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| Despite what Marge says, that wink could be seen from miles away. |
Its been determined that Springfield's denizens are mostly overweight, especially the children. To combat the latter, parents have their children sign up for pee wee football, including Bart. With Ned Flanders as the coach, he quickly determines that Nelson is by far the best player and as such becomes the team's quarterback. Teaching positive attitudes and such, Flanders has the team on a roll (thanks mostly to Nelson), but Homer at every game takes the opportunity to heckle Flanders whenever possible. Ned reaches a breaking point when Homer throws a can of beer at him. After hearing from Homer that anybody with half a brain could be a better coach, Flanders attempts to test that theory by giving the job to Homer.
As the new coach, Homer is initially strict with Bart, but Marge reminds him of how poorly Homer's father was to him back when he was younger. Promising not to make the same mistake, Homer decides to be nicer to Bart and meaner to Grampa. However, Homer ends up being a little too nice for Bart. Not only is Bart one of the very few to avoid Homer's waves of cuts, Bart is also made the team's quarterback despite how well Nelson has been playing. Sure enough, the next game Bart has no idea to play quarterback and he and his team suffer its first loss in humiliating fashion. Nelson and the others threaten Bart that if he screws up one more game, he's as good as dead.
Bart tries desperately to train, and seems to have fortune on his side when Joe Namath pops in, his car having broke down. Before Namath can actually give any advice, though, his car starts up back, suffering only from vapor lock, and Joe takes his leave. Left no better than before, Bart gets advice from Lisa to fake a devastating injury. Homer buys it the next day, and calls on Nelson, but only to have him pass a forfeiture notice to the ref. Bart has enough, and flat out quits the team, angering Homer enough to cut him as well.
With Nelson back as the team's quarterback, the team goes on a winning streak again (including a victory over Arlen, which upsets a particular yet familiar group of its fans) and reaches the championship game. Homer sees Nelson and the other kids go home with their respective fathers, making him regret what he did to Bart. He finds Bart at the Kwik-E-Mart and apologizes to him for encouraging him. Bart agrees to come back to the team as his original position of tackle.
During the championship game, Nelson is dominating yet again but Chief Wiggum arrives with an arrest warrant for Nelson. Bart, though, is more than willing to fill in for Nelson... in the police car as Bart pretends to be Nelson. The ploy works as Nelson gets the winning score, giving Homer's team the championship. Bart, meanwhile, learns he'll be going to jail for a long time over charges of burglary and arson. Joe Namath warns the audience about vapor lock, and Homer cuts everybody in the credits except for Namath.
Quick Review
The episode starts off a bit slow but picks up when Nelson becomes a focus, as does Homer when he becomes coach of the team. The various things that happen at the end, from Bart taking Nelson's place, Namath's warnings about vapor lock, and the Homer cutting nearly everyone in the credits, give the episode a strong finish.
Final Score: 9.3
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