An impossible news report breaks: The Green Bay Packers are sold and told to leave town. Crawling inside the story is an “old school” journalist, who shows how news was done before it got dropped into a blur of Internet memes and conspiracy theories.

A confident rookie, Terry Lawton, is featured in this historical fiction. He produces TV news using amazing technology from the 1970s called – the trash bin. It is a container where bogus information goes.

The plot is kicked off by a rumor that an old Packer was going to sell the team. Lawton investigates at high speed, meeting the colorful characters of Wisconsin, including a tribe that pulled a prank on a city named after its chief.

Some sources of information are dead ends:

Cornelius Fellowes: an attorney blabbing at a bar.

Porky Puutschnaegel: a linebacker from the 1930s, now a farmer.

Stanley Zawisza: a bug exterminator who circled Lambeau Field yelling he would sell the team, based on his one share of Packers ceremonial stock.

But one lead is good. Lawton spies on some out-of-towners who referred to the team’s seller as “Pete Ragsdale”. But finding Ragsdale, a left guard from the 1920s, is difficult. He is a virtual hermit. Lawton succeeds in tracking him down, only to be thrown out of his house twice. Finally, Lawton gets to interview Ragsdale, but the film must be held secret until after the old Packer’s death.

As the sale of the team works through the court system, the Packer’s attorney hangs a monicker on Ragsdale – “Greedy Petey.” Lawton’s film will show otherwise.

Miraculously, the team stays in Green Bay, Ragsdale gets his money, and his interview runs on the six o’clock news. The team’s attorney calls a press conference, and Lawton plans to confront him for slandering Ragsdale with an unjustified nickname. But he is unable to go. A new reporter with no professional background goes instead, and lets the attorney off the hook. Lawton has a meltdown that leads to his termination.