I used to watch This Week in Pro Football on Saturday nights in the New York area, at either 6:00pm or 7:00pm. It was great. You got to see highlights of last weeks games to prepare for watching the games that would be played the next day. (With 'Blackout' rules, who knew what game would be on.) It is still my benchmark as to what a highlight show should be. One of the other comments refers to the laid back nature of hosts Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier. Let me just say that to me that is a positive asset. I don't need announcers like Chris Berman making up snappy names while shouting a mile a minute over the action. The action itself is sufficient. They covered every game and the focus was on the great plays, not on goofy commentary or camera tricks. With the voice of the great John Facenda, it was what a NFL highlight show should be.
4 Reviews
Paleolithic Forerunner to NFL Channel
redryan6418 August 2015
PRIOR TO THE introduction to such productions as this one from NFL Films, football recap shows were a very predictable blending of highlights rendered in always the same manner. The format was to cut out as much of the non-action as possible and show the action on the field from the perspective of one long distance camera shot.
ADDED TO THIS cookie cutter production style was some very dry and uninteresting narration that only served to reinforce the obvious of what we were witnessing on the screen. The final ingredient was the use of music. It wasn't ever very imaginative, preferring to go with the marches of John Phillip Sousa.
THIS ALL CHANGED with the vision and imagination of one man. Steve Sabol (1942-2012). The multi talented Renascence man immediately changed the course of sports filming. His wit, love of the game and intelligent approach were matched by his artistic abilities as both a film maker and an illustrator.
WHETHER OR NOT Steve had any musical training was immaterial and definitely unimportant as a highly eclectic mixture of Classical, Neo-classical, Folk, Pop and Jazz filled the soundtracks.* The Football Film now had true life of its own and became a much greater work of art than the sum of its parts would indicate.
THE UNUSUAL COMBINATION of athleticism and artistic abilities came to Steve Sabol quite naturally. It was his own Father, Ed Sabol (1916-2015) who founded NFL Films and brought his son into the fold after Steve's successful career on the gridiron at tiny Colorado College.
AND PLEASE DON'T say that this was a case of nepotism; as both men have certainly proved themselves over the years.
LEST WE FORGET to mention that the series also had a fine cast. The talents of Tom Brookshire, Pat Summerall and Charlie Jones were well showcased and a great asset to the show.
NOTE: * The younger Sabol joined great company in the ranks of those who did very well in he musical field without benefit of training in anything music. The others are: Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Gleason.
ADDED TO THIS cookie cutter production style was some very dry and uninteresting narration that only served to reinforce the obvious of what we were witnessing on the screen. The final ingredient was the use of music. It wasn't ever very imaginative, preferring to go with the marches of John Phillip Sousa.
THIS ALL CHANGED with the vision and imagination of one man. Steve Sabol (1942-2012). The multi talented Renascence man immediately changed the course of sports filming. His wit, love of the game and intelligent approach were matched by his artistic abilities as both a film maker and an illustrator.
WHETHER OR NOT Steve had any musical training was immaterial and definitely unimportant as a highly eclectic mixture of Classical, Neo-classical, Folk, Pop and Jazz filled the soundtracks.* The Football Film now had true life of its own and became a much greater work of art than the sum of its parts would indicate.
THE UNUSUAL COMBINATION of athleticism and artistic abilities came to Steve Sabol quite naturally. It was his own Father, Ed Sabol (1916-2015) who founded NFL Films and brought his son into the fold after Steve's successful career on the gridiron at tiny Colorado College.
AND PLEASE DON'T say that this was a case of nepotism; as both men have certainly proved themselves over the years.
LEST WE FORGET to mention that the series also had a fine cast. The talents of Tom Brookshire, Pat Summerall and Charlie Jones were well showcased and a great asset to the show.
NOTE: * The younger Sabol joined great company in the ranks of those who did very well in he musical field without benefit of training in anything music. The others are: Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Gleason.
MUST SEE TV BACK IN THE DAY
tombev-4821229 October 2020
Before ESPN this syndicated show was the definitive way to see the best action of the previous week's games. Produced from its Philadelphia studios by NFL Films. Beginning in 1970, Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier hosted the weekly show with occasional fill ins by Harry Kalas and Al Meltzer who were sportscasters based in Philadelphia.
The recap show before NFL Primetime
foster_31621 April 2006
"This Week in Pro Football" was the forerunner for the modern day weekly NFL recap shows that used humor to describe the week's action right up to and after the first week of the playoffs. I wasn't born yet when this series first aired, but after watching it in reruns, I got a chance to see what professional football was like in the late 60's through the mid 70's around the time before and after the 1970 AFL/NFL merger and some of the comical quips used in the show are timeless classics. This was before the "NFL Sunday Ticket", before the 24-hour cable sports networks and before the modern era of expansion, multi-million dollar signing bonuses and all of the teams having colored facemasks as well as modern day free agency. "This Week In Pro Football" will always be a timeless piece in the history of professional football.
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