If the only thing you remember about a Washington football team and replacement players is the 2000 cult classic The Replacements, starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman, it wouldn’t be tough to blame you.
The movie glorifies the group of men tasked with breaking a player’s strike for the Washington Sentinels, the fictitious team in an alternate professional football league, and follows their improbable run of success. What is lesser known is the movie’s direct inspiration, the NFL’s three-week player’s strike during the Redskins’ Super Bowl-winning season in 1987, which doesn’t exactly give off the same Hollywood glow.