Home Team | 2022 | PG | – 2.3.3

Why is “Home Team” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “crude material, language and some suggestive references.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes flirting, an implied invitation for sex, a kiss between adults, several scenes of football violence with slamming and throwing opponents of differing sizes, some practice sequences with loud thuds and grunts, a house fire, several arguments, reports of a scandal that cost a coach his job with the NFL, and some strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Based on actual events: the head coach (Kevin James) of the New Orleans Saints is suspended after Super Bowl XLIV, because of the Bountygate scandal. Divorced as well, he returns to his hometown and begins coaching his 12-year-old son’s (Tait Blum) Pop Warner football team. Also with Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider and Jackie Sandler. Directed by Charles Kinnane & Daniel Kinnane. [Running Time: 1:35]

Home Team SEX/NUDITY 2

 – A woman flirts with a man, standing close, batting her eyes and asking him to run drills on her; he goes to her house later in the week for dinner and when she asks him to stay for breakfast he sneaks out. A man and a woman kiss briefly. A preteen boy smiles as a preteen girl blows a kiss to him from the stands.
► A 12-year-old boy stares at a girl in stadium stands several times, and serenades her one evening in a front yard (he finds out that he is at the wrong house).
► A man looks at a cell phone screen that we cannot see and says that there is a picture “mid-birth” and another man says, “look at the tiny head”; the first man says the mother would not appreciate the photo being shown around. A man says his wife is pregnant.
► Several middle school boys swim in a hotel pools (bare chests and abdomens are seen).

Home Team VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – Members of a middle school football team called Porcupines, and are as big as high-schoolers, chant “Stick ’em” many times and their coach insults and taunts the opposing team’s coach in several scenes; members slam smaller opponents to the ground hard, pick some of them up and throw them several yards more than once and a few boys lie on the ground for several seconds (there are no injuries).
► A house catches fire at night and a burning tree falls onto a car in the driveway and the scene ends (we hear nothing more about the fire).
► During a middle school football game in a muddy downpour, all members of one team projectile vomit mass quantities of yellow material several times, including into a referee’s face (he wipes his tongue off with his fingers); goo hits opponents, who grimace and back up quickly as spectators gasp. Several scenes show a boys’ football team exercising, tackling, blocking, and falling (no one is hurt); one boy is knocked down by a ball but seems to be fine, and another boy says, “My body hurts.”
► A man holds a blocking bag and laughs at the boys, and a coach kicks the bag and causes the man to fall backward, but without injury. In several scenes, a boy kicks for a field goal, but the ball hits another boy’s buttocks and the boy shouts in pain. A boy kicks a ball into the scoreboard, which sparks and flashes into several seconds of fireworks, but no one is hurt. A man grabs and struggles with a young man who pulled a sports visor off a third man. A man falls off a bleacher seat but is not injured.
► A bus driver tells middle school riders that he played in a football game while injured and ill, and went home to save his mother after a heart attack. A coach complains of jock itch and a bad back in a couple of scenes. We hear that an NFL coach was suspended when a scandal showed that his team owners paid players to injure opposing players; we see a few TV newscasts that criticize and blame the coach. Lyrics in a background song for a middle school football game state that the singer has a meth lab and has a trigger finger in his pocket. At a team practice, two coaches and a few middle school boys joke about being shot.
► Several scenes include crowds of fans cheering at football games. A few scenes include fathers of middle school players shouting angrily at coaches. From another bleacher, a man calls out, “Snap his neck!” Two men argue in a few scenes. A man belittles a female secretary and shouts at a man on the phone.
► A man cracks what he thinks is a hard-boiled egg on a desk, but it is raw and slime pours on the desk. A woman sitting in bleachers lifts her sleeveless arms, smells her armpit, and grimaces. A man smells another man’s neck to see what cologne he wears.

Home Team LANGUAGE 3

 – 6 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 13 mild obscenities, name-calling (dumb, dummy, old, wussy, fancy man, Big Time), exclamations (shut-up, wow, hey, whoa, man, arghh), 7 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, thank God). | profanity glossary |

Home Team SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man that we hear has a drinking problem and lost his driver’s license drinks from a sports water bottle in a dozen scenes claiming it is for his complexion (it is implied to contain alcohol), a man falls off a bike, falls into a table, breaks it and then stumbles on the sidelines of football games (presumably inebriated), a man pours liquor from a carafe into a glass below the frame and does not drink, a man in a bar receives a tall cocktail and asks for a bottle of beer instead (he does not drink), two men sit with four beer bottles and do not drink, a woman pours two glasses of wine and sips from one of them, and a man says he was drinking a Scotch at home (we do not see this). Several middle school boys eat a “super roll” energy bar and projectile vomit (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).

Home Team DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Contact sports, overly-competitive attitudes, toughening up boys, cheating, sarcasm, violence, addiction, Buddhism, vegan lifestyle, suspension from work, starting over, changing attitudes, finding purpose, leadership of youth sports, confidence, taunting/bullying, fear, courage, sacrifice, patience, determination, overcoming obstacles.

Home Team MESSAGE

 – Winning is not everything. Meeting challenges builds character and success in both adults and youth.