RIP Steve Sabol

I wonder what will happen to NFL flms. I read somewhere there is a political and stylistic dispute between the NFL Network guys and the NFL Films guys. I wonder if NFL films is now rolled into NFL Network.

 

The November wind is like a pirate. RIP to a legend.

 

Yep. True here.

Long before instant highlights and full-game replays were popular, Sabol and NFL Films produced something called the NFL Game of the Week, a half-hour breakdown of one good game, complete with insights, different camera angles, music, the whole bit. Back in the pre and early cable days, it was like watching a game that didn't air in your market the previous Sunday. Was syndicated on different stations in different markets.

 

Kids back then even tried to run in slow motion like we saw Jim Taylor and Franco Harris do it on TV, with Facenda's voice rolling like thunder. The Sabols gave us decades of thrills.

 

One of the great things NFL Movies ever did.

 

I really thought I was the only kid who did that. Saturday morning in my junior Raider uni with pads, helmet and pants rolling all over the front lawn emulating Stabler lofting that pass to Clarence Davis...Freddy B hauling one in with two toes inching toward the sideline, Stabler and the Holy Roller...

 

I don't think this is just a pre-ESPN thing, y'all. I grew up on "NFL Films Presents" airing on ESPN or ESPN2 every single afternoon in the 1990s. Watched 'em almost every day in the summer. Like Batman, I developed somewhat of an encyclopedic knowledge of the first 25 Super Bowls that way. And I had a friend who could do a fantastic Facenda when we were playing touch football in the street.

RIP to the man who taught me more about football history than anyone else on the planet.

 

Agreed. Like I said, Sabol introduced me to the NFL and I was born in 1985.

 

absolutely.

 

All things are better in moderation and I think we were better off when we just got to see the NFL Films weekend highlights or halftime highlights. Now, every game, highlight, replay is over exposed like a Kardashian. And along with that overexposure is too much talk and analysis. Give me a 30-minutes NFL Films summation of the previous Sunday's games narrated by Facenda.
Sincerely,
Dinosaur

 

"The game starts with a whistle ... and ends with a gun."

And this

 

The obit from SI: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/09/18/steve-sabol.ap/index.html

Those films are great to watch and reflect on. Was in a bar yesterday when Steve Sabol's picture flashed on the screen, but none of us at the table saw anything to indicate why he was being shown, and of course, it was not easy to hear. So to see this RIP notice is shocking, just shocking....and sad. RIP, Mr. Sabol.