Editorial Review:Amazon.com:In 1994 the National Football League celebrated its 75th birthday. Narrated by John Mahoney,
75 Seasons tells the story of professional football in America from 1920 to 1994. The story starts with an interview with Alda Browser of the Canton Bulldogs, the only surviving player from the first professional team. We learn that the pro game lived for years in the shadow of the amateur university contests, and we witness the effect of society upon the game itself; as the men returned from World War II, the NFL evolved into a brutal contest--a battle of men waging war over territory and possession. Compared to being shot and scared senseless, the game of football, though, was fun. Crowds became eager for the game, and athletes such as Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, Homer Jones in the 1950s, and Joe Namath in the 1960s became football superstars. Joe Montana, Don Shula, and Bill Walsh make insightful observations about the development of the league over the last half of the 20th century, from the style of play to the style of player. This thoroughly absorbing retrospective is a must for football fans to have in their library.
--Jeremy Storey
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Gettin' my pigskin fix
This is one of those NFL Films videos I like to check out during the off-season when the pigskin bug's a-callin', and I need my fix. From the NFL's efforts to gain the same legitimacy that college football enjoyed, to Art Rooney's Steelers finally becoming winners in the 70s, to the heartbreak of the four-time losers known as the Vikings, Bills and Broncos, to club-footed kicker Tom Dempsey hitting the longest field goal in league history, to the often caustic wit of late Bucs coach John McKay, there's quite a bit of ground covered in this show's relatively scant 90-minute-long span.
Other great NFL moments touched upon:
- Some words with Chuck Bednarik, the NFL's last "60-minute man"
- The rise of the AFL as a competitive threat to the NFL
- The Chicago Bears' infamous 73-0 pasting of the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL championship,
- The Super Bowl screw-ups of Garo Yepremian and Leon Lett
- The clash between Browns RB Jim Brown and coach Paul Brown
- and many more great moments
Overall, "75 Seasons" is a pretty good retrospective and brief history of the league's first three-quarters of a century. While the show is presented in a non-chronological fashion, I didn't mind the jumping around from the various time periods and eras too much. The only fault I encountered with this show is that 90 minutes is hardly an adequate amount of time to cover all those great moments and personalities in the in-depth manner that they deserve.
`Late
Rating: 
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A disjointed film.
This uncharacteristically haphazard production virtually ignores the earliest days of pro football, spends too much precious time recounting the history of the rival AFL (which deserves a separate film of its own), and doggedly refuses to follow any kind of chronological order. While baseball gets the Ken Burns treatment, with a proper multi-volume approach, NFL fans are stuck with this. NFL Films generally does good work, but not here.
Rating: 
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The Greatest NFL Documentary
This is what NFL films is all about. After seeing this on TNT after a Sunday Night Football game, I became an NFL films junkie. A must see for any football fan!
