'Mr. Irrelevant' movie tells story of John Tuggle, former Giants player who became an inspiration for 1986 Super Bowl champions

Maybe you saw the Giants in person at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night. Perhaps you watched them on television or listened to them on the radio.

Then again, you may have seen them in action in an unusual and unexpected place on Sunday: A movie trailer.

The preview for “Mr. Irrelevant,” a biopic on the team’s 1983 draft pick John Tuggle who became an inspiration for the 1986 Super Bowl-winning squad (they wore a decal with his number 38 on their helmets during that championship run) premiered on Sunday. It’s available online and can be seen in theaters, too.

The brief glimpse showcases football action scenes that include actors portraying Bill Parcells, Lawrence Taylor, Leonard Marshall, and, of course, Tuggle himself, who is portrayed by the star of 2025’s “Superman,” David Corenswet. Paramount plans to release the full film nationwide on Dec. 25.

Don’t be embarrassed by not recognizing Tuggle’s name among those other Giants luminaries or even having just a vague sense of his folkhero tale. The film’s director, New York native and longtime Giants fan Jonathan Levine, had no idea who he was either before he was handed the script for the project about three years ago.

“I didn’t know anything about John, which is shocking to me,” Levine told Newsday by phone last week. “But when I got the script I fell in love with the character of John, who he was, his sprit, what he represented, and what an amazing life he led. It was that much more exciting to me because I was a huge Giants fan and I didn’t know him and I thought shining some light on that story would be a really exciting project.”

It also puts the Giants in a position they rarely find themselves in cinema, giving them a heroic arc rather than that of the heel. Most times they appear in film it seems the Giants are the bad guys. Think “Invincible” or “Silver Linings Playbook.” Heck, even the scene at Giants Stadium in which Phil Simms makes a quick in-game cameo in “When Harry Met Sally” features a downer of a moment when Billy Crystal tells Bruno Kirby about his wife leaving him.

“As a New Yorker it’s always great to depict the spirit of the city and the spirit of the team I fell in love with,” Levine said. “So if we can get the Giants a win on the big screen, then why not? All the better.”

The Hall of Fame players and coaches and the scenery and those thin blue mesh practice jerseys will be familiar to football fans and Giants fans in particular. Michael Shannon looks very little like Parcells but certainly evokes his spirit while yelling at the players and reporters. But this film isn’t locked into the world of sports. In the tradition of the movie versions of Vince Papale’s and Brian Piccolo’s lives, it goes beyond the locker room and sideline. As did Tuggle.

“It’s an inspiring, life-affirming story about a person whose point of view and spirit are infectious," Levine said. "It’s a story about someone who really conquered a lot of things and ultimately I think it’s a very inspiring story about what it means to be alive.”

Some spoilers on Tuggle: Selected with the final pick of that 1983 draft — and crowned “Mr. Irrelevant” because of it, a title he jovially embraced — he managed to make the team as a special teamer and fullback. He had 17 carries for 49 yards and a touchdown, caught three passes for 50 yards and had nine kickoff returns for 156 yards. He became popular and respected among the players and a favorite of Parcells.

“Of all the players I’ve ever coached in my life, there’s been a few that had attributes you couldn’t see,” Parcells once said. “This guy’s determination and will, those are things just walking around you don’t gain an appreciation for that. It has to be gained under duress, during times of pain, where we all have to go to those dark places and respond… He was an inspiration to me.”

While being treated for minor shoulder injuries from a car accident in 1984, however, doctors found Tuggle had a cancerous tumor. He remained with the team as much as he could through his treatments but never played again. He died, at age 25, in August 1986, just before that championship season began.

Capturing all of that plus Tuggle’s zest for life outside of football was daunting for Levine, but also enticing.

“I always like balancing tones, whether it’s comedy with tragedy or comedy with romance,” he said. “This movie has all of that.”

And, of course, it has football and the Giants. Lots of that.

“That’s the very exciting thing about working on a sports movie though,” Levine said. “Sports is a microcosm of life. You have these incredible inspiring sports moments when you are looking at what it means to push yourself, but also what it is to deal with heartbreak. We don’t always get everything we want. But what sports teaches us is we can push through it and we are capable of more than we can even imagine.”

According to “Hollywood Reporter,” test screenings of the film were so unexpectedly positive that Paramount moved the release of the movie to Christmas Day where it will compete against the latest Avengers and Dune films. The publication said the screening saw a score of 95 out of 100 among men over 35, with “an incredibly rare perfect 100 score among women over 35.”

The timing change also allows the film to debut at the same time as the current Giants will be playing the back end of their schedule, and coincide with the 40th anniversary celebrations around the Super Bowl XXI team.

It may even coincide with a Giants playoff push.

“I’m still a Giants fan,” said Levine, who now lives in Los Angeles and said he is planning on attending the team’s Monday Night Football game against the Rams in Week 2. “I’m looking forward to this season. I’m excited. I’m excited for [Jaxson] Dart. I feel like I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a while.”

He said he got the chance to go to Madison Square Garden for the NBA Finals this spring with his son, Mickey, who is now 10, the same age he was when he became a fan of the Giants and Mets during their title seasons.

He sees that as an omen.

“These things do often come in bunches,” he said of New York’s championships. “I think we’re due.”

The movie syncing with all of that? Mere coincidence, Levine said, but he did joke that he has been inadvertently playing the “long game” for the last 40 years in the hopes of meeting the football players he idolized when he was 10. He’s hoping that there will be screenings at some point for the players from the mid-1980s and maybe even the 2026 team.

“It’s a great kismet moment that we can have this time to celebrate all these players at the same time this movie is coming out,” Levine said. “I’m really excited for them to see it.”

And for everyone to learn about Tuggle.