I love both football and baseball. Each sport has its exciting factors and historic moments, and each has a certain beauty to it. Though baseball has a dark side to its history, the beauty in the sport lies in how it has seemingly grown alongside our nation. While you have to look a little closer at football to see that side of it, it is most certainly there. Until things like NFL Films came around, I'd imagine that, besides family and friends of the players and coaches, a lot of people might have been inclined to look at football as a sport of brutes. And while sports documentaries have done plenty to reveal the other side of the equation, I feel that, besides Ken Burns' Baseball, the most effective ones are about football. Whether we'd like to admit or not, there is a big portion of us (both sports fans and not) that still look at football as a brutal, violent sport. With the recent avalanche of concussions, and the amount of past players coming out to claim they've been made to suffer through the consequences of those and other related injuries without proper care post career from the NFL, it's hard to deny that line of thinking. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a more tender side to the game.

America's Game is one such documentary series that shows there's more to what we see. It tells the story of the teams that have won the Super Bowl through the eyes of the players, coaches, and sometimes front office executives of the organizations. This series is one of my favorite ever. When I've watched the show it has produced a rainbow of emotions in me. There are some episodes that are highly inspiring, some episodes that are sad, some that are funny, and some that mix all those emotions. The one constant is that they tell a very compelling story to those who are willing to watch. And it has a kick-ass opening theme to boot.

The show first aired back in 2006, counting down the top 20 teams picked by a panel of 53 "experts", with the top 2 being shown the day before Super Bowl XLI. The remaining 20 episodes aired throughout that off-season, and each team who has won the championship since has gotten a subsequent episode. The format of the show is as such:  three or more of the people from the team are interviewed, clips from that season are shown (courtesy of the NFL Films archive), and each episode is narrated by a celebrity. Though each episode only runs 44 minutes, the show still manages to fit in a good amount of content.

Though I could recommend a number of the episodes, these (in no certain order) are some of my personal favorites:

• 1986 New York Giants: Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, with team commentary from Bill Parcells, Phil Simms, and Lawrence Taylor.

• 1990 New York Giants: Narrated by Alec Baldwin, with team commentary from Ottis Anderson, Carl Banks, and Jeff Hostetler.

• 2007 New York Giants (yes I am a Giants fan): Narrated by James Gandolfini, with team commentary from Tom Coughlin, Eli Manning, and Michael Strahan (who is hilarious in this episode).

• 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, with team commentary from Jon Gruden, John Lynch, and Warren Sapp (who is pretty funny, as well).

• 1987 Washington Redskins: Narrated by Gene Hackman, with team commentary from Jeff Bostic, Darrel Green, and Doug Williams.

• 1985 Chicago Bears: Narrated by Alec Baldwin, with team commentary from Mike Ditka, Jim McMahon, and Mike Singletary.

• 1984 San Francisco 49ers: Narrated by Gene Hackman, with team commentary from Russ Francis, Dwight Hicks, and Keena Turner.

• 1983 Los Angeles Raiders: Narrated by Alec Baldwin, with team commentary from Marcus Allen, Todd Christensen, and Howie Long.

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There are plenty more I could recommend, but I think that about sums up the ones I find to be the best. If any of you that read this have ever watched the show, I'd appreciate hearing what you think of it, and I would also like to know which are your favorites.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Can't wait to see the 2011 New York Giants episode.