Specifically, Goldman had deemed the quality of the acting in blaxploitation films to be unimpressive, even in those films which had been financially successful. Reasoning that even untrained actors could provide performances of similar quality, Goldman leveraged the fact that he knew some members of the Washington Redskins football team and convinced them to appear in his film. He thus gained some marquee value from their sports celebrity status without having to pay the higher salaries that would have been required to employ experienced actors who would have generated a similar level of public interest.