The Sopranos had a lot to say about morality, family and the anti-heroes that have become commonplace in the years since Tony Soprano first showed up in therapy.
HBO’s greatest offering ran across nearly a full decade and gave the world 86 episodes to contemplate how much everyday evil we can live with. It painted awful people in shades of gray. It took seeds planted by The Godfather and Goodfellas and allowed them to blossom into one of the most compelling television shows ever broadcast.
It also had zero awareness about how football worked.
One of the family’s many illicit streams of revenue came from its sports books (sadly, we’ll never get to hear Little Carmine rail against “Fan Kings” or whatever malapropism he’d apply to legalized wagering). In multiple situations, main characters lost money because the writers behind them seemed to have no idea how football teams operate on the field.
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This persisted even after one of the NFL’s most recognizable veterans joined the cast. Tony Siragusa, who passed away Wednesday, played a bit role in The Sopranos as Frankie Cortese, one of Tony’s drivers and bodyguards across a four-episode stint in season five. But even his presence couldn’t convince the folks behind the scenes into writing a football (betting) sequence that made logical sense.
This has been bothering me for years. Now we’re gonna talk about it.