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"Greatest Game Ever Played" ... 9:00 tonight on ESPN (1 Viewer)

Raider Nation

Raider Nation

Devil's Advocate
REALLY looking forward to this! An amazing 17 Hall-of-Famers participated in this game.

:banned:

As with any oft-told story two generations old, the 1958 NFL Championship Game had become ossified, a tale repeated by old men and replayed on scratchy black-and-white film. ESPN’s documentary, "The Greatest Game Ever Played," which debuts after the Heisman Trophy presentation Saturday night, addresses that challenge on two fronts.

For one, it has current Giants and Colts watch the game with their football ancestors, offering fresh sets of eyes and creating moments both humorous and poignant.

(One highlight: the Giants’ Brandon Jacobs turning to Lenny Moore and saying, sincerely, "Fifty years later, congratulations.")

For another, it provides a digitally restored, lightly colorized version of the game itself, making it seem more tangible and less like a historic relic.

"It was important to me that it look authentic, but I didn’t want an artificial look to it," said John Dahl, the executive producer. "I believe it looks truly like it was shot in color in 1958."

That includes the obvious, such as the dusty, grass-free Yankee Stadium field, and the subtle, such as the red numbers on the officials’ uniforms.

Dahl said a crucial resource was Sport magazine, the only publication to shoot the game in color.

The TV coverage is lost to history, so the film pieces together archival material, including a trove Dahl discovered in former Colts coach Weeb Ewbank’s basement during an interview a decade ago.

"I saw all these film canisters and said, ’What’s this?’" Dahl recalled. "He said, ’That’s some old stuff I gathered over the years.’ I saw the 1958 Championship Game and said, ’Um, can I borrow that?’"

The result is six minutes of never-before-seen footage, including a touching segment on the Colts’ band. (The filmed history of the game now is missing only one play, an inconsequential tipped pass.)

The narration comes from the two radio broadcasts, with Joe Boland on play-by-play for NBC and Bob Wolff for a syndicated network.

Wolff nicely captured the excitement of the event, but at a screening last week, he said he did not grasp its magnitude until he got a call from a friend in Baltimore who told him his call of the winning score was being replayed on the radio every half-hour — as it has been thousands of times since.

The players, too, did not immediately understand the impact on the growth of the NFL. (And, take heart, Donovan McNabb: Most admitted having no idea there would be an overtime period.)

To this day, many players, especially Giants, are baffled by how such a sloppy game could be called the "greatest" anything.

"The first time I heard it was ’The Greatest Game Ever Played,’ I thought, ’We played a lot better games than that,’" former Giant Pat Summerall said at the screening.

Frank Gifford never had seen the game in color, but he had watched it 50 times to research a recent book. Did he think the show might help introduce a new generation to it?

"You’d like to think so, but I don’t know that I would have thought much about the old guys who played before me," said Gifford, 78. "I remember they had a couple who came to practice one time. I was thinking, ’Who are these old farts?’ These guys probably feel the same thing about us."

Not necessarily. Current Giants Justin Tuck and Aaron Ross attended the screening. And Dahl hopes the color and format draw in other young viewers.

"It was an opportunity to bridge the generation gap," he said, "to make it relevant to today’s audience so they get it, they get engaged, they find it fun."
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Heard an interview with Dave Anderson yesterday, who covered this game and has been a reporter forever.

He said that this game is responsible for the NFL as we know it today. It was a more important game than the Jets and Colts in Super Bowl III. Why? Because Lamar Hunt watched this game, and his father was a big oil baron. There were only 12 teams in the NFL at the time. Hunt was so impressed with the game of football that he was inspired to begin his own league... the AFL. Without this game, there is no AFL, there is no Joe Namath upsetting the Colts, and who knows what the NFL would look like today?

 
:goodposting:

It's sad that the entire TV coverage has been lost, but I'm very much looking forward to see what they've been able to piece together.

 
Sidewinder16 said:
It's sad that the entire TV coverage has been lost, but I'm very much looking forward to see what they've been able to piece together.
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Yep. I like hearing the old guys talking with the young bucks. Just about the only time you see current players not acting like jackasses is when they're in the presence of great players who came before them.
 
Hoping ESPN releases a DVD of this with just the game straight through. The interviews cut in are annoying.

I don't really care what Michael Strahan thinks about the game.

 
Not what I was expecting so far... I was hoping for football interrupted by commentary rather commentary interrupted by football.

 
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They showed a little more football right before halftime, now I'm seeing way too much about the band and majorettes.

 
Although I agree with most of the negative points in this thread, I enjoyed the interaction between Tony Dungy and Ray Berry.

 
I thought it was good but certainly left a ton of room for improvement.

The goal clearly wasn't to show the entire game. They did mention (read OP) that they have all but one play now on footage.

It's a period piece, which shows not just the game but the impact of it to the NFL, New York, Baltimore, the formation of the AFL and the impact to players since that historic game. To say it differently, it is more History Channel than NFL Network or ESPN Classic. If you were hoping for the latter you were disappointed. If you wanted the history, you likely would rate it much higher.

Focusing the advertising on the colorization of the footage may have made some expect it to be more like an NFL Replay, but like I said, it's more about the historical significance.

I enjoyed it for what it was, but I'd certainly like to see the entire game itself as well. ESPN would be smart to include that and this show on a DVD.

 
Johnny U is always argued on these threads as one of the Best Ever canidates.... This was the first chance I've really seen any extended footage of him... Seems like he was bigger than alot of the guys at the time- modern qb size in a smaller era- and he had a good play fake, but what about his skills made him so great? I know he has the Championships, etc-- I'm just curious as to what his strengths were...

 
Greatest game because of TV coverage. No way. It just brought the NFL to america's attention a little earlier. Eventually it would be what it is today.

I would say the early SB games did that. Since the superbowl is so Hollywood now I'd rather it not be so popular. Maybe then I could get a Packer home game here in northern wisconsin(Vikings TV country).

 
KingEl said:
Johnny U is always argued on these threads as one of the Best Ever canidates.... This was the first chance I've really seen any extended footage of him... Seems like he was bigger than alot of the guys at the time- modern qb size in a smaller era- and he had a good play fake, but what about his skills made him so great? I know he has the Championships, etc-- I'm just curious as to what his strengths were...
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Unitas practically invented the two minute drill. He had an unbelievalbe presence in the huddle, threw a beautiful ball, was accurate, and his football IQ was off the charts. His record of 47 consecutive games with a touchdown pass may never be broken. It's compared to the Joe D record in baseball. Unitas' leadership ability is the best all-time IMO.
 
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As a documentary I thought it was stellar. I really enjoyed the interplay between the current players and the '58 guys. The exchange at the end between Dwight Freeney and Alex Sandusky was pretty moving. However, like so many others here have said, ESPN's ads falsely led us to believe we'd be shown the entire game and the fact we were not was a real disappointment.

 
'58 is a key game, and it likely gets my vote, but I'll throw another one out for consideration.

The Heidi Game.

Without that TV fiasco, the NFL and TV networks do not realize just how important both are to one another, and how the NFL trumps all other events on TV.

After that point, the NFL owns the TV networks for years and years to come - and making it the most dominant sport (and most popular) on TV and in the US.

I'll also throw out one more that was also important - the first MNF game. Same concept, but now you have one game on by itself with the country AND the rest of the league watching.

 
Maybe the most important game in NFL history, but not the greatest game ever played, and certainly not from an execution standpoint.

 
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