Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, a player’s reputation is on the line.  Can he clear his name, even though all the evidence is stacked up against him?

Episode 2.4 “Quarterbacks Tell No Tales”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 15th, 1986)

T.D. Parker (played by O.J. Simpson) is pissed off!  The normally affable former player is angry that someone is dealing cocaine to the Bulls.  The press and the commissioner both assume that the dealer is rookie quartebrack Tim Yinessa.  (That guy that Yinessa caught searching his room last week?  He was a reporter.)  T.D. isn’t so sure.  He thinks that start quarterback Johnny Valentine (Sam Jones) is responsible for the team’s cocaine problem.  T.D. eventually confronts Johnny and tells him to stop with the drugs.

“25% of this league retires injured,” Johnny says, “You’re proof of that.”

T.D. gets so angry that he proceeds to stab Johnny to death punch Johnny in the chest.  “Welcome to the 25%,” he says.

No, T.D.  Johnny said “retired” players.  Johnny’s not retiring yet.  Anyway, Johnny was so coked up that he probably didn’t even feel the punch.

As for Yinessa, he nearly gets kicked off the team when the real dealer plants some cocaine in his locker.  Luckily, his roommate — Jamie Waldren (Jeff Kaake) — steps forward and confesses that he was the owner of the cocaine that the reporter found in the room.  Diana orders Jamie to go to rehab.  “Sure, I guess,” Jamie replies.

While that’s going on, Dr. Death and Mad Dog Smears continued to harass the rookies by ordering one of them to fake a suicide attempt as a part of a practical joke.  At the bar where they hang out, they also sang a song against urine testing.  I’m not really sure why anyone would want to hang out at the bar, as it seems like the whole place only exists so that Dr. Death and Mad Dog can put on painfully unfunny stage shows.  Dr. Death and Mad Dog also told Yinessa that they would kill him if he agreed to random urine testing in order to prove his innocence.  Personally, I think Dr. Death and Mad Dog should focus on their jobs.  Maybe if they did a better job protecting the other players, T.D. wouldn’t have had to retire.  I mean, you can tell it’s really cutting T.D. apart that he can’t play anymore.

So, Jamie is off to rehap, Yinessa is still on the team, and T.D. didn’t have to kill anyone.  All in all, it was a productive week.  To be honest, it’s difficult to judge this show based on traditional standards of good and bad.  Technically, every episode is bad.  This week, however, was slightly less bad than usual.