Keep Matriculating The Ball Down The Field

Saw the first episode of what looks to be a pretty cool 5-part series on Showtime last night called Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League. As you might expect, the show chronicles the history of the AFL. This first episode covered the creation of the league and its first few years, up until the league's founder, Lamar Hunt, made the decision to move his team (the Dallas Texans) to Kansas City (becoming the Chiefs) right after they had won the AFL Championship. As a football fan, I really enjoyed this. I think the only real problem with it is that it airs on Showtime and not HBO, meaning that its not narrated by Liev Schreiber. But I'll get over it. What got me really excited this show was what they teased for the upcoming episodes, specifically about Paul Brown. They showed a clip of Bill Belichick talking about all the innovations Paul Brown brought to professional football and how, like, 80% of what he did back them, teams are still doing now. If I was disappointed by anything Hard Knocks did this season, it was that I think they missed an opportunity to really delve into the history of the Bengals and Paul Brown (the closest they got was Tank Johnson learning that Bill Walsh isn't named Donny and that he once coached in Cincinnati). Hopefully, Full Color Football will get more into just how much Paul Brown did for the game of football (and zero of just how much Mike Brown has destroyed it).