Chad Powers Makes the Case That Glen Powell Is a Comedy Natural

Glen Powell’s mask falls away in the best possible sense in “Chad Powers,” a swift, big-hearted sports comedy that will confirm for his fans what they’ve suspected since his “Scream Queens” years: Hiding under the movie-star finish is a brazen clown who knows how to play in such a way that he never stops being human while landing a late laugh too good to lose. The show molds a moment of viral football weirdness into a full-blooded TV vehicle, and Powell drives it with panache, precision and the willingness to look silly.

Glen Powell Finds the Gay Rom-Com Sweet Spot

Powell is Russ Holliday, a college one-hit wonder whose career unraveled and comes back to the game as walk-on quarterback “Chad Powers.” It’s a twofer performance: Russ is the haunted pragmatist; Chad, now, well, I’m not going to give it away — let’s just say he isn’t evoked so much as embodied. Powell shifts between them with the stealth he demonstrated in “Hit Man” and also with less of a sense of grain-and-care-about-framing loosey-goosiness that feels somehow funnier — helium-tilted voice and facial prosthetics now not so much a gimmick as a launching pad, character-work motor. The result is a comic invention with a heartbeat.

The timing here matters. And while Powell’s rise has been bracketed by box-office bona fides — “Top Gun: Maverick,” on which he worked, cleared $1.4 billion worldwide; “Anyone But You” topped over $200 million across the globe with a small budget; his stint this summer as a tentpole booster helped propel a weather-driven blockbuster to season-defining receipts, according to Comscore — those millions in attendance can’t drown out the waves Powell is making by signing significant offscreen talent. “Chad Powers” argues that those wins weren’t just a matter of charm and jawline; they were the result of control — of tone, rhythm, audience expectation. He deploys that control on television and then gleefully blows it up for laughs.

A Sports Comedy of Redemption That Embraces Second Chances

Co-created by Powell with Michael Waldron (whose own genre-bending stamp from “Loki” is discernible), the series takes its DNA from that Eli Manning undercover walk-on gag and blows it out into a redemption story about second chances and the stories we tell to survive. It traces a popular, populist arc that’s worn comfortably these days by recent sports comedies, while still keeping its humor rowdy and character-first. There are no TED-talk sermons, and the show lets misdirection and mistakes disclose Russ’s shame and hunger.

The writing finds a satisfying rhythm: set pieces spawn from football logistics (practice reps, locker-room politics, small-college recruiting desperation) and topple into farce as Chad’s myth grows ever more inflated. Each lie creates a new constraint, and each one creates a funnier escape room. The result is a lean season that unfolds like a series of two-minute drill comebacks — messy, tight and thrilling.

The Plot-Advancing Prosthetics That Shape the Story

Crucially, the mask isn’t a one-off joke. The pragmatic set-up — a hand-me-down from Russ’s prosthetics-designer pops — drives staging, sight gags and stakes. It’s why Chad dodges post-practice showers, a lake party becomes an act of stealth and a late-night glue run feels like a heist. That attention to craft is a nod to the show’s real-world origins in disguise, and lends it a hands-on, homemade texture. It’s also a stealth homage to below-the-line craftsmanship; the mask is character, not costume.

Sports TV quite often fakes the sport. “Chad Powers” doesn’t. The football resembles reality, the terminology works and (most importantly) the practice rhythms seem realistic. For those keeping score at home, that kind of realness earns the series leeway for its zanier passages. It’s the same bargain that helpfully underpinned “Ted Lasso,” once again, which was on paper an unlikely instant phenomenon and, according to data from Nielsen, became an unusual comedy example of cross-demographic stickiness by treating both game and feelings about it with respect.

An Animated Ensemble Weaves Around the Mask

As the frazzled underdog coach Jake Hudson, Steve Zahn embodies that jittery volatility every under-resourced program understands too well. Perry Mattfeld is Ricky, Jake’s football-lifer daughter — her apparent nepotism (Jake frowns at anyone saying she hasn’t “earned it,” though his tone makes it clear he assumes the opposite) masks actual expertise; a sharp foil for Russ, their scenes have the caffeinated snap of two grinders trying to outrun reputation. Frankie A. Rodriguez swipes laughs as Danny, a mascot with the handbook of a schemer, and Colton Ryan’s relentlessly smiling backup QB turns deadpan faith into an ongoing joke.

If there is a tradeoff, it’s the short run of six episodes. The locker-room chorus teases at an ensemble comedy of side-stories — position battles, NIL hustles, small-town booster machinations — that the season only sketches. The upside: almost no filler. The downside: you can feel the ceiling on a show that so evidently has room to grow.

Why This Series Works as Smart, Crowd-Pleasing Comedy

Three choices cause the series to click.

• It dedicates itself to a ridiculous premise with straight-faced seriousness; nobody winks, and everyone’s playing for keeps.
• It treats football logistics as comedic engines and not mere window dressing.
• It allows Powell to play around and whittle down to his strengths — the improv tangents, the weaponized awkwardness, the instant flip from doofus to dagger.

That mix yields jokes that reward a rewatch and a character you root for despite the fact he’s lying through his veneers.

The Bottom Line on Powell’s Big-Hearted Sports Comedy

“Chad Powers” is not only evidence that Glen Powell can lead a television show: It’s evidence that he is the real thing, a comedy star. The show is agile, specific and delightfully ridiculous — and just serious enough to stick the landing. If the next set of episodes offers a little more air to the ensemble, this could be that rare sports comedy capable of keeping its laughs and league-wide credibility alive at once. For now, call it a confident first down — and a helmet-off audition for Powell’s funniest iteration yet.