Like other mid-budget genres, the sports movie is nowhere to be found in theaters. Instead, it has migrated to streaming. But is there enough juice in Hulu’s “Chad Powers” — starring Glen Powell as a disgraced college quarterback who disguises himself for another run at greatness — to work as a series?

As an industry, Hollywood is in a state of confusion, which is why so many projects tend to feel neither here nor there, and “Chad Powers” is one of the most high-profile examples of this phenomenon.

Among his cohort of actors, Powell is almost a movie star. He has the name recognition and old-school ambition for it, with the kind of bland public persona that likely appeals to jumpy studio execs. But the business itself is no longer built around movie star vehicles, which has probably stymied some of his path forward. I don’t know that anybody can become a movie star in the way actors were in the 20th century.

But surely, you might think, Powell has the stuff to top-line a television series. Well …

The show’s first issue is that it fails to expand upon the short but interminable episode of “Eli’s Places” on which it’s based, wherein former NFL quarterback Eli Manning altered his appearance in order to sneak into a college tryout in the hopes of fooling everyone into thinking he was a nobody with amazing talent. (Both Manning and brother Peyton Manning are executive producers on the show.)

In “Chad Powers,” Russ Holliday (Powell) is a QB whose killer arm is offset by an obnoxious personality, which tanks his chances at going pro. Nearly 10 years later, when he hears about open tryouts at a college in Georgia, he decides to go undercover and see if he can land a spot on the team, transforming his Sears mannequin looks with a prosthetic schnoz, false teeth and wig that’s seen better days. He also tweaks his speaking voice and accent. Can he pull it off? Since his spectacular implosion, he’s been floundering — as epitomized by his choice in vehicle: a Cybertruck — hence this Hail Mary to remake himself. Russ Holliday is radioactive, but maybe he can jump-start his career as someone else, the yokel Chad Powers.

A lot of other projects come to mind while watching the series, and the comparisons are not favorable. Apple’s “Ted Lasso” was also based on a similarly limited gag (promos for Premier League soccer), but it understood that you need a good amount of world-building and character development if the initial idea is going to work as a series. “Chad Powers” struggles on both fronts. And minus that basic scaffolding, Powell doesn’t have the charisma to make it work.

Powell previously played a guy concealing his true identity in 2023’s “Hit Man.” But more broadly, a character perpetrating this kind of long con was once a staple in comedies, often in gender-swapped form, from 1959’s “Some Like It Hot” to 1982’s “Tootsie” to 1993’s “Mrs. Doubtfire” to yet another sports comedy, 2006’s “She’s the Man.” Other films have slotted race into this formula instead, with 1986’s “Soul Man” and 1996’s “The Associate.” In 2004’s “White Chicks,” the leads transform both their race and gender.

It’s a setup that allows a story to tackle, maybe even subvert, stereotypes, and allow the protagonists to experience the world from a different point of view. There’s the potential for ridiculous misunderstandings and the thrill of getting one over on the world. It can be fun watching actors show their range, more or less playing two roles simultaneously.

Weirdly, “Chad Powers” isn’t really interested in any of that. Or even developing the Russ/Chad dichotomy in ways that allow Chad to become a distinct, full-formed personality that inevitably forces Russ to reassess himself and his place in the world.

Watching the series, a different movie actually comes to mind. The perfectly decent, perfectly average 1991 comedy “Necessary Roughness,” which is also about a quarterback past his prime (Scott Bakula) looking for a comeback at a college in the South. It’s currently streaming on Pluto, and it’s startling to see how quickly — how deceptively easily — it sets up the premise and the cast of characters. This storytelling economy almost feels like a magic trick when you come across it, even in middlebrow fare from the ’80s and ’90s. But it’s not magic. It’s just the skill of a tight, well-written script, which is a rarity these days, either because writers have lost the knack for it, or executives don’t value it anymore.

In “Necessary Roughness,” a college has scrapped its entire football program because of corruption, so they rebuild with a collection of oddball players. Though Bakula is the star, the movie surrounds him with enough vividly rendered coaches and teammates that he’s not shouldering more of the story than a character like this can reasonably handle. Bakula’s QB isn’t trying to pull a fast one; he’s older than everyone and he doesn’t try to hide it. His love interest is an age-appropriate journalism professor. He’s fundamentally a good guy and you’re rooting for him from the start. It’s a classic underdog story.

“Chad Powers” tweaks that setup by starting with an odious character at his worst. The formula dictates that Russ will gradually evolve into a palatable human being. But first, Powell’s performance needs to lean into every objectionable instinct before pulling himself back from the brink and getting the audience on his side. The script just doesn’t give him much of a road map to do this.

So the show lacks heart.

But also jokes. When a player says, mid-game, “I didn’t know I could get hit this much and not die,” a coach leans in to tell him: “The effects on the skeleton are long-term.” Funny because it’s true? A slur that refers to people with developmental disabilities shows up as a punchline in one episode and … is this what suffices for humor? Writers are wordsmiths; surely they could have come up with an actually funny line.

There could have been hundreds of zingers at the expense of Russ’ Cybertruck alone. But no. Russ is terrible at improvising any kind of backstory for Chad, so much so that he’s a deer-in-headlights when he’s in-character and asked about himself. When that happens once, you understand the panic, and therefore humor. But multiple times throughout the season, it’s as if the writers didn’t even bother trying. (Powell is the show’s co-creator along with “Rick and Morty” alum Michael Waldron.)

Both too long (it shoulda been a movie) and too short (it doesn’t feel like anything happens), “Chad Powers” is a fumble. “Necessary Roughness” plays like a masterpiece by comparison.

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(Nina Metz is a Chicago Tribune critic who covers TV and film.)

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