RIP Steve Sabol

Fuck. I'm truly saddened by this. A part of my childhood and adulthood died a little bit. I know Ed Sabol founded NFL Films, but for someone my age (41), Steve Sabol was the face of the brand.

Like Norrin said, NFL Films was propaganda in the best sense of the word ... and I ate up every last bit of it. Sabol even made fun of this in the NFL Films' docs of the last 10 years or so.

I think it can be argued that no single person outside of the players was responsible for the canonization of the NFL in the public's mind than Sabol was.

And while there are plenty of players who have good arguments about being left out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Sabol not being in is its most glaring omission.

NFL Films was obviously low-brow in many ways and much of it is hilariously dated, but there's some legitimately brilliant work they did too. The Lost Treasures series was fantastic from start to finish. So was the Super Bowl America's Game series.

And those Super Bowl highlight films, especially the ones from the late 70s, are absolutely riveting.

(And a fuck you to Hulu which used to have a bunch of those films on their site, including a whole bunch of random 70s and 80s team highlight films)

RIP to a NFL giant.

 

RIP. Very sad to hear, but the consolation in all of this is that his work and influence will live on for a long, long time.

I remember reading somewhere that movie director Sam Peckinpaugh actually emulated some of Sabol's NFL Films work in filming some of his fight scenes.

 

How sad.

 

Probably the way Peckinpah edited them. Early NFL Films had that quick edit kind of vibe that Peckinpah's trademark fight scenes did.

 

He is my first memories of the NFL. I grew up in a soccer family. Watching those old NFL Film shows with him grabbed my interest and from there grew my obsession with the NFL.

RIP

 

RIP. Absolutely love NFL Films.

 

Count me in as another one who grew up on NFL Films. Used to love the Follies, and I always remember watching Joe Namath shooting pool.

My favorite, though, was the Lost Treasures episode where NFL Films was trying to track down a guy who, 20+ years earlier, when they were filming the expansion Bucs, got cut on the practice field by McKay in training camp. They showed several employees with phone books sitting in an office calling people, then they finally found the guy after a few months. The guy was stunned that he was found, and had never seen the tape of him getting cut until NFL Films flew down to his little hometown (I think it was in South Carolina), showed it to him, and profiled him.

RIP, to a great pioneer, and one of my boyhood memories.

 

RIP ... someone I wished I had the chance to meet. What a remarkable impact he had on the game, and he knew how to have fun while doing it.

 

RIP

 

http://www.profootballresearchers.org/Coffin_Corner/23-01-875.pdf

 

RIP.