The Draw Play is a webcomic about American Football by artist, New York Giants fan, and self-proclaimed nerd Dave Rappoccio, started in its current form in 2012. Three times a week, it takes a satirical look at figures and current events in the National Football League, often through the lens of a football fanatic who's played just a few too many video games for his own good.
Read up on the gridiron follies here
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The Draw Play contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Browns fans are depicted as drinking copious amounts of alcohol to cope with the Browns being terrible for so long.
- Appeal to Worse Problems: Parodied. A man in a bar complains about his wife leaving him, him being fired, his home being foreclosed on, his car being torched by guys he owes money to, and gambling his life savings to pay for cancer treatments. When the guy next to him says he is a Browns fan, the first guy offers the fan a drink.
- The Aristocrats: Dave compares both the Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns to being their front offices enacting a live version of "The Aristocrats". The Aristoskins also references it in comic form, rather than just in the writeup. It's about how much Dan Snyder has screwed up the Washington team in the form of a "The Aristocrats" joke and is probably the grossest that The Draw Play has made in true "The Aristocrats" fashion.
- Author Avatar: Dave draws himself in multiple comics as a New York Giants fan with brown hair, glasses, and Eli Manning's number 10 jersey.
- Cargo Ship: In-Universe, Sean Peyton and the Lombardi Trophy, apparently.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Roger Goodell and Jed York are often depicted as such. Dan Snyder is also this and got escalated to the point where he's a full-on Card-Carrying Villain that takes his moped off to hell in his final appearance.
- Driven to Suicide: Philip Rivers, every time Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning rub in his lack of Super Bowl rings. Also despairing Bills and 49ers fans, amongst others, if things are going poorly. When the Giants traded Odell Beckham Jr. to the Cleveland Browns, Dave himself
stuck his head in an oven.note - Due to the Dead: Dave has made comics memorializing key figures in the NFL who have died, namely former players Junior Seau and Jared Lorenzen, coaches Buddy Ryan and Dennis Green, and Buffalo Bills superfan Pancho Billa. He also broke from the regular football-related sports themes to address the passing of his father.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: A Falcons fan gives all the reasons why the Falcons shouldn't trade Julio Jones to a Giants fan wearing a Odell Beckham jersey, who just looks at him before the Falcons fan realizes.
- Fun Size: Russell Wilson is depicted as this due to his unusually short stature.
- Kyler Murray now, as well.
- Gag Penis: Nick Foles, from his nickname of "Big Dick Nick". To prove the point, after his trade from the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Chicago Bears, he is able to sign the Bears' contract from his previous home in Jacksonville, over 800 miles/1300 km away.
- Ho Yay: In-Universe, due to Sanity Slippage caused by the offseason, Manti Te'o and Tim Tebow meet and bond over their shared struggles. It ends up in an Kissing Discretion Shot.
- Literally Shattered Lives: The poor Bills fans that were waiting for their team to arrive in this comic.
- Manchild: Joe Flacco. Jed York has usually been depicted with a pacifier in his mouth.
- Money, Dear Boy: The In-Universe point of the Fort Elite Moneys/Money Island running gag.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Sean Payton is on the receiving end of 70 punches and kicks to the face after having 70 points dropped on his team.
- Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: The title of a comic about Aaron Rodgers possibly being homosexual.
- Obviously Evil: Bill Belichick and Roger Goodell.
- Pants-Positive Safety: After Aqib Talib shot himself in the leg due to this, he gets a visit in the hospital from his new best friend, Plaxico Burress.
- Piss-Take Rap: Implied about Nick Foles' rap attempt; the last panel has two Rams players incinerating all copies of Foles' EP and agreeing to Let Us Never Speak of This Again.
- Precious Puppy: Every year before the Super Bowl, there's a tribute to the Puppy Bowl with a puppy themed comic.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: The Hall of Fame game's comedy of errors were what actually happened to cancel it. Dave drew it because he couldn't come up with anything funnier than what actually happened.
- Running Gag: Oh, so many. They include, but are not limited to:
- The phrase "Sexy Rexy" (i.e. Rex Grossman) hidden in each comic, Al Hirschfeld style (this practice has since been discontinued).
- Peyton Manning's forehead getting bigger with each appearance.
- Russell Wilson is three inches tall.
- Fort Elite Moneys/Money Island adding a new member every time a player gets a large contract.
- Jay Cutler is usually drawn as a Care Bear, but is called "Don't Care Bear", because of his famous lack of caring. During the year he was with the Dolphins, he was the "Don't Care Dolphin".
- "The Scream" Parody: Edvard Munch's "The Scream" painting is parodied with his comic "I Scream" about Odell Beckham's trade to the Browns.
- Serial Escalation: The Fort Elite Moneys/Money Island running gag started as a way for Joe Flacco to avoid eating his dinner, and has grown to a quest to challenge the money gods (who are NBA players). Said quest leads to the players launching into space, colonizing the moon, and staging a mutiny, before Patrick Mahomes finally defeated the money gods.
- Shipper on Deck: What is revealed to be the reason that Robert Kraft backed down from fighting Deflategate so quickly; Roger Goodell found out he was "In the shipping business", having found out Kraft was shipping various football players in Fan Fiction.
- Shout-Out: Oh, so very many. A few examples:
- Super Bowl 48 as a scene from Aliens
- What happens when you release Machamp Bailey.
- What if the major figures of Westeros were football players and staff?
- Doesn't 49ers coach Jim Tomsula look an awful lot like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force?
- John Elway Gets drawn as Bojack Horseman
- "This Week on Days of our Steelers" continues a joke started by UrinatingTree.
- "I Scream" is a reference to Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream", after the Giants traded Odell Beckham Jr. to the Browns.
- "Weekend at Andrew's" is done like
Weekend at Bernie's, a week before Luck did retire. - Matt Schaub and Phillip "Ringless" Rivers both commit suicide by grabbing onto some high-voltage wires like Frank Grimes in The Simpsons
- Super Bowl 48
- Self-Deprecation: Rappoccio is not afraid to lampoon how testy he gets not having football during the offseason.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Johnny Manziel, to LeBron James.
- Soccer-Hating Americans: Dave's mentioned a few times how he finds soccer dull and boring and he dislikes tie games, naming that as one of the big reasons he dislikes soccer.
- Stopped Caring: Jay Cutler.
- Stylistic Suck: Dave's comic on the demise of the Alliance of American Football pokes fun at the league's financial troubles by having the comic quality deteriorate as the comic goes on.
- Suicide as Comedy: When Dave's Author Avatar and a group of concerned citizens ask a suicidal man on the roof of a building if he wants to see the day controversial sports commentator Colin Cowherd is taken off the air, the suicidal man replies that jumping off means that he could stop listening to Cowherd sooner. Cue the entire group on the ledge, ready to jump off on Dave's signal.
- Take That!: Oh, so very very many, whether it's the New York Jets (rivals of the Giants, of whom Rappoccio is a fan) for being a bad team, Joe Buck for being robotic, or Aaron Hernandez for being a murderer.
- Totem Pole Trench: Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson engage in this to sneak on a roller coaster. It doesn't end well.
- Unfortunate Implications: In-Universe, it's frequently pointed out how creepy the Combine is, likening it to a modeling show or a slave auction.
- Visual Pun: Roger Goodell literally sweeps the issues brought up by Chris Borland and Ray Rice under the rug.
