Netflix’s ‘Receiver’ Will Have You Begging For Football Season to Get Here

Stephen Douglas | Jul 11, 2024

Deebo Samuel and George Kittle. / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

Receiver, the aptly named Netflix show about receivers, has arrived on Netflix. An Omaha Productions companion series to last year's Quarterback, this year's show features George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Davante Adams and Justin Jefferson. It's basically the same thing as the original, but that doesn't matter. It's football. It's been months since we've had it. Within about 60 seconds you'll be ready for football season.

That's really all it takes. A few seconds of NFL Films-quality footage narrated by Peyton Manning and you're ready for summer to end. I was ready for the NFL to return before Randy Moss even showed up less than a minute into the first episode. And I've only seen the first episode, but that was more than enough.

I only meant to watch a couple minutes to check it out and kill a little time. All of a sudden the credits were rolling.

Skip training camp. Take me straight to a Thursday night in September.

This year George Kittle seems like the early favorite to see a big bump in popularity from the show. Within minutes he seemed 47% less annoying than the average professional wrestling fan. By the time his wife —former Iowa women's basketball player Claire Till — loads his friends and family on a party bus for the first game, you're starting to like Kittle, who once went to see Bruno Mars in Las Vegas with Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Juszczyk and Kirk Cousins?

The same goes for Deebo Samuel, who is suddenly revealed as a big teddy bear of a dad. By the time you're done with the series the 49ers might be the most popular team in football again.

Did you know Amon-Ra St. Brown's dad was a Mr. Universe? If you didn't you can now file that fact away like St. Brown did the names of all the wide receivers taken before him in the draft.

And we haven't even met Adams or Jefferson yet.

I almost don't want to finish the show because all it will do is remind me of how far we are from actual football. You like to think you're better than counting down the days to football season and yet here we are.

Football is obviously a year-round sport at this point, even if we need a few docuseries to stretch it out. Between this series and the various editions of Hard Knocks, there's plenty of content to keep fans occupied, if not satiated. The highlights, the debate shows, the free agent talk and fantasy football... it's all just filler to get you to the actual games, which remain some of the the only truly communal experiences we have.

And maybe that's what we're really missing? When you hang out with actual people the conversation inevitably turns to watch you've been watching. There are a dozen different streaming services to choose from. Each one is adding new viewing options nonstop. Everyone is watching different things at different times and at different paces.

Not football. It's on Thursday and Sundy and Monday and Christmas and some Saturdays. And everyonen is watching. Especially the sickos going behind the scenes of the previous season on Netflix in July. It may be all we've got for now, but it's still pretty good.