How Much Wine Did Tami Taylor Really Drink on ‘Friday Night Lights’? (2024)

Friday Night Lights gave us a lot of OTPs. Think of Coach Eric and Tami (duh), Saracen and Julie, Riggins and Tyra, ethereal indie rock and football montages, Michael B. Jordan and us, the viewers. But there’s one true pairing that went the distance and earned the title of Friday Night Lights MVP: Tami Taylor and wine.

This Southern queen, a true 21st century TV icon, loved her wine just as much as she loved doing the right thing. It’s possible that Tami Taylor’s love of a good glass of wine is even more memorable than her flawless, effortless hair. Maybe that’s because Connie Britton has taken that show-stopping mane to numerous other characters since FNL ended while the wine is inextricably tied to Tami. Lord knows Debra Newell shoulda had a drink or fifty to get through Dirty John. Tami and wine are so synonymous that they even inspired a great gag in an Inside Amy Schumer sketch, one that aired in 2015–four years after FNL shut off its lights!

This sketch permanently placed Tami’s drinking habits in the pop culture consciousness, but how much wine did she really drink on Friday Night Lights? Was it enough to warrant Schumer busting out a gallon-sized wine glass? In honor of the great Connie Britton’s birthday today, we’ve decided to pour a cool glass of stats regarding Mrs. Taylor’s taste for wine.

First, let’s get one thing clear: there is definitely a reason why that sketch happened. When you think of Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights, you think of this:

Tami Taylor loves to cool down after a hard day of standing up to ignorant Dillon-ites and dealing with Julie’s drama-of-the-week. She has a glass while she’s doing paperwork at home!

She definitely needs a glass when she’s trying to comfort her teenage daughter.

She has a sip or more when she’s up late waiting for a hot article to drop online (the headline was as bad as her face indicates, BTW).

Tami Taylor loves wine, that is not in question. But how much did she drink? We (and by “we” I mean myself, but mostly Decider interns Hannah Machado and Stephen Hladik, who are both way more familiar with Friday Night Lights than they were a week ago) went through every single episode of the football drama and counted all of the glasses. If a wine glass is in the shot, either on the coffee table or in her hand, by her side or at her lips, it got counted. Here’s what we found!

Throughout all 76 episodes of Friday Night Lights, Tami Taylor is seen drinking 45 glasses of wine. That averages out to approximately a little over half a glass an episode. She drinks the most in Season 4, which is understandable considering she’s the principal and her husband is now the coach of her rival’s football team. She drinks the least in Seasons 2 and 3; she’s a new mom to little Gracie Bell throughout Season 2 and spends most of her time in Season 3 battling with Buddy over a Jumbotron. Her longest on-screen sober stretches occur in Season 2 and again at the end of Season 3.

Still, Tami’s wine appreciation is a subtle part of the show starting in Episode 2, when she raises a glass with all the other Dillon wives at a book club–a book club that doesn’t read books, Tami learns.

In Season 2, after a totally sober half-season, FNL went super out of its way to justify getting a glass of wine in Tami’s hand again. Tami’s sister pours two glasses and then goes into detail about how one glass of wine isn’t going to hurt if she’s careful (the CDC agrees). Then Tami has a stress breakdown about having another daughter late in life, especially with all the Julie drama going on. She takes the drink.

Tami only drinks in approximately 45% of FNL’s episodes, but there are some where she has way more than one glass. The two episodes where she drinks the most are Season 4’s “Injury List” and Season 5’s penultimate episode “Texas Whatever.” Look at the plots and no wonder she drinks the most in those two episodes: in “Injury List” she deals with damaging allegations that she coerced a student to get an abortion and she and Eric get into their worst fight of the entire series in “Texas Whatever.” Take a load off, Tami!

Here’s where the reality of Friday Night Lights tackles that Schumer sketch: Tami Taylor is the undisputed queen of moderate, responsible drinking! Almost every single glass is poured in her own home. She never drinks at work and she never drinks in the morning; she usually has coffee in the morning and water during the day. And those episodes where she drinks multiple glasses? That’s because those episodes span multiple days. Both of those three-glass-episodes take place across at least three days. On average, it looks like Tami Taylor drinks one glass of white wine every evening–and that is totally fine! Seriously, studies go back and forth about how healthy drinking wine every day is, but pretty much every official official agrees that one glass a day is totally fine for a woman to consume. Tami knows what she likes and she knows her limits!

Seeing Amy Schumer stick her head in a wine glass is indeed funny, and it’s a great heightening of a thing that bubbles up throughout most of Friday Night Lights. But remember, sketch comedy is based in heightening! It takes a teeny thing (Tami is seen holding a glass of wine in almost every episode) and blows it out of proportion (Schumer leaning on a podium-sized wine glass) for fun. And remember, Tami’s definitely more than just a wine lover. She’s an everyday hero and she deserves to be celebrated. So pour a glass tonight and toast Tami Taylor and Connie Britton. It’s the Dillon way.

StreamFriday Night Lights on Hulu