In an interview with Vulture, James Lance (who plays Trent Crimm in Ted Lasso) discusses a three-minute conversation he had with Jason Sudeikis:
I said to him that I felt the reason Trent was the way he was has to do with his father. He had a dad who really wanted him to be a manly man and be sporty, but Trent wasn’t that guy. So he hit the library and donned intellect as his shield and armor. Jason was looking at me sort of mystified, and he said, “Hey, I’m going to tell you something. This whole show is about bad dads.” And I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah. The reason Ted is the way he is is because his father committed suicide and he decided to embrace life and adopt that positive attitude.”
Between Jamie Tartt’s dad, Ted Lasso’s dad, Nathan Shelley’s dad, and Rebecca Welton’s dad, there’s definitely a throughline. Also, the opposite flip—Sam Obisanya’s dad, Higgins and his sons, Roy Kent and his niece.