Steve Sabol

Steve Sabol WAS NFL films.
For football fans, NFL films provides mind blowing, inspirational, down and dirty coverage of the game.
I love watching the videos because they are right there, they capture the essence of the game close up.
Even if you are not a fan, I am willing to bet that many of you would still dig these films, these documentaries, these specials because they are done creatively, they are compelling.
The man won 35 Emmys for writing, editing, cinematography, directing and producing, for Christ sake.
This is quality stuff professionally done.
Somehow Sabol got the NFL to trust him many years ago to honorably document the game. Allowing him to wire players and coaches, allowing cameras in meetings considered sensitive or crucial.
He got Bill Belichick to agree to be wired for an entire year, which is like getting the Pope to agree to be wired discussing child abuse in the church with guilty priests.
The NFL trusted him and he did not let them down.
Peter King says "His ethics were above reproach, and he was one of the most authentic football lovers ever born."
Steve Sabol said something before he died that blew me away.

"So they talk about heaven, and I don't know what is waiting for me up there. But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. That life cannot be better than the one I've lived down here, the football life. It's been perfect."

Those words are heavy, they are like a nuclear explosion of life truth, they are mind blowing in their simplicity and their deep meaning.
Because this is what every single one of us wants to be able to say before we die. This is what we want to feel as we live our lives.
So many of us are so very far away from that, it is a crime. It is a sin, it is loss, it is confusion. It is a diminishing of something precious. More precious than any other concept or thing or want or desire or expectation.
It is hopeful to know that there are some out there whose lives make sense to them. We all need deep down in our bones, in our souls, for our life to make sense rather than to be an unanswered question.
The NFL decided to call it's new series of inside stories of the stars of the game, "A Football Life."
Perfect.