A Bills Love Story’ Is Full Of Football Fun, And Much More

Andre Reed wasn’t the least bit nervous about his role in the Hallmark movie Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story.

Reed, not an actor by trade, was a wide receiver for the Bills for 15 seasons, and now has a part in the new movie about his former team.

In the film, the Quinns and DeLucas have lived next door to each other for decades in the shadow of Highmark Stadium – the home of their beloved Buffalo Bills.

With their longtime friendship rooted in being proud members of Bills Mafia, the two clans have enjoyed cherished traditions that revolve around cheering for their favorite team – especially at the holidays when they celebrate the last home game before Christmas.

Pediatric doctor Morgan Quinn and the Bills’ VP of Stadium Development Gabe DeLuca have been lifelong friends, but Gabe has always held a torch for her – a fact obvious to their families and everyone else who crosses their path.

When Morgan learns from her Uncle Tommy that someone anonymously helped her family get by after he was drafted more than 60 years ago – and that he continues to receive a Christmas gift from the individual each year to this day – she decides to find her uncle’s benefactor and give him a Christmas he’ll always remember.

Holland Roden and Matthew Daddario star as Morgan and Gabe, while the cast includes Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos), Tracy Pollan (Law & Order: SVU), Caroline Aron (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Steve Schirripa (The Sopranos), and Patti Murin (Mystic Christmas).

The movie is also chock full of cameos that include Bills coach Sean McDermott, current players Ray Davis, Damar Hamlin, Dion Dawkins, Dawson Knox, Reid Ferguson, DeWayne Carter, and Josh Palmer, as well as former players Jim Kelly, Steve Tasker, Thurman Thomas, Scott Norwood, and Reed.

As Reed, Thomas and Norwood finished a scene together, Reed says that he wasn’t nervous at all appearing in the film. He laughs as he proclaims, “Well, I’ve done a bunch of other acting gigs.” Then he proudly declares with a wide grin, “I do have my screen actors guild card.”

Thomas admits that he wasn’t in it so much for the on-screen time but rather because he was excited to reunite with his teammates, saying, “What makes this fun is that we were around each other for 13 years, so we’ve grown to know each other very, very well, and we know how to just been funny with each other, and how to make each other laugh, and in doing that, make everyone around us laugh.”

“And everyone will see that in this move,” adds Reed.

“Yeah, they’ll be laughing at us,” Thomas retorts, to which Reed responds, “Maybe at us, or maybe with us. No matter, we just like to make everyone laugh, and we’re doing that in this for sure.”

As for why this particular NFL team should be in the spotlight, Norwood says, “I mean, we are the Buffalo Bills, and we do have a great story as a team with our great fans, and people want to hear about it.”

Then Thomas jumps in to make an audacious statement about the team, saying, “When we win the Super Bowl, which we will in the next year or two, it will be the biggest celebration ever.”

Circling back to the movie, coming from a sports family, Roden says that she was excited from the jump to be in a football film. “We grew up with a game on TV in our house all the time, so when this came along, I thought, ‘this is so close to what my family is like,’ that I just knew I had to do it.”

Roden points out that she believes the film has ‘a sort of Silver Linings Playbook feel.’ In that, “It’s like that East Coast, tight knit family always that’s always kind of ragging on each other, finishing each other’s’ sentences, and using some self-deprecating humor all the time.”

Daddario was thrilled that a portion of the movie was actually going to be shot on the Bills at Highmark Stadium. The facility is set to close at the conclusion of the current 2025 NFL season and will be replaced by a new Highmark Stadium across the street.

“It was just awesome to film in the stadium,” says Daddario. He explains that casting put out a call for background actors and the city, ‘really showed up.’

“They asked for people to come in full Bills gear and we got to the stadium and there were thousands of people. It was just incredible to see because they were so enthusiastic,” he says.

In addition to shooting at the stadium, a portion of Buffalo was turned into a winter streetscape, and when background actors filled that area, Roden says, ‘it really felt like a big block party — with a holiday theme.’

As for the narrative, Roden says that there is ‘a lot of storylines going on at one time.’

“There are so many little arcs within each storyline that things really move every moment of the movie,” she says,

“And a big part of it is this the mystery that sends Morgan and Gabe on their journey. There are a lot of twists and turns to that,” says Daddario.

Much like Thomas making his bold prediction that the current Bills team will in the Super Bowl soon, Daddario declares, “This movie is the kind of film that I think will appeal to everyone because it’s got humor, a ton of great actors, there’s the football stuff, with the bonus of all these players in it, plus a mystery, and it has a ton of holiday goodness in it too. I guarantee there’s something for everyone.”

Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story premieres: Saturday, November 22^nd at 8/7c on Hallmark Channel, and also for streaming on Hallmark+ after the premiere.