Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

NFL Films did do a Game of the Week for every single game of the 1966 season, which makes for a great time capsule of the 1966 season, although I think a few episodes may have been lost. I wish they would have continued that from 1967 forward, but I imagine it must have been very expensive to produce a half hour program for every single game. I think the merger may have played a role in their not continuing with doing all the GOTW's as they were also covering the AFL from 1967-69. The historian in me appreciates their efforts to document the events of a single NFL season.

Good catch - I remember reading about the GOTW in the Gumshoe book. I've never seen one but 26 min seems like a decent amount of time to spend on one game. I'm pretty happy with the Tel Ra weekly highlights I have and those probably only spend a few minutes per game since they go through all the games of that week. A 56-3 game seems like an odd choice though, right?

NFL Films SP catalog has GOTW films for 12 of the Falcons' 14 games in 1966. The cost? How bad do you want to see 1966?

Rupert Patrick wrote: NFL Films did do a Game of the Week for every single game of the 1966 season, which makes for a great time capsule of the 1966 season, although I think a few episodes may have been lost. I wish they would have continued that from 1967 forward, but I imagine it must have been very expensive to produce a half hour program for every single game. I think the merger may have played a role in their not continuing with doing all the GOTW's as they were also covering the AFL from 1967-69. The historian in me appreciates their efforts to document the events of a single NFL season.

NFL Films took over filming the AFL in '68 and they produced ONLY a weekly highlight show for the AFL (while the NFL got preferential treatment w/ their GOTWs). The lack of AFL GOTWs for '68 & '69 is a bummer, man. I think after the '66 season the crew at NFL Films must have been exhausted. Imagine producing 7 half-hour films a week for 14 weeks? Never again!

JohnR wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote: NFL Films did do a Game of the Week for every single game of the 1966 season, which makes for a great time capsule of the 1966 season, although I think a few episodes may have been lost. I wish they would have continued that from 1967 forward, but I imagine it must have been very expensive to produce a half hour program for every single game. I think the merger may have played a role in their not continuing with doing all the GOTW's as they were also covering the AFL from 1967-69. The historian in me appreciates their efforts to document the events of a single NFL season.

NFL Films took over filming the AFL in '68 and they produced ONLY a weekly highlight show for the AFL (while the NFL got preferential treatment w/ their GOTWs). The lack of AFL GOTWs for '68 & '69 is a bummer, man. I think after the '66 season the crew at NFL Films must have been exhausted. Imagine producing 7 half-hour films a week for 14 weeks? Never again!

I think it was a cost issue, that it didn't bring in enough revenue to justify the production costs of making six programs a week as opposed to making just one.

Add to this the fact that NFL films was also of course producing an annual highlight film for every single team, both NFL and AFL.

JohnR wrote:NFL Films took over filming the AFL in '68 and they produced ONLY a weekly highlight show for the AFL (while the NFL got preferential treatment w/ their GOTWs).

I wish we could "special order" those '68 AFL weekly highlight shows (would love to see more of Marlin Briscoe at quarterback). It seems that very little has been added to the Special Order Catalog since Steve Sabol passed away in 2012.

Retro Rider wrote:

JohnR wrote:NFL Films took over filming the AFL in '68 and they produced ONLY a weekly highlight show for the AFL (while the NFL got preferential treatment w/ their GOTWs).

I wish we could "special order" those '68 AFL weekly highlight shows (would love to see more of Marlin Briscoe at quarterback). It seems that very little has been added to the Special Order Catalog since Steve Sabol passed away in 2012.

Most of those 68 AFL shows are online.

I am sorry, but we cannot post links to videos that belong to the NFL/NFL Films. We also cannot post links to sites that sell bootleg films.

Thank you.

On the subject of annual individual team highlight films from the 1960's and 1970's, some college football teams were doing them as well. I know my own alma matter West Virginia produced an annual 25-minute highlight film starting sometime in the late 1960's whose quality was every bit as good as what NFL Films was doing in its team highlight films at the time. They even use Spence music. These films (narrated by the late great Jack Fleming) serve as a terrific, invaluable chronicle of the Bobby Bowden years. Does anyone know of any other college in that timeframe (late 1960's to early 1970's) that was creating annual highlight films of NFL-Films level quality?
The yearly Mountaineer highlight films kept being produced through the 80's and 90's until the end of the Don Nehlen era, after which time they seem to have been discontinued.