REVIEW: ‘Chad Powers’ Was An Early Preseason Favorite, Then It Fumbles

Chad Powers is easily the series I was most anticipating. Football season is in full swing, and I love Glen Powell, as well as Eli and Peyton Manning. But while the new six-episode Hulu Original was a favorite at the start of the season, it fumbles in the red zone. 

In the series, football and leading man Glen Powell stars as Russ Holliday, a former Oregon quarterback. In the National Championship, Holliday dropped the ball before hitting the endzone, lost the game, tackled a Make-a-Wish kid, and well, fully crashed out. A horrible person, the self-obsessed quarterback may be washed up. However, his NIL money is still letting him party, buy one of the most hideous “trucks” ever made, and completely squander whatever athletic legacy he had. 

Falling apart at the seams, Russ is supposed to deliver supplies for his dad, only to realize that a local college in Georgia is hosting walk-on tryouts. The Catfish are equally a mess with an uncoordinated coaching staff and talent that just can’t come together. When he meets the team mascot, Danny (Frankie A. Rodriguez) the idea to try out hits him, and he creates a disguise. Russ Holliday showed up in Georgia, but Chad Powers is the one walking on the field. 

Hulu Original Chad Powers takes an ESPN skit and makes it into a whole series. 

Of course, Chad makes the team, but they’re not worshiping the ground he walks on. Despite having an arm like a canon, Chad finds himself as QB 2 (the backup quarterback). As Russ tries to take the spot for himself, Head Coach Hudson (Steve Zahn) and Coach Hudson (Perry Mattfeld)—the daughter of the HC—offer family drama to supplement the football humor. 

Writing out the synopsis for the series, it’s easy to see how unwieldy it quickly becomes. Initially, Chad Powers is focused on helping Russ get his groove back, staying on the team, making QB1, and avoiding distractions along the way.

Once we hit the midway point of Episode 4, the series morphs into severe amounts of romantic questions, bickering family drama that doesn’t have a place off the field, and Russ’s character regression to boot.  To put it simply, there is just too much going on to make Chad Powers work, and with an abrupt ending, you wind up asking yourself, “What did I just watch?” 

When the series sticks to football, it’s Glen Powell at his funniest. 

When it comes to humor, Chad Powers knows his audience —the folks who sit in front of their televisions watching college football from 11 am to 1 am every Saturday. It takes place in the heart of the SEC, with both Manning brothers serving as the coaches of their alma mater, Tennessee and Ole Miss. The football dee pcuts and Southern humor work exceptionally well. But it works because the hint of meanness to it all feels familiar. 

Still, the series finds itself stuck between being an edgy football comedy and telling a heartfelt story of a man who decides to change his ways and become a better person. It keeps crossing the line between the two so much that the jarring tonal shifts make it hard to stick with it. 

The first three episodes of Chad Powers are all about football, and that’s when it’s at its best. Glen Powell’s West Virginia accent by way of the Pacific Northwest, hiding his Texas twang, is hilarious to watch. The way that we see Russ lie through his teeth and create some of the wildest backstory for his Appalachian alter ego is incredibly entertaining. It all works, especially on the field. Unfortunately, it’s a fumble when it starts to hit the home stretch because the audience’s suspension of disbelief can’t hang in there.

This isn’t the first time that Chad Power has come to life. From the Manningcast to Hulu, Eli Manning serves as executive producer on Chad Powers, along with Omaha Productions’ Peyton Manning, Jamie Horowitz, Ben Brown, and ESPN. The ESPN walk-on quarterback skit inspires the series, and ultimately, when it reaches its last episode, audiences will realize why Chad Powers was perfect for a skit, not a whole series. 

Chad Powers could have been great, but it’s far from it in the end. 

In the original skit, Eli Manning attended walk-on (or run-on) tryouts at Penn State after learning about the process in Happy Valley from Head Coach James Franklin. The only logical outcome for Russ in the Hulu series is to either process his failure and become a better person, take Chad out of the game, be found out and be forced out of the game, or, you know, he blackmails the love interest that emerges for some odd reason in the last episode to keep playing. Sure, guys. 

It’s difficult to put my frustration into words while also respecting how good a sports comedy Chad Powers is in its first half. When Glen Powell and company stick to football, they’re firing on all cylinders. It’s not comedy gold, but it is something that fits the season and the love that so many of us have for college football, and well, the SEC. However, once the series steps out of that and attempts to fit it into a larger narrative, it loses every single ounce of momentum it had. 

On paper, this is a series made for me. Sure, I let out some laughs, but like real football, you can only watch your quarterback make so many mistakes before you just turn off the game. Chad Powers squanders his potential, and I can’t help but feel like it’s only fitting to be let down by yet another Longhorn and a Manning this season.

Chad Powers is streaming now, exclusively on Hulu.