The idea has been floating around in my head for a couple of years now. Not sure exactly where it started, but there was the jersey (thanks Orlando), and there was the renovation and the lockers being removed, and above all else there was the knowledge that a movie was filmed here (even if it was before my time.) Plus, here in one of those dead offseason periods, the timing worked well.

So we explored what "happened" to Rod Tidwell, 20 years after the release of "Jerry Maguire."

It was fun to put together -- obviously a lot different than everything else I write. The final draft looks little like the original, but that's good. I had some good sounding boards that helped me take out/change parts that would've bogged it down (Sorry Bob Sugar -- you were cut, as was Cardinals GM Dennis Wilburn.) The story is sad, really. What might have been, Plummer-to-Tidwell?