lemon – WR – USC
    • Danny Glover was too old for this shit in 1987 at 40 years old, but was still making sequels 11 years later with buddy Mel Gibson. The Pittsburgh equivalent is relying on Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers who last won 15 years ago ironically against the Steelers. Does this make DK Metcalf Joe Pesci or Chris Rock?
22. LA Chargers – Independence Day
    • Kayden McDonald – DT – Ohio State
    • Who is the star in this one? Is it Will Smith who hadn’t yet proved he could carry a movie yet? Is it Jeff Goldblum at his weird talking best? Or is it the aliens? The Chargers face the same dilemma. They are exciting, but not really a fully thought out final product yet. Justin Herbert looks like a movie star, but he isn’t exactly ready to do it alone yet. Then there’s Jim Harbaugh who makes for an easy Goldblum…but also Randy Quaid.
23. Philadelphia Eagles – Last year, Commando. This year, First Blood.
    • Monroe Freeling – OT – Georgia
    • In last year’s assault on the Super Bowl, the Eagles looked like Arnold gearing up to rescue his daughter, getting armed to the teeth just to take out everyone in the best way possible. The culmination was defeating Bennett, a final villain who simply couldn’t play on the same field as Colonel John Matrix, just like the Chiefs getting blown out. This year, damn, just getting attacked from all angles in fights we didn’t even realize we were going to have. In the end, everything was burning down and we lost. Of course, Rambo, First Blood Part 2 is completely different…
24. Jacksonville Jaguars (to the Cleveland Browns) – Double Impact
    • Kadyn Proctor – OT – Alabama
    • In 1991, what could be better than Jean-Claude Van Damme starring in a movie? Seems impossible, right? Well, how about TWO Jean-Claude Van Dammes!!! Oh baby, that’s a great idea! JCVD apparently thought playing both parts would show his acting range. Much like the Jaguars selecting Travis Hunter to play both WR and CB, it didn’t work. Getting one player to play two positions isn’t a bargain when he gets hurt and leaves the team with a hole at both spots. Same as JCVD getting negative reviews for bad acting in both starring roles instead of just one.
25. Chicago Bears – Speed
    • CJ Allen – LB – Georgia
    • Without much to work with, I mean they are on a bus the whole damn time, Keanu Reeves and Sandy Bullock make this movie awesome. Caleb Williams did the same. This season was a thrill ride to the very end. If you gave Caleb a pop quiz, he would absolutely shoot the hostage then throw a bomb into the endzone.
26. Buffalo Bills – Rocky IV
    • KC Concepcion – WR – Texas A&M
    • Fact: Rocky Balboa singlehandedly ended the Cold War when he defeated Russian champion Ivan Drago in their Christmas Day bout in Moscow, using his incomparable heart and drive to win over the proletariat. This is what Buffalo fans think Josh Allen is.³
27. San Francisco 49ers – Raiders of the Lost Ark
    • Denzel Boston – WR – Washington
    • Kyle Shanahan has become a universally respected innovator of NFL offenses, using unconventional formations to get the job done. Unfortunately, like Indiana Jones whose adventurous and unorthodox exploits are equally impressive, neither end up with the trophy in the end.
28. Houston Texans – Hard Target
    • Max Iheanachor – OT – Arizona State
    • Hard Target takes a little time to get going, but once John Woo releases the doves, all hell breaks loose. The last 45 minutes of the movie are a bonkers collection of relentless action. At one point JCVD is surfing on a motorcycle, then punching a rattlesnake in the face, then Wildred Brimley is shooting arrows and galloping away from an exploding carnival wearhouse on a horse. That’s what the Texans defense reminded me of down the stretch. It took awhile for them to find their stride, but by the end they were incredible. Too bad they didn’t have a QB to really make them shine, just like Hard Target needed a proper villain (sorry shaman from the Mummy and the other guy).
29. LA Rams – The Rock⁴
    • Brandon Cisse – CB – South Carolina
    • Sean McVay is Stanley Goodspeed, super nerd chemical weapons expert who went through field training at Quantico but isn’t exactly equipped to hold a gun. McVay barely played in college but is nonetheless an offensive expert at the top of his profession. However, neither would defeat San Francisco if they weren’t joined by elder stateman leaders who were unfairly incarcerated for their prime years: Sean Connery in a maximum-security prison by the US Government and Matt Stafford by the Detroit Lions. I’m assuming McVay’s wife was also the prom queen.
30. Denver Broncos – Mortal Kombat
    • Kenyon Sadiq – TE – Oregon
    • A surprisingly good movie with great fight scenes that lacked a star to really bring the movie to the credit it deserved. Sorry Broncos fans, but Bo Nix is just not a star. He does a good job of navigating the team like the guy from Beverly Hills Ninja does as Liu Kang, but that’s all.
31. New England Patriots – The Mummy
    • Akheem Mesidor – EDGE – Miami
    • Lost in the fantastic box office of The Mummy and the Super Bowl run of the Patriots was the simple fact that neither was very good, at least not nearly as good as their success would suggest. The Mummy doesn’t have great action and isn’t very funny (even if I have a soft spot for Brendan Frasier because of The Scout and School Ties). The Patriots INSANELY easy path the Super Bowl left them exposed once they had to face a good team in the end. Neither are bad, but anyone who thinks they were great in retrospect is fooling themselves.
32. Seattle Seahawks – Top Gun
    • Keith Abney II – CB – Arizona State
    • Not only are the Seahawks the top gun now as Super Bowl champs, but Darnold and Maverick aren’t the worst of comparison. Once highly thought of, both are gunslinger types who hit rock bottom before the right situation brought both back to the top. Granted Darnold is a ginger who isn’t nearly as cool or as good as Pete Mitchell but still, credit where it’s due.

1. I refuse to apologize ↩︎
2. If you have seen this movie, what the hell is with some of the dialogue??? ↩︎
3. I really wanted to use Face/Off here considering they fired Sean McDermott and just replaced him with his antithesis on the offensive end in Joe Brady. You have to wonder if leaving everything the same but just changing the belief system of the person in charge will work. WHAT A PREDICAMENT! ↩︎
4. It hurts me to my core to compare the Rams to one of my favorite movies ever ↩︎

Special thanks to the best Chad and the worst Adam