The full spot, beat by beat, with frames in the locked style. A single-person journey: Marcus alone with the booklet, the narrator on V.O. Cast and look locked on the character & look board. Companion cut: "Plain Language" (the faster translation version).
▸ Listen: Narrator V.O. (scratch)ElevenLabs · "Sterling" · 0:43 · full Script A narration
0:00–0:08
Cold Open — The Delivery
Ext. Front Door — Morning · three cuts
“Your NFL pension. Written in plain language.”
Shot 1a · A mail carrier two-hands it onto the doormat. THUD.Shot 1b · Marcus opens the door. Looks down. Coffee in hand.Shot 1c · Insert: "NFL Player Pension Plan — written in plain language."
A uniformed MAIL CARRIER strains a comically enormous document onto the doormat like a bag of concrete. THUD. Regular mail lands gently beside it. MARCUS opens the door, coffee in hand, and looks down at it. Beat.
SFX: one heavy paper THUD. Birds. Nothing else.
Narrator (V.O.)
"Your NFL pension. Written, and I'm quoting, in plain language."
0:08–0:16
The Avalanche
Int. Living Room · static wide
“Plain language.”
Shot 2 · Hard cut: chest-deep, unmoved, blinking slowly.
“Plain language.”
Shot 2 ALT · Dialed back: table-level chaos, one sheet mid-air, same deadpan. Use this if the full avalanche reads too big.
MARCUS (retired after three seasons) opens the booklet. Hard cut: he is chest-deep in a landslide of paper, expression unmoved, blinking slowly. Single sheets still drifting down. Pages read "SSA OFFSET," "FORM 4506."
SFX: one soft paper-slide. Then silence.
Marcus
(flat)
"Plain language."
0:16–0:28
Gag One
Int. Living Room · locked-off wide
Term card: "Pension Expansion Player"
“It is not... whatever this is.”
Shot 3 · A slow double-bicep flex, held, dead serious.
Marcus, dead serious, hits a slow double-bicep flex. Holds it. Stares into middle distance.
Narrator (V.O.)
(dry)
"A Pension Expansion Player is a benefits category. It is not... whatever this is."
Fact on screen
3+ seasons before vesting rules? You may still qualify.
0:28–0:40
Gag Two
Int. Bathroom · static frame
Term card: "Whole Person Evaluation"
“The scale can’t help you, Marcus.”
Shot 4 · The gravity of a man at the gallows. The scale is silent.
Marcus steps onto a tiny bathroom scale with the gravity of a man at the gallows. Sucks in. Looks down. The scale is silent.
Narrator (V.O.)
"The whole-person evaluation is a disability review. The scale can't help you, Marcus."
Fact on screen
Disability benefits have their own review process.
0:40–0:55
Gag Three
Int. Living Room · camera at floor level
Term card: "Legacy Floor"
“Nobody is under the rug.”
Shot 5 · Solemnly lifting the corner of the rug. Nothing.
Marcus on hands and knees, flashlight on, solemnly lifting the corner of a rug. Peers under. Nothing.
Marcus
(whispering)
"...hello?"
Narrator (V.O.)
"The Legacy Floor is a minimum payment. Nobody is under the rug."
Fact on screen
Legacy Floor = guaranteed minimum monthly check ($600 floor for pre-'93 era players).
0:55–1:15
The Turn
Int. Kitchen · single
“That’s it?” — “That’s it.”
Shot 6 · One index card falls out of six hundred pages. Long beat.
Marcus tips the giant booklet and ONE index card slips out onto the table. It reads: "3 SEASONS = VESTED. IT'S YOURS. FOREVER." He reads it. Long beat. He nods once, quietly moved.
Marcus
(soft)
"That's it?"
Narrator (V.O.)
"That's it."
Narrator (V.O.)
"Three credited seasons. The pension's yours, they can't take it back. Checks start at 55. Played before '93? Forty-five."
1:15–1:25
The Payoff
Int. Kitchen · same static frame
“Ohh. That’s my pension.”
Shot 7 · One confetti burst. He does not react.
Same static kitchen frame. From offscreen, a single burst of confetti drifts over the two of them, who do not react at all. Marcus holds a normal-sized check and examines it approvingly.
Marcus
"Ohh. That's my pension."
1:25–1:30
End Card
Shield-navy card · clean type
Check your Credited Seasons.
nflplayerbenefits.com · 800.638.3186
Music: sparse. A single patient piano, or nothing, until the turn. Then warm and restrained. The deadpan carries it.
Read notes. Shots 3–5 are the interchangeable runner; cut one for a :60. Term cards, fact strips, and the end card are motion graphics, not generated frames. Marcus is locked from Aaron’s footage; the spot is a single-person journey (host cut, narrator V.O. only). Any on-frame prop text (index card, page headers) is placeholder and gets fixed in the anchor pass. The white supers burned into the frames above are layout comps of the on-screen type — final supers get set in the card system’s condensed face. AI frames are a look target, not production stills.
