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STUDIO: Warner Home Video
MSRP: $26.98
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 75 minutes (counting special features)
SPECIAL FEATURES:
•Behind the scenes at NFL films
The Pitch
Football porn with some sports science thrown in.
The Humans
Rob Naughton
Jesus, Jerry Jones. That
The Nutshell
Taking the high quality photography of the NFLs high speed Phantom Camera and showing it in all it’s glory. This disc highlights several games from the 09-10 NFL season, including the Saints-Colts Superbowl. In the middle there is some basic physics of the game added, mainly as an excuse to show amazing passes and skeleton rattling hits.
The Lowdown
Here is a big caveat: I watched this on DVD. Much of the detail that makes this thing worth owning was perhaps lost to me. This thing sort of demands to be watched on a big HDTV and in high definition. You’re still going to get the gist of it, but if you have the option, go big on it.
Going after Baltimores Poe?
The NFL is one of those things that either excites the hell out of you or drives you up a wall. I used to be a latter but now I can say I am the former. Sportcenter ends up being my default program choice when I’m mindlessly wasting away in front of the television. If you’re anything like me, you love the top plays segment. Seeing what shouldn’t be possible accomplished is, at least in part, why I watch so goddamn much. It is that mindset that drives this disc.
Matthew Stafford
The main focus of the disc is some random highlights and three games: the Cleveland Browns no time left loss to the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals in the wild card round of the play-offs, and the Indianapolis Colts loss to the New Orleans Saints in the Superbowl. Being a long suffering Lions fan, I was thrilled to once again see Matthew Stafford’s last play with an injured shoulder heroics. I watched the damn thing several times. While I was glad to see my team given such prominence in the content, I couldn’t get over how little was actually covered of the res of the regular season.
This is my main complaint here. It’s too damned short. At 48 minutes there just isn’t enough time to do anything really in depth with the content. The middle section covering the sport science of spiral passes, punt kicking, and tackling force is nice and informative, but feels like padding. Surely, there had to be more than 3 games with high drama and excitement during the season. I realize this isn’t supposed to be a document of the 09-10 season, but when that’s what you’re covering at least do it with some degree of comprehensiveness.
Stepping on a head is considered in-bounds.
This is really just a showcase for the ridiculous Phantom camera and its unbelievable 1000 frames per second photography. Watching a kickoff and getting to see the compression of the ball as the kicker lays his foot into it is impressive. Seeing a grown man turned into a ragdoll as he is layed out by a sharp angled tackle is always going to be fun to watch. The fingertip catches of seemingly uncatchable passes and freight train-like endzone running back TDs is what you get. This is what I expected and it was delivered in gorgeous detail.
Overall, this is just a nice bit of football porn. Good for watching with some friends when you don’t need to pay too much attention to what’s happening on screen. The perfect sort of warm up to the big game. It’s a light affair, but it’s a good fun watch. Hard to recommend a purchase to anyone but the biggest football fans looking to show off their entertainment center, though.
Great B-boy moves, probably not a TD catch, though.
The Package
Included is a tour of the NFL films studios. It’s a surprisingly substantial feature. Running about 37 minutes it was very informative and gives you an idea of the stressful work put in by the men and women that put together those glorious highlight packages. Subtitles are available as well as audio in 5.1 and 2.0.
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
