Eli and Peyton Manning Star in DirecTV’s ‘Football Cops’

Thursday is the 100th day of the NFL lockout. Some out-of-work footballers took time from their unpaid vacation to try a different kind of football. Others made some extra cash shooting some wonderful branded entertainment for DirecTV.

Professional NFL quarterbacks for the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts, Eli and Peyton Manning play partners Mike Tahoe and C.J. Hunter in this new kind of buddy police drama about a new kind of cop. They’re Football Cops and they fight crime with a Bestie Boys’ Sabotage aesthetic, sports analogies, and stitched together pieces of pigskin in lieu of that suave CSI look, detective work, and handguns.

The series promotes DirecTV and the direct broadcast satellite service provider’s NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows all DirecTV subscribers to see every single NFL game of the season played on Sundays (assuming, of course, there is indeed an NFL season).

The first of three installments of Football Cops

debuted this week and sets up the story. The beautiful Candi LeTrelle (Meghan Beard) is in over her head and tied up after sinking down into the depths of the city’s crime scene. The Football Cops numero uno informant, Lenny Cruise (Walker Hare) finally tells the do-gooders LeTrelle is in trouble and in too deep.

But can Tahoe and Hunter cut through the red tape and defense attorney Orlando Midnight’s (played by Archie Manning and yes, he’s both Eli and Peyton’s pops) line before it’s too late? How many sports euphemisms and metaphors can the writers cram into 180-or-so-second episodes? How does our crime fighting duo comfortably walk around with a fully loaded football holster? And is there a brand left in the world that either one or both of the Mannings have not yet endorsed? Stay tuned and find out only on YouTube and DirecTV.com!