America's Game

Poin, that's like picking the prettiest girl at Arizona State. Too many to choose from for a list that short.

 

The one thing that jumps out at me is no Chuck Noll on any of the Steelers' teams from the '70s. I wonder if that was due to his declining health or just his desire for privacy. I really would have loved to hear his commentary on those teams.

 

The 1970 Colts episode was the best one. Because they won in such a farcical way, they were still more haunted by the Super Bowl III loss than vindicated by the Super Bowl V win.

 

You get the feeling that Noll declined because of the privacy issues. Doesn't his wife screen all calls to him now?

 

Bill Curry's story about Willie Davis reaching out to him was pretty special.

And Don Maynard breaking down near the end of the 1968 Jets show was just great. Between that and Gerry Phiblin quoting Pete Rozelle's "Intrinsic value" of the ring.

I guess it very much humanizes the moments. The memories just never die for those guys.

Chuck Noll, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw are the notable omissions from the series.

 

Yeah, I forgot about that one. Interesting.


And its just me, but I don't find Chuck Noll, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw to be notable omissions. At least in Montana and Bradshaw's case, we've seen their faces a million times. I love hearing from different voices.

 

I can't recall Montana ever doing an NFL Films interview, not even for the "NFL's Greatest Games" on the 1981 NFC Championship Game ...

 

I think you can add Lambert and Ham to the list of Steelers, but hearing Russell and Blount are not too bad, either.

There are just so many guys on some of these teams...

 

But he does a commercial for thier network.

Strange.

 

That was one of the most moving, inspiring things I've ever seen on TV.

The 2000 Ravens episode shows one of the most awful, yet compelling things I've ever seen -- a clip of Ray Lewis's first address to the team at the training camp that followed his Atlanta murder indictment juxtaposed with his latter-day account of what he says he told the team. In reality, his talk was a confused, muddled, messianic self-justification. In his memory, his talk was a proud, inspiring, messianic and visionary address that single-handedly motivated his team to reach the Super Bowl.

I really liked the 86 Giants one, both to hear about the way Simms and Parcells went at it back then, and to see the immense mutual respect and affection they have for each other today.

And the 82 Redskins one made me like Joe Theismann a lot more than I ever had before -- I never knew he actually organized and led team practices during the strike that year. Plus, Russ Grimm had good things to say about him. The end of that one basically details how the Redskins ended the Dallas dynasty in the NFC Championship Game, running the ball about 10 straight times in the fourth quarter, to the point that Grimm was telling Randy White the play each time as they lined up across from each other. That Dallas team, which had been in something like 5 of the prevoius 6 NFC Championship games, wouldn't win another playoff game until 1991.

 

The follow-up shows they did on "the missing rings" was also great. There were shows on the '81 Chargers, '98 Vikings, 1970s Vikings, '90 Bills and '88 Bengals, IIRC. The best teams to never win a title.
Can't wait to see the '07 Patriots interviewed for that next batch of episodes.

 

Bradshaw I can understand but I'd love to hear what Montana has to say on at least one of the teams. For one thing it would give me an idea of which one was his favorite. And as much as he was seen, he's never spoken at length about his experiences and accomplishments with the 49ers with the exception of his retirement speech in San Francisco and his Hall of Fame speech. Never anything at this sort of in-depth level.

Same with Noll, he's got to have some incredible stories about the atmosphere within those teams of the 70s.