Eddie wants to join the football team despite Jessica forbidding him to try out. Emery learns Evan will be in middle school with him. Louis battles with Kenny Roger's right-hand man over changes at the steakhouse.
- Brick Joke: When Eddie first asks Jessica if he can try for the football team, Jessica immediately forbids it, not wanting one of her sons to get concussed. Later, when Eddie convinces another student (Max Chestnut, AKA Matthew's son) to take his place in the team, the lie gets revealed when the other student gets concussed.
- Call-Back: When Emery initially blames Evan skipping a grade and joining him in middle school for turning him into The Jinx, Evan points out that his bad luck had actually started earlier in the year, such as how they once again failed to visit the World's Biggest Peanut.
- Grade Skipper: Evan skipped a grade in order to join Emery in middle school.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Eddie's decision to join the football team is motivated by seeing his girlfriend Alison surrounded by footballers on their first day of high school, with the athletes offering to throw Eddie in the trash if he's bothering Alison and Alison herself saying that she'll be spending a lot of time with the team and Eddie should make room for them at their lunch table now that she's joined the school's band.
- The Jinx: Emery's had notable good luck in the past, but turns into one of these due to (according to Grandma) the Chinese year corresponding to his birth animal, constantly injuring himself and accidentally destroying anything Evan has him hold.
- Liar Revealed: Eddie ends up getting cold feet about football and pays another kid (Matthew Chestnut's son) to pretend to be him on the team in order to impress Alison. The façade falls apart when the guy gets concussed during practice and they take his helmet off, leading to Alison breaking up with Eddie for assuming she was shallow enough to leave him for a football player (but at least he gets his old friends back when they feel sorry for him).
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Matthew Chestnut, Michael Bolton's "left-hand man" (because Michael is always right), tries to enforce changes at Cattleman's that Louis is against (such as the new Overly Long Name and getting rid of a taxidermized bear), only relenting when he's preoccupied by news of his son's concussion.
- Overly Long Name: Louis' business is still called "Kenny Roger's Michael Bolton's Cattleman's Ranch" at the start of this episode, as Kenny takes his rivalry with Michael very seriously. It's shortened back down to just "Cattleman's Ranch" when Matthew's distracted by his son's injury and lets Louis do whatever he wants.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The A and C plots are directly linked, as Louis' problems are resolved when Matthew Chestnut, Kenny Roger's representative, learns that his son was concussed at football practice and is too distracted to implement the changes Kenny wanted.
