NFL team channels the true Sims player experience of stranding its rivals in a pool

Several Sims wearing modded footbal jerseys wave while stranded in a pool

(Image credit: Video by Los Angeles Chargers)

Making goofy Sim versions of your rivals to enact a little digital revenge upon them is such a universal experience that now even an American football team has done it. This week a bunch of NFL teams released videos to announce their schedule for the 2024 season and, as I've just learned is tradition, they've had a bit of fun with it. The Kansas City Chiefs did their take on those hydraulic press videos—crushing the competition, get it?—the Jacksonville Jaguars did a classic superhero cartoon-style animation of defeating all their challengers, and the Los Angeles Chargers made an entire video using The Sims 2.

And it's long, like an entire three and a half minute roast. The jerseys are all a nod to other teams but, presumably due to trademark reasons, are blurred out and don't actually have any logos but you get the gist. There's a dig at a Raiders player donning clown makeup, a reference to the Kelce brothers' podcast and Taylor Swift showing up to call Travis Kelce away. A Broncos fan gets the choice to wish for better uniforms or a quarterback. It's clearly a lot of inside jokes for football fans that are lost on me, but there's a bit of classic Sims torture too.

A Sim chooses whether to "wish for franchise QB" or "wish for good uniforms" — (Image credit: Video by Los Angeles Chargers)

It starts out by dumping a bunch of Sims wearing other team jerseys into a pool and deleting the ladder. Which, sure, is an outdated method of murdering unwanted Sims but was totally a thing in The Sims 2. We all drowned a few Sims, back in the day. There's a fella in the Bengals section getting swallowed up by a carnivorous cow plant and a Buccaneer dancing during a kitchen fire that I'd be willing to guess is about to turn fatal. That's the classic trio of Sim murders.

Of course it's all pretty doctored up with custom posters and team banners to sell the gags. I'm curious whether someone actually slapped together some texture replacement mods for the game or if most of this was done with video editing. I choose to believe that someone in the Chargers organization got really into the weeds of Sims custom content.

Welcome to life simming, Chargers creative team. I can relate to the struggle of a disorganized Sims 4 mods folder.

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.