The Paper Lion is About to Get Creamed

Paper Lion is a 1968 sports comedy film starring Alan Alda as writer George Plimpton, based on Plimpton's 1966 nonfiction book of the same name depicting his tryout with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League. The film premiered in Detroit on October 2, 1968 and was released nationwide the week of October 14, 1968

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars of a possible four, writing, "I don't know what to make of 'Paper Lion' as a movie -- it will not be immortal, I guess -- but as wish fulfillment, it's crackerjack."[3]
In a 2012 piece in The New Yorker, written upon the release of the documentary Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, Plimpton's son Taylor criticized Alda's performance. "Alda's version was always angry or consternated, like a character in a Woody Allen film, while my dad, though he certainly faced hurdles as an amateur in the world of the professional, bore his humiliations with a comic lightness and charm—much of which emanated from that befuddled, self-deprecating professor's voice