THE UNDERDOGGS

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts with football player Jaycen “Two-J’s” Jennings (Snoop Dogg) giving a bit of backstory to his career while recording an episode of his podcast. Recruited from high school, Jaycen became a highly successful player but had a reputation for his attitude on and off the field. Eventually, his talents faded and his fans turned on him, leading to him becoming washed up.

Jaycen barges into the office of his agent, Ryan Kauffman (Kal Penn), who appears to be actively trying to avoid Jaycen. Ryan informs him that his public persona isn’t very well-liked right now, compared to another sports commentator, Chip Collins (Andrew Schulz), who has been trash-talking Jaycen and his career for years. When Ryan suggests Jaycen change up his brand to boost his ratings, Jaycen swears at him and storms out. He sees Tony Gonzalez and yells at him too, driving off and yelling about being self-made before his car gets smashed by a bus.

Jaycen gets injured and is ordered to serve 300 hours of community service in his former hometown of Long Beach. Making things worse for Jaycen, the judge is someone he knew from his old neighborhood, and she proceeds to tell everyone back home that Jaycen is returning home to pick up dog poop.

Five weeks later, Jaycen returns to Long Beach, where he is almost robbed at gunpoint by his old friend Kareem (Mike Epps) until he recognizes Jaycen and happily greets him. Jaycen then starts his service at a middle school, where he watches the football team, the “Green Team” practicing. The boys mock Jaycen for picking up dog crap and mock his attire before he starts cussing at them. One of the boys, Trey (Jonigan Booth), has his mother Cherise (Tika Sumpter) working at the school, and Jaycen recognizes her as his ex-girlfriend from when he started playing. She is none too happy to see him, especially with the way he is talking to her son and the other boys.

After talking with Kareem, Jaycen learns that the boys do not have a football coach, so he sees this as a way to rebuild his brand while also trying to get close to Cherise again. Their first game is against the older team, the Colonels, and they are coached by Chip, who is eager to deliver more smack talk toward Jaycen. The kids play terribly and lose miserably, leading to Jaycen berating them out loud. Cherise in turn yells at Jaycen for putting the kids down when they are already feeling very low about themselves.

Jaycen talks to his old mentor, Coach Feis (George Lopez), who inspires Jaycen to “Jedi mind trick” the kids into listening to him. He returns to the team by appealing to them as fellow underdogs that nobody is expecting to come out on top. While running drills, Jaycen tries to get them to apply their personal interests and passions into the game. He talks to a nerdy kid, Gary (Alexander Michael Gordon), to channel his love for “Game of Thrones” and the show’s dragons into the game, which helps him play harder. He later gifts the team new jerseys with nicknames – Trey gets “Superstar”, Gary gets “Drogon”, another kid named Tony (Adan James Carrillo) gets “Titties”, etc.

Jaycen starts to get to know the kids on a personal level to try and talk to them. During their next game, Trey starts to get a bad attitude, which leads Jaycen to realize the boy is acting just like he did when he was growing up. He tells him to be better toward his teammates or Trey will end up just like him. Trey then leads his team and even reveals to Gary that he is also a “Game of Thrones” fan. Jaycen also learns that Tony hides from his parents that he is playing football instead of joining Mathletes, and encourages him to tell them the truth; he also talks to another kid, Dwayne (Caleb Dixon), to not be ashamed of living in a trailer park. On their next game, the whole team also learns that one of their players, “Ghost” (Kylah Davila), is a girl, to the delight of Cherise.

After the game, Jaycen invites the team to his mansion for a pool party. He goes to hang out with Cherise while Kareem keeps an eye on them, but he falls asleep and the kids get into the stash of beer and start drinking until they are drunk. Jaycen and Cherise return to find the boys pissing in the pool before yelling at them to stop.

Jaycen later gets a phone call from Ryan during practice. He puts Ryan on speaker to announce to the team that Jaycen’s ratings have gone up since he has been showing off his time with the team, so he has a chance to get his own sports TV show. The problem is, his first taping would be on the day of the team’s next big game against the Colonels. The kids figure that Jaycen is going to abandon them like all their other coaches, buti Jaycen argues that this is a chance for him to salvage his career. The kids and Cherise express their disappointment toward him.

On the day of the show’s taping, Jaycen sits alongside other commentators like Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan, but he quickly feels remorse over his decision and rushes back to be with the team for their game. He gives them a speech to motivate them before they get started. The Colonels dominate the first round, while Jaycen’s team is dead at zero. Trey gives the team a rousing speech to get their spirits back up, and they come back out to lead the crowd to calling the Colonels “punk ass bitches”.

The team starts to play better, and Kareem gets his dogs to get the biased ref off their backs. The kids start to catch up to the Colonels and set their last play in the final round. They pass the ball to Tony but he just misses passing the ball over the line, meaning the Colonels win. Tony starts to cry over his failure, but his team goes to help him on his feet, which the crowd finds inspiring and they cheer them on. Jaycen in turn feels inspired by his team and tells them to go congratulate the Colonels. They do so, but promise to “fuck them up” next year. Jaycen and Cherise also seem to get back together.

The ending text states that Snoop Dogg established the Snoop Youth Football League to encourage kids to learn values through football and teamwork, and that over 85,000 kids joined, with 20,000 going to college as a result, and 25 being drafted by the NFL.

Jaycen "Two-J's" Jennings is an arrogant washed up former football superstar. After a major car accident, Jaycen is ordered to perform community service in his old neighborhood. He sees an opportunity to rebuild his brand by coaching a struggling youth football team, where one of the players is the son of his former flame Cherise. Despite being rough on the kids at first, Jaycen finds a way to connect with them and help inspire them to do better.

Jaycen sees an opportunity for a comeback by having his own sports show, but the first taping is on the day of the team's big game. Despite trying to revive his career, Jaycen chooses to be with the team. They almost win until one of the players misses the line to make the touchdown, causing the other team to win, but everyone still remains inspired by the underdog team, and Jaycen appears to get back with Cherise.