CBS has ordered a pilot for Home Game, a sitcom about Mark Schlereth, ESPN analyst and former Broncos/Redskins guard. Why? It's unclear. Here's what Schlereth wrote on his blog: Somebody's a producer! What an unbelievable ride it's been since last July at the ESPY's…That's where it all started, the seminal event if you will, where an idea was born! I was swapping stories with Peter Sussman and Steve Levinson (Leverage) at an ESPY's after party, you know, guy talk, chalk full of false bravado and embellished half truths. We were constantly interrupted by current players with obvious intentions. "Hey Mark, I'm So and So from the whoever I play for," before I could get out the obligatory, " great to meet you So and So," they had already spun a 180 and were spitting out their "A" games at the beautiful young ladies a few feet away…my daughters!!!! Between incessant ribbing from Steve and Peter and breaking up one player's advances toward my smokin hot wife a show idea was born and the rest as they say is history! So, if you didn't follow: two guys from Leverage, Mark Wahlberg's production company, approached Schlereth at an ESPYs afterparty. They had some guy talk. And now there's a sitcom pilot based on his life. He's producing, as are his wife and daughter. The ESPYs are the worst. This pilot is not as heinous as the Colin Cowherd pilot (also being developed for CBS). Rather, it brings us depressingly formulaic bewildered-father-with-teenage-daughters hijinks of which America had tired the moment Just the Ten of Us went off the air. The show is called Home Game, and it's about an NFL player who has retired and who now faces a different kind of home game. You get it? It will be a game, at his home, only it's not football. You see, it's a little game called fatherhood, which is nothing like football, unless you count all the chronic depression. The script was written by Chris Nowak and Warren Bell, who wrote for According to Jim, which somehow ran for eight seasons. I've never seen According to Jim, but one imagines it involves a wife thwarting a father's effort to raise his kids as he sees fit. Let's check with Wikipedia, shall we? [Jim's] sister-in-law Dana frequently teams up with [Jim's wife] Cheryl against Jim. What are the odds? Sort-of-real Mark Schlereth has his wife always on his ass. He's got some banal problems raising his daughters. And it's hard to have an uninterrupted night of family fun… …in this digital age. "Tell me what's really going on in that head of yours." "…The ship is leaking." Maybe this show is a subtle commentary on the years-after-retirement damage that arises from repeated head trauma. Maybe Schlereth is an NFL lineman suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and his ship is leaking. He can't remember things anymore, his motor skills have deteriorated. What a major artistic risk for CBS! He's a football player. He can only think about things in terms of the game he once played and loved, no matter how bad it hurt him. He's trying to parent, but all of his thoughts are spilling out. No, just kidding. It's a show about Mark Schlereth's dick. This pilot needed its two writers: one to write for Schlereth and one to write for Schlereth's dick. Look on my cock, ye Mighty, and despair! Rimshot Hey, TV daughters, do you want to see Mark Schlereth's dick? His wife also calls it his "floppity-flop," because that's how adults talk. So does his youngest daughter. Home Game also has something of a woman problem, making all but one of the show's females attractive in its stage directions. Here's the "petite dynamo" wife. Here are the three "gorgeous" daughters. Here's "Slut #1." Here's the crew from "Busty Cops." Here's the token lesbian, whose boyfriend/beard materializes later in the pilot. The Mark Schlereth Show is setting itself up for some daring social commentary in 2017, when Isabella comes out. And yes, the show will still be on the air. See? Lezzie. Some more cutting-edge social commentary: a woman cannot handle even a position with the local PTA without neglecting her own children, at least in Mark Schlereth's eyes. Laughter. Now wait a second. 2004 was a long time ago, per context. This is 2011, we can assume … … and the character in this show is the Mark Schlereth. Except that Mark Schlereth, offensive lineman, retired from the NFL in 2001, when he was 35 and not 45. The Broncos won their Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999. But the star of this show is Mark Schlereth, who played for the Broncos. Only, he's played by Rob Riggle. You figure out what's true and what's not. Writes Deadline.com's Nellie Andreeva, excerpted on Schlereth's site: With his background as a Marine where he was often deployed and his current profession as an actor where he goes away for filming and touring, Riggle immediately connected with the character in Home Game who is back with his family after years of playing with the pros. You know Rob Riggle. He's in everything—Daily Show, SNL. Anyway, we'll assume it was some flack who drew this connection for Riggle, because: yeesh. Mark Schlereth had eight road games a season. He played for two teams in his career. Rob Riggle, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, served in Liberia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Not quite apples-to-apples here. Maybe apples-to-mortars? The sinister implication is this: This show is basically Major Dad all over again. Here's the token black football player buddy, who may be Terrell Davis, Shannon Sharpe, Rod Smith, or really anyone but Ed McCaffrey. Of course his name would be Byron Smalls. No one scored a 56-yard game-winning touchdown in either Broncos Super Bowl victory. This pilot has more alternate realities and unreliable narrators than Pale Fire. Yes, the "Hot Pot" is the black guy's jacuzzi. But what of high sitcom art, the jokes? That's why we have this running gag involving the Blankenships. Say it in your Turd Ferguson voice: "Yeah, that's right. Bill Blankenship. It's a funny name. Heh." Edgy language in service of a great joke. Too bad Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts" did it better 20 years ago. Aw, fuck it, the writers say. This is just gonna be According to Jim (with a Riggle where the Belushi is supposed to be). But let's be generous and look at Schlereth's show another way: Befuddled and heretofore neglectful father shows his dick to his three hot daughters, indoctrinates them in the gay agenda, and lets them read the rape fantasies of a dirty old man. Tuesdays on CBS! 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