In a few days, the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in a title rematch from two years ago that takes place in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. As a lifelong football fan, I’ve watched each year’s championship game for as long as I can remember. The NFL has capitalized on its year-round hype train, and as soon as a champion is crowned, combine talk involving former college players begins. But keeping up to date with the league around the clock wasn’t always so easy for fans of a certain age.
Back then, long before the information superhighway gave you sports clips at the press of a button, if you didn’t have access to basic cable, the only way you could re-live your professional sports dreams was to get an annual subscription to Sports Illustrated, and with your payment, you’d receive a freshly released VHS copy of that year’s Super Bowl highlights, along with a second videotape featuring a year-long summary of your favorite NFL team. Thankfully, those days are long gone, and the NFL Network is a possibility for football fanatics throughout the year, but if you’re seeking a different type of football release, you must seek the proper streaming service.
Earlier this year, Prime Video Sports released ChiefsAholic: A Wolf in Chief’s Clothing, and that movie is a great representation for Prime Video’s latest venture: Sports documentaries. ChiefsAholic depicts the dark side of fandom, beginning with the backstory of a larger-than-life fanboy with a mysterious history. This masked caricature with a gambling problem had his life turned upside down when he was eventually arrested for robbing a bank. The story switches gears and then follows a bail bondsman who’s racing the clock to capture the elusive mascot who’s on the run, along with the terrorized reactions from one of the tellers who feared for her life.
Having dedicated much of my life to a few different favorite teams, let’s make one thing crystal clear: there’s fans, and then there’s superfans, but this true-life documentary film has so many twists and turns, the truth is really stranger than fiction and I highly recommend watching this one, because I’d forgotten quite a few of the details. It’s pretty great.
“First of all, just about everything, in America, is illegal…”
On the opposite side of that field at Super Bowl LVII, a different type of story was unfolding for the Philadelphia Eagles. Jason Kelce’s team was facing off against his little brother’s team for family bragging rights and the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the first time in league history. While the elder brother dealt with medical setbacks during his team’s return to the big game, he also questions his mortality and ponders his future in the documentary, Kelce.
The Eagles center grows his media personality and at the same time this sports icon enjoys the big moment creating a terrible inconvenience to his pregnant wife, whose due date clashes with the Super Bowl.
The film’s conclusion isn’t exactly a storybook ending for Jason, but it is a good one for Travis. And, that game foreshadows this year’s Super Bowl as the same teams return, even though there’s no longer two brothers on opposite teams fighting for the trophy.
Jason’s journey is very emotional, overall. And the best thing about it? Taylor Swift never makes an appearance!
Bye Bye Barry is a conventional sports documentary highlighting the media-shy football player. Photo Courtesy: Prime Video.
Bye Bye Barry is a more traditional sports documentary, which focuses on the enigmatic and media-shy Barry Sanders, highlighting his Hall of Fame career, despite the lack of excellence in other positions on many of his teams throughout the years (and the lack of much postseason success).
His out-of-the-blue retirement still raises all sorts of questions to this day because he was so close to becoming the league’s all-time rushing leader before quitting. He finally had enough of it all and he really doesn’t offer too many details about making the decision, but it was painfully obvious he was letdown by the Detroit Lions, who had allowed many of his better teammates leave to play for other teams.
And I’ve got to be honest; I truly didn’t even realize Coach Prime was a streaming docuseries, but apparently, it has already aired for three seasons, which span from Deion Sander’s head coaching tenure at Jackson State University to his current position at the University of Colorado.
Playing more like a Hard Knocks look at the coach, the person and the family of Sanders, it’s part hype train full of promotions, part heartfelt messaging that is a roller coaster ride (much like the Neon Deion persona who used to spark his professional sports teams back in the day), and part highlight machine.
I actually enjoyed more of his underdog story while he was coaching during his early HBCU days instead of his Division 1 current-day exploits in Boulder. This is a pretty good watch, as well.
It’s in the Game: Madden NFL is my second-favorite sports doc on this list. It’s a great underdog story, focusing on the upstart Electronic Arts, as the computer game company faces failure after failure in its attempts at creating a popular football video game, but by abandoning the PC and backward hacking a Sega Master System, an instant franchise is created, which will soon become the industry leader, fully endorsed by the Super Bowl-winning coach and highly popular broadcaster, John Madden.
Staying atop the pop-culture perch isn’t easy for the company, something the developers learned the hard way, year after year. And as a gamer who grew up during this documentary’s timeline who has played many of the publisher’s games, I enjoyed seeing the evolution of its quality products throughout the years.
While I don’t subscribe to the frequent server shutdowns within such a short amount of time after each game’s release, I did enjoy seeing Maddon giving these geeks hell regarding the products’ quality (or lack thereof). RIP to the sports gaming royalty.
It’s in the Game: Madden NFL is a great highlight for Prime Video Sports. Photo Courtesy: Prime Video.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to watch The Evolution of a Black Quarterback and Eli Manning presents The Undercovers for this article, but rest assured, there are quite a few other Amazon Original documentaries available out there and there are more releases on the horizon for the streamer.
Sports fans have been spoiled with so many resources, these days. They are abundant! The only problem I have is balancing the time between watching all of my games and finding the time to watch a great documentary about these same teams.
What a first-world problem for the common sports fan. As soon as the Super Bowl ends, I’ll do my best to make a little time for watching a few more. As a Child of the ’80s, I’m loving all of these sports options.