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Lenovo’s Fantasy Football Mockumentary Is Back, and It’s Awesome

Everyone who competes in an office fantasy football league dreams of being Brad Blevins. Blevins is the lead character of “Tough Season,” a fantasy football mockumentary created by The Onion for Lenovo that debuted last September. It had a well-crafted premise: a cocky fantasy owner, Brad Blevins, competing in an office fantasy football league while “coaching” the NFL players on his team in surreal fashion. It was a razor-sharp lampoon of Hard Knocks and NFL Films documentaries, and the eight-episode series earned a total of 13.5 million views. Now Blevins is back, championship in hand, for Season 2, the first episode of which was released on Thursday.

Tough Season 2 – Episode 1: A Quest to Repeat

There’s a lot to like already, including Blevins doing a blatant parody of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (which might not be that much of a parody), Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck chucking passes to an invisible receiver, and this perfect deadpan quote from Broncos wide receiver Wes Welker: “I’ve been working on my intangibles. Grit. Hustle. Thinking tall. Just wanting it more. Also, catching touchdowns for points. I’m not an alien. I know how fantasy football works.” Kevin Berman, the director of advertising and marketing services at Lenovo, told Digiday: “This season is all about learning from our successes last year, as well as experimenting with ideas that we weren’t able to execute in the first season.” The NFL star power—which includes Luck, Welker, Matt Forte, Alfred Morris, A. J. Green, Mason Crosby, and Doug Flutie—doesn’t hurt either. “All of us players really enjoyed shooting the series and working with the very funny writers at The Onion,” Luck said in a press release. “Fans still remind me about my fake championship-game locker room speech from last year! I can’t give away what happens this season… but I can tell you that it involves multiple hula skirts and a pretty sweet music video.” That music video, “Cheeseburgers in a Coconut,” was also released on Thursday.

Tough Season: Cheeseburger In A Coconut (Brought to you by Lenovo)

It’s supremely bizarre and seems to be confusing the hell out of many YouTube commenters, which can happen when Alfred Morris is surfing on a fish and Andrew Luck is floating through space in a cheesy ’80s-style music video. It’s a sign that Lenovo is letting the writers let their imaginations run wild. Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 1.04.32 PM The 13-episode second season will also feature some meta-branding, since Blevins earned a fictional role as Lenovo spokesperson after winning the championship. He brags that he’s making $750—for the whole season. Here’s betting that Lenovo gets a nice return on the investment.

Image by Lenovo/The Onion

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