Talk:Orlando Breakers

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The Orlando Breakers, of course, were a fictional expansion team in the NFL. The team was owned by an eccentric businesswoman named Doris Sherman (played by Katherine Helmond of the Who's the Boss and Soap series). She inherited the team from her late husband who had recently passed away.

Sherman offered the head coaching job to Hayden T. Fox of Minnesota State University (played by Craig T. Nelson) and he brings Dawber Dybinski (Bill Faggerbakke) and his old pal Luther Van Dam (Jerry Van Dyke) to Orlando with him.

Later in the series, Howard and Shirley Burleigh (Ken Kimmins and Georgia Engel) came to Orlando to visit the Fox's after Howard had been fired as athletic director (and Hayden's former boss) at Minnesota State University. At Hayden's insistence, Doris gives Howard the job of director of media relations for the Breakers.

In the Breakers inaugural season, the team only wins one game. With that comes the first pick in the NFL Draft. Doris meets Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys) who made a cameo appearance. Jones sweet talks Doris into trading the Breakers' first round draft pick for - are you ready for this - a 10,000-acre cattle ranch and six oil wells.

Back in Hayden's office at the stadium; Luther, Hayden, Howard and Bill Keller (Breakers GM played by Todd Sussman) in the closing moments of the episode are all staring at the television with their jaws dropped to the floor. They all had that "How could she have possibly done that?" look on their faces. Fade to black.

Joe Theisman's (the retired Washington Redskins quarterback playing himself as ESPN NFL analyst and NFL Draft program emcee) comment said it all. "Well ... it looks like Jerry Jones has done it again ... and the Breakers ... well, I guess they've done it again too, huh?"

In the second season; by a mere fluke of luck so it seems, the Breakers go to the playoffs. Their wild card playoff game is in Buffalo, N.Y. against the Bills. The entire team got food poisoning from some chicken wings that Luther had obtained for free from a local eatery. On game day, a hurriedly-assembled team of mostly replacements takes the icy field and the Breakers get throttled by the Bills.

The series ends when Hayden and Christine (Shelley Fabares) decide to leave the Breakers and Orlando to return home to Minnesota with their adopted baby son, Tim. Hayden had gotten offers from two other NFL teams (New England and Seattle) plus an offer from the group that wants to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles to become head coach. Doris had offered him an $18 million, five year deal, with options for five more years plus part ownership in the team to stay on with the Breakers.

In the final segment, the voice of Dawber narrates a short segment of what becomes of the show's main characters.

Hayden winds up deciding to turn down everything, an idea which Christine quickly embraces. Hayden had realized his dream of being a pro head coach, telling Christine, as far as coaching goes, "I might go back to it in a couple of years. Hey, I just might coach Tim's Pop Warner league."

Luther follows through with his plans to retire from coaching. As a retirement gift, Doris gives him a look-alike Graceland estate called "Melody Land." Dawber stays on with the Breakers coaching staff and the team goes on to win back-to-back Super Bowls. After that, Dawber joins the Monday Night Football television team.

Doris fires Howard because he was the one who spilled the beans to Hayden about the teams that were interested in luring Hayden away from Orlando. Doris wanted to keep the inquiries from the other teams a secret so Hayden would sign his contract extension to stay in Orlando.

The Burleighs, meanwhile, sell their treasured Barbie doll collection and open a dinner theater in Jupiter, Fla. where they appear nightly.

And so it goes - the Coach storyline goes from the college football setting to the pro football setting - and Hayden quickly discovers that the grass isn't so green in the pros.

The last two seasons of Coach were basically rehashes of earlier storylines. It seemed that the writers were pumping a dry well. We all know that there would be little or no chance that Orlando would ever get a real NFL team; Florida already has three NFL teams. Adding a fourth would be unheard of.