NFL Films came to New York Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum in 2009 wanting to shine the spotlight on his team and, at that point, the timing was not right. He had a rookie coach (Rex Ryan), a rookie quarterback (Mark Sanchez) and too many moving parts.
After that team made the AFC title game, HBO and NFL Films circled back.
Tannenbaum, raised in the business by Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells, still had serious reservations. Then, he talked to the original GM: Ozzie Newsome, whose 2001 Baltimore Ravens were the guinea pigs for the first season of the famed summer show.
“He made a really interesting point that convinced me,” Tannenbaum says. “He’s like, . I never had thought of it that way.”
And the result?
The Jets wound up back in the conference championship round.
“After our experience, I completely agree with [Ozzie],” Tannenbaum continues. “It made practices a heck of a lot more competitive. That was a massive positive I didn’t expect. It allowed for people’s authentic personalities to come out. That team had a ton of characters on it. It was a much different experience, much more positive, than I would have expected.”
Those, of course, were simpler times.
Fourteen years ago, was still a bit of a novelty. The Jets’ summer was Season 6 for the show. The Ravens and Dallas Cowboys went in back-to-back years in 2001 and ’02. Then, for four years, the series was shuttered. It returned with the Kansas City Chiefs in ’07 and has run every summer since, save for the lockout year of ’11.
Of late, a lot has changed. Teams have launched their own in-house reality series. The idea of featuring camp has spilled over into the season, into the draft, into other sports and just about everywhere.
Already this summer, NFL Films has produced , billed as an all-access look at the draft from the war rooms of the Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams. It has an offseason offshoot of on the New York Giants premiering next month. Then, the Bears (again) will take center stage for the traditional training camp . After that, the in-season version of will feature the four teams of the AFC North.
That brings the total to nine teams, more than a quarter of the league, raising the curtain for NFL Films alone.
It also begs a question:
