Jake Gyllenhaal is a Football Player

Jake Gyllenhaal will be playing Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath in a feature film, according to Variety.

Exec producer Jimmy Walsh believes that the ‘athletic Gyllenhaal is the right actor to play Namath.’

While other quarterbacks racked up bigger lifetime stats, Namath became the first football player to achieve rock-star status. The pic will tell the story of how the golden-armed kid from Beaver Falls, Pa., became Broadway Joe, the New York Jets quarterback who became a ’60s cultural figure.

Jake, 26, is currently shooting the Jim Sheridan-directed Brothers with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman.

Pictured below: Jake playing in a park with German Shepherd Atticus and then-girlfriend Kirsten Dunst in mid-2004.