Why are Old Football Games More Interesting than Modern Football Games?
WHY WAS OLD NFL FOOTBALL SO WONDERFULLY DRAMATIC, BUT MODERN NFL FOOTBALL IS SO DULL?
NFL Films deserves the lifetime achievement trophy for making pro football America’s national pastime. Not Monday Night Football. Not the 60s Packers. Or the 70s Steelers. Or the 80s 49ers. It was the Sabols, Ed and his son Steve, who were the Orson Wells of sports, creating a new Citizen Kane every week. With the music, the narration, the storytelling — they made a football game seem like World War II, a life or death struggle, a defining moment in popular culture. NFL Films could make a terribly dull football game and make it seem you were watching Ben Hur.
I was channel surfing this afternoon, and stumbled across this old film of the 1969 Super Bowl (actually, a terrible football game, but for those who do not remember — the 17-point underdog AFL Jets upset one of the greatest teams of all time, the ’69 NFL Colts). I grabbed my phone and took a shot of the screen, for only a few minutes.
It made me think. Why aren’t today’s sporting events and athletes not as iconic, nor interesting? They make far more money, hundreds of times more money. They’re far more gifted and talented. Why could we not connect with a Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes story, great as they were/are, as a Facenda Moment? Facenda, who narrated all the great games on the NFL Films soundtrack, was known as “the voice of God.”
This is a serious question. Why were the games back then so ripe for drama, and game today (as great as they are) boring by comparison? Is is the boring domes? Is it the money? Is it the abomination of rubber grass? Is it that many games and stadiums seem the same? Is it sports obsession overkill? Is it just me
Comments welcome.
Why don’t modern athletic events and players have the same level of fame and intrigue? They earn hundreds of times as much as everyone else. They’re really talented and gifted. It seems like we could have a Facenda Moment with every Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes tale, no matter how good it was or is.