Video: Belichick, Brady, Parcells add their remembrances of Steve Sabol

23 Sep
2012

This is the first Sunday since the 1963 NFL season in which Steve Sabol won't somehow be involved. The longtime President of NFL Films, who lost an 18-month battle with cancer on Tuesday, had done more to forward the game of professional football than just about anyone else in the sport's history. Along the way, Sabol gained the implicit trust of men who would generally rather drop something heavy on their feet than deal with the media in any way.

When Sabol went to New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick before the 2009 season and asked that the notoriously secretive coach be miked for an entire season ... well, let's just say that Sabol had Belichick at "Hello."

NFL Films followed Belichick through every part of the 2009 season -- not just on the sidelines and in the meeting rooms, but at home as well. One can watch the part of Films' excellent two-part "A Football Life" documentary that resulted from that filming where Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady are discussing Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed in Belichick's office and wonder -- who else would be able to gain such access?

"Steve [was] special, and it's all about trust," Belichick said in a special video tribute to Sabol put together for Sunday morning viewing on the NFL Network. "How I felt that he would present it. When Steve came to talk to me about it, he started off with some of the great coaches he'd worked with -- Lombardi and Landry.

"He went on and on for about 10 minutes with his sales pitch, which was very good. But the funny part was, I had already said 'Yes' in my mind before he even started with it. I never told him that, and I'm sure that in the end, he felt that he had pitched it to me and won me over. I was sold when he walked into the room."

"Steve always knew how to tell the story behind the story," Brady added.

[Also: Ravens receiver Torrey Smith's brother dies in motorcycle accident]

Bill Parcells, who played football against Sabol in the early 1960s, had a more personal recollection of a day, years ago, when Sabol came to Parcells' New Jersey home. The two men dropped their guards and just talked about the game -- that was something Steve allowed people to do better than anyone.

"That was one of my favorite memories ... of something that we did together," Parcells said. "They say that a friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you anyway, and that's the way it was with Steve."

On this very unusual day, the first in so many years where Steve Sabol won't be watching the games with the rest of us, we send our thoughts and prayers to the Sabol Family, and to Steve's friends and colleagues through the NFL. If one thing's for sure, it's that Steve now has the ultimate overhead view.

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The Shutdown Corner Week 3 Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

22 Sep
2012

Once again, it's time to gear up for this week's slate of NFL games with analysis from the best in the business -- Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN's "NFL Matchup." As he did so well last year, Greg will give you a sense of the week's upcoming games you won't get anywhere else, based on his conversations with players and coaches past and present, and his OCD-level evaluation of coach's tape.  Here's the Week 3 schedule in order of games discussed for your edification, and since the podcast was recorded on Friday this week, we started by reviewing the New York Giants' Thursday night win over the Carolina Panthers.

But before anything else was discussed, Greg shared his thoughts about the late Steve Sabol, who he had worked with at NFL Films since 1979.

The Shutdown Corner Week 3 Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

Here are the Sunday and Monday games, in order of discussion:

Sunday, September 23
St. Louis Rams at Chicago Bears
Buffalo Bills at Cleveland Browns
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Dallas Cowboys
New York  Jets at Miami Dolphins
San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings
Kansas City Chiefs at New Orleans Saints
Cincinnati Bengals at Washington Redskins
Detroit Lions at Tennessee Titans
Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts
Philadelphia Eagles at Arizona  Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons at San Diego Chargers
Houston Texans at Denver Broncos
Pittsburgh Steelers at Oakland Raiders
New England Patriots at Baltimore Ravens

Monday, September 24
Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks

A few words of wisdom from Mr. Cosell:

On Steve Sabol, and the genesis of the "NFL Matchup" show, which basically invented advanced football analysis: "He came into my office in 1984 and said, 'I think I have an idea for a show, and you're the guy. It was 'Monday Night Matchup' at the time; that's how it started. But it was a matchup concept, dealing with football from an Xs-and-Os standpoint -- a little more technical. And don't forget -- the time was 1984. ESPN had only been in existence 4-5 years, and they had not gotten into the football business quite yet. Cable had just really started, so it was an entirely different world. People were seeing halftime highlights based on my uncle [Howard Cosell] doing them for Monday Night Football. Steve just figured that maybe I was the guy to do that. I guess it turned out okay after 28 years of doing a Matchup show without a break.

"But you're talking about Steve's vision. He always took the approach that it's better to fail in a big way than to not try anything at all."

On Cam Newton's struggles against the Giants: "Here's my general thought process when watching the Panthers. We now have Cam Newton. We now have Robert Griffin III. We have these quarterbacks with an option background of some kind. And all I could think about last night was that when all is said and done, in the National Football League, quarterbacks have to pass well to be elite players. You do that primarily from the pocket. It's okay to run around once in a while, but it's done primarily from the pocket. What you've got to do, sooner or later, is maximize the situations, the attributes, and characteristics, and the traits that allow quarterbacks to be successful throwing the football. And I'm thinking, 'You know, are we starting to get to the point where it's becoming all this scheme stuff, and we're mitigating against a Cam Newton really learning and refining the attributes that are necessary to be a high-level quarterback?"

The Shutdown Corner Week 3 Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

On New England's young linebackers: "Nobody plays downhill in the run game better than Brandon Spikes. That guy is a violent, physical, take-no-prisoners player. We'll see how Baltimore chooses to play, but Spikes is terrific in the run game. Chandler Jones has been in a two-point stance and a three-point stance. Moving around. Bill Belichick is starting to get some players he feels pretty good about. Dont'a Hightower doesn't jump off the film, but he's been solid."

As with everything involving Greg Cosell, this podcast is a must-listen for those fans of advanced tape analysis. Subscribe to the Shutdown Corner iTunes link (in iTunes, go to "Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast," and paste this link in: http://ysportspods.podbean.com/category/shutdown/feed/). You can also use the link below to either left-click and listen, or right-click to save to your computer.

The Shutdown Corner Week 3 Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

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The NFL lost a legend on Tuesday with the passing of Steve Sabol, the Emmy Award-winning president of NFL Films who battled brain cancer over the last 18 months. Sabol was a central figure in how we all — fans, players, coaches — came to see the National Football League.

Sabol co-founded NFL Films, working as a cameraman and writer before eventually taking over "the family business" from Ed Sabol, his Hall of Fame father.

As the NFL mourned his passing, those who knew and worked with Sabol reflected on his life, his work, and his impact on the game he loved.

"When you walk around the NFL Films library, I call it a working museum because each picture on the wall has a Steve Sabol symbolic memory to it. He put each picture there and every day you're reminded of his genius, his talent, his unbelievable passion for football. I would love passing him in the halls and we would stop and have a five-minute conversation about the history of the league, comparing an old player to a new player. He was just an amazing mind in terms of football and a creative genius. Every day when I walk into that office, I take a picture and try to post it on Twitter because they're unique; they're situated in a setting that he wanted them to be situated in. It's a huge loss for all of us in the NFL family because he was truly part of the creative process that made this league so great." — Michael Lombardi, NFL Network

"When you go into NFL Films and you're around Steve Sabol for any amount of time, you find out that the NFL is not a job, it's not this big powerbroker; it's a celebration of sport, it's a celebration of athletes, it's a celebration of accomplishment and achievement. If you look at all of the Emmys on the wall, if you look at all of the pictures, you look at the history of our game, it is a celebration of what the National Football League is all about." — Sterling Sharpe, former NFL wide receiver, current analyst with the NFL Network

"Steve had amazing passion for the game of football and everything he did at NFL Films reflected positively on the coaches, players and administrators of the National Football League. For the last 22 years, Steve has been a great inspiration to me and was instrumental in my development as an NFL analyst. I will never forget how positively he impacted every person he came in contact with, not just in the football world. You would be hard pressed to find a single person that would have a negative word about Steve." — Ron Jaworski, former NFL quarterback who has worked as an NFL analyst for ESPN and has worked out of the NFL Films offices for years.

NFL Films pioneered the sports television industry's use of "mic'd" players and coaches. Former NFL head coach Steve Mariucci, now of the NFL Network, discussed that process.

"I think I could speak for a lot of coaches, and we all sort of went through the same thing with Steve. I'll never forget the first time that I got asked by Steve to be wired as the head coach of the 49ers. I was very reluctant to do that; I had never been wired before. I said, 'OK I'll do it but I don't want the team to know that I'm wired, let's keep this secret.' He said we have you covered. I was wired up before the game in a private room, the cameras were never close to me; they were on the other side of the field. He said to me just be yourself; don't even think about us, coach the game and then we'll take the wires off when it's all over with. You know how emotions fly during the game and I probably did some things or said some things that I didn't want aired. I remember calling him the next day and said you have to do me a favor, I think I might have cursed or something like that on the sideline; can you not air that please? He said, 'Coach, remember we are not here to make you look bad, you're going to have to trust us; we're here to promote your team, to promote the National Football League and you can trust that we will always, always be on your side and make you look as good as possible. We'll have some fun with this.'…He became like a brother that way; you trusted him so much. Every coach trusts him and NFL Films and that's a general statement around the league. Players and coaches trusted that they would always do the right thing and make you look good." -- Steve Mariucci, former NFL head coach and current NFL Network analyst

"Totally revolutionized it. I am sure he would say if you had to pick one — a kind of turning point — the way they [NFL Films] documented the Ice Bowl game between the Packers and the Cowboys was just perfect with John Facenda's voice. Because the game did have an epic quality to it; it wasn't an exaggeration. It was a game of such high drama and had a certain mythic aspect to it to begin with. Then they heightened it and captured it and that was that the turning point.

Football can be kind of serious, of course a violent, sport and has sort of a whole different atmosphere around it. NFL Films always made a point to find the humor in it, the goofiness in it, the blooper reels, the little asides from someone who was mic'd on the sidelines tosses off. It was just really funny in the heat of battle. They humanized it by sometimes taking it down from Mt. Olympus and just making it funny." — Bob Costas

"Young kids in this business, we really need to understand the impact that Steve Sabol had. We lost a great pioneer a few days ago in Art Modell; now we lose another one. These men had a vision to do something great, and the beautiful thing about what they were doing, it wasn't for them. They had a vision to expand; to expand our league, to expand our game, to expand our brand. I promise you one thing they will always be remembered by is their great name…Steve Sabol's name, we will not be able to mention NFL or NFL Films without Steve Sabol's name…He was one of those people that we have to learn from; we have to research what pushed him, what pushed him to the edge to say, 'This is what I want to do and this is how I want to expand' because his vision was incredible." -- Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis

"I am deeply saddened by the passing of my friend Steve Sabol. Every time I saw him, he brought a quick smile to my face. He was happy everyday on the job for a simple reason — Steve was a man who loved pro football and loved making movies about it. He and NFL Films have long been unparalleled in their craft and for that reason millions of us will forever owe Steve a huge thank you." — Chris Berman, ESPN

The Sabol family has requested that any donations be sent to the Jefferson Foundation for Brain Tumor Research, c/o Lindsey Walker, 925 Chestnut Street, Suite 110, Philadelphia, PA 19107.

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FILE - This Feb. 5, 2011 file photo shows Steve Sabol during an interview in Dallas. NFL Films President Steve Sabol has died from brain cancer. He was 69. The NFL said Sabol died Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012, 18 months after he was diagnosed with a tumor on the left side of his brain. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

NEW YORK (AP) -- With the eye of an art history major, Steve Sabol filmed the NFL as a ballet and blockbuster movie all in one.


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The Ultimate Visionary: NFL Films’ Steve Sabol dies at age 69

18 Sep
2012

If you've ever watched slow-motion replay of an NFL play, laughed at a ridiculous NFL blooper, listened to a coach miked up on a sideline, sat enthralled as a player does his thing on the field and gives voice to his exploits, enjoyed the game or season review of your favorite NFL team, or watched an NFL broadcast at all, you have Steve Sabol to thank for that. And if you've ever cashed a seven-figure check from the NFL, you really have Steve Sabol and NFL Films to thank for that.

Sabol, the president of NFL Films for years, passed away on Tuesday after an 18-month battle with brain cancer. He is survived by his wife Penny, his son Casey, his parents Audrey and Ed, and his sister Blair.

"Steve Sabol was the creative genius behind the remarkable work of NFL Films," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "Steve's passion for football was matched by his incredible talent and energy. ... He was a major contributor to the success of the NFL, a man who changed the way we look at football and sports, and a great friend."

In 1962, Steve's father Ed made the winning bid to shoot the NFL championship game. The longtime amateur cinematographer called his son, then a football player at Colorado College. "I see from your grades that you've been doing nothing but playing football and watching movies," the elder Sabol told his son. "But that makes you uniquely qualified for this new position I have in mind."

At 20, Sabol shot that championship game between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers for Blair Motion Pictures, named for Steve's sister. Within the next few years, the Sabols aligned their professional futures and creative passions with the league as the men behind NFL Films. And through the decades, every possible innovation in football film and video -- nearly every possible innovation in sports film and video -- came from their fertile minds. Without their vision and hard work, pro football would not be nearly as popular as it is today.

They brought quality narration to sports highlights with the great voices of John Facenda and Harry Kalas. They brought grand, sweeping orchestral music to the form with the great compositions of Sam Spence. They made us laugh at football with the Follies series, which debuted in the late 1960s and was always Films' most popular product. They turned the Super Bowl into an international sensation with their yearly highlight packages, and elevated sports film to high art with countless documentaries and longer-form projects. The two primary projects done by Films in the last years of Sabol's life, "America's Game" and "A Football Life," personified that vision as well as anything the company ever produced.

[Related -- October, 2010: The Shutdown Corner Podcast with Steve Sabol]

In 1984, Steve Sabol teamed with Greg Cosell, whom he hired in 1979, to produce the first advanced analysis show devoted entirely to football. "NFL Matchup" can still be seen on ESPN today, and it preceded and informed all the playbook shows and All-22 reviews you now see.

Hank McElwee, who worked with Sabol for years, told Sports Business Daily in March of 2012 that though Steve was Ed's son, there was never a hint of favoritism, nor would Steve have asked for it.

"Here's this rich kid whose father owns the company," McElwee said. "I'm from the other side of the tracks. I watched him work and said, 'God, I'm struggling to keep up with this guy.' I knew he was the boss' son, but he earned everything he got.

"We all realized pretty quickly that Steve was the force behind what we were doing here. The sound. The pictures. Big Ed had the idea and he sold the owners on it, but when it came to the actual vision of this company, without a doubt it was Steve. Steve saw things in a unique way that every network is copying right now."

Steve earned over 40 Emmy awards himself, and he proudly saw over 100 Emmys go to NFL Films over the years. Steve and Ed Sabol received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2003. Ed Sabol was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011, and while the NFL was unable for whatever reason to recognize Steve with the same honor in his lifetime, we certainly hope something will be done when the next round of inductions start in 2013. Few men deserve it more.

The Sabol family has requested that any donations be sent to the Jefferson Foundation for Brain Tumor Research, c/o Lindsey Walker, 925 Chestnut Street, Suite 110, Philadelphia, Pa., 19107.

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