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Kevin Dotson said he didn’t care about the “L.A. stuff” when he learned that the Steelers had traded him to the Rams. But there he was, nearly three years later, hitting the switches on a blue lowrider as he drove away from the Friday house after nailing the scenes in his acting debut.
It doesn’t really get more L.A. than that. However, at the time of the trade, Dotson just wanted to prove to the Rams that they had made the right decision to acquire him, which he did as one of the league’s top guards since arriving in Los Angeles. So, yes, Dotson initially didn’t care about everything Hollywood had to offer, but the mass communications major at Louisiana has always had a creative side, so much so that he’s had an interest in doing voiceover work for quite some time now.
Dotson was an ideal candidate to have a role in the Rams’ popular predraft hype film titled Thursday, which paid homage to the 1995 classic Friday, starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker, the actors who played Craig and Smokey, respectively. The team’s version, shot in front of the house that was used in the original film, was a hit on social media. It generated millions of views in large part because the Rams cast O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Destin Tucker, the sons of the lead actors in Friday, as Craig Jr. and Little Smokey, respectively.
When the team approached Dotson about this project, he assumed he would be cast as Deebo, the hulking neighborhood bully. But Dotson instead portrayed Big Worm, the intimidating drug dealer who doesn’t play around with his emotions and money. Terry Crews, the star of Friday After Next and White Chicks, ended up getting the role of Deebo, originally played by Tommy Lister Jr. In the recreated short film, the “new Deebo” didn’t bully alone, terrorizing the neighborhood with his two “dogs” played by Rams edge rushers Jared Verse and Byron Young. Rapper YG also played the neighbor who doesn’t care about draft picks.
“I feel that was an even cooler role to play,” Dotson says about being Big Worm. “It kind of caught a lot of people off guard on what I could play. … I had so many people call me. So many people hit me up, hit my dad and [family members] up on Facebook. They just kept on sending them the part.”
Dotson should go ahead and return the Screen Actors Guild sign-up sheet he recently received in the mail, because the younger Tucker said many people believed Dotson was the original actor who played Big Worm, the character made famous by Faizon Love.
“They thought that was the real Big Worm,” Tucker says. “I was like, ‘No, that’s the football player, Kevin Dotson.’ That goes to show [the players] did a great job.”
Dotson didn’t expect to become an actor as a member of the Rams, but he’s done a few auditions and is optimistic about landing more roles in the near future.
“I’m trying to get in where I can,” Dotson says.
Rams raise the bar ahead of the NFL’s schedule release day
The Rams have delivered the league’s best piece of content so far in 2026, but they now have to top the Friday-inspired film because Thursday is the ‘creative Super Bowl’, also known as schedule release day. This is typically when the best creative minds from all 32 teams get together to unleash their best work, mainly to generate attention and ticket sales for the upcoming season. But this has also become about bragging rights and seeing which NFL team rosters the superior creative crew.
It was risky for the Rams to use their Friday idea one month before the most important date on the calendar for social media coordinators, graphic designers, photographers, video production editors and others who contribute to creating content for their respective team. But the Rams aren’t feeling the pressure because they want to consistently deliver their best work, not just once a year. Also, the Rams have been front and center in generating eyeballs ahead of the draft, most notably with the unveiling of their luxurious draft house in 2021.
“I like the pressure,” says Marissa Daly, SVP of studios and marketing for the Rams. “There’s always pressure, but I think we, as creatives and people who love football and love working in the industry, are like, ‘Bring it on.’ That’s what makes it fun to be at the Rams. You get the freedom to think big, try big ideas.”
Daly said they held the Friday idea for a few years and were waiting for the right time and setting to move forward. Recreating the iconic film likely wouldn’t have worked if it were done around the schedule release. For last year’s creative Super Bowl, L.A. had one of the better videos, which featured actress and passionate Rams fan Brenda Song dropping game dates as a comedic TV anchor.
“It’s one of those things where I’m actively searching for myself in whatever they [the Rams’ creative team] do,” Dotson says. “I just want to see, ‘Are they going to put me in there?’ … I feel like all the teams get really creative when it comes down to it. They have their own competition between the teams.”
Now, the Rams wouldn’t say whether they plan on using actors for the 2026 schedule announcement video—because that’s top secret, of course. But if they plan to work with more actors in the future, Destin Tucker would gladly raise his hand to be involved with the next creative project.
Proud fathers approve of Rams’ Friday-inspired film
When Tucker first heard about the Rams’ interest in having him play the role of Little Smokey, he had to contain his excitement because he wanted to make sure his father was on board with the idea.
“I just ran it past my dad, and once I had his blessing, I was gung ho about it,” Tucker says. “It definitely wasn’t a right-off-the-bat type thing. He was like, ‘Hmm, let me think about it.’ We both prayed about it, and really thought about it, and once we both were cool with it,he helped me train for it. It was surreal getting this opportunity and recreating what my dad and also Ice Cube created in the ’90s.”
The coaching paid off because Tucker sounded and acted just like his father, the legendary actor who starred inRush Hour and Money Talks. Then again, the younger Tucker said his family members have always told him he has the same mannerisms and sounds just like his father, even in different tones, including the super-energetic, high-pitched voice.
Chris Tucker wrote on social media that he was proud of his son and shared the Thursday video to his millions of followers. Ice Cube also expressed how proud he was of his son’s role in the film. Surprisingly, Destin Tucker and O’Shea Jackson Jr. had never met until they were on set to record with the Rams.
“We met on set and literally, like, five, 10 minutes later, it was cameras up, action, we were on it.” Tucker says. “It was really cool. O’Shea is awesome. It was great to work with him. … It was surreal being on that same porch, talking to him. It was like we stepped into the TV screen watching the movie.”
Tucker praised the Rams for making this idea come to life and running an operation that resembled the set of a Hollywood blockbuster film. Daly said Rams employees shot and directed the near four-minute video and hired a production team to assist with the visuals and other aspects. Plenty occurs behind the scenes, too. The Rams made sure to get permission from Warner Bros. to produce the Friday-like film. Last year, the Colts had to apologize to Microsoft (and Tyreek Hill) for not getting the proper rights to have their schedule release video resemble the popular game Minecraft.
“I’m blown away by all their past projects,” Tucker said about working with the Rams. “They truly go all out. The L.A. Rams, they definitely embrace the L.A. side of their production. At this point, I’ve seen it firsthand, like, literally, Hollywood level, full-on budget toward their art. I would love to work with them again, for sure.”
Soon, we’ll find out what the Rams decided on for the theme of their 2026 schedule video, with all 32 schedules being released at 8 p.m. ET Thursday. Regardless of what they do, the team will be huge winners if their short film pushes Chris Tucker to sign on for another Friday film. He didn’t appear in the two other films from the franchise, Next Friday and Friday After Next.
“That was the goal, just to spark something,” Tucker says about his dad. “As a fan of Friday, I want to see them back together [Craig and Smokey] doing their thing. If it’s in the cards for Little Smokey to make an appearance, I’m all for it.”
After all the positive feedback, Friday fans probably wouldn’t mind seeing the Rams create a full-length movie featuring Craig Jr. and Little Smokey.
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GILBERTO MANZANO
Gilberto Manzano is a staff writer covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated. After starting off as a breaking news writer at NFL.com in 2014, he worked as the Raiders beat reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and covered the Chargers and Rams for the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily News. During his time as a combat sports reporter, he was awarded best sports spot story of 2018 by the Nevada Press Association for his coverage of the Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov post-fight brawl. Manzano, a first-generation Mexican-American with parents from Nayarit, Mexico, is the cohost of Compas on the Beat, a sports and culture show featuring Mexican-American journalists. He has been a member of the Pro Football Writers of America since 2017.
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