JOE29

These are starting to pop up on DVD, Dallas- Washington, Chicago-Green Bay so far. These wouldn't be so bad if they had games from before 1980. There's one game in the Dallas-Washington set that is from 1982, but all the rest are from the 1990-2000 era, which kind of sucks. Have some games from the 60's-70's and I might buy a few.

Dubya

I am a Cowboys fan but I did get the 85 Bears set because I always liked that particular team. Anyway one of the games has a TV station logo pop up on the screen from West Virginia (as if it was a station copy or a fan who had videotaped it). That leads me to believe that the NFL doesn't have copies of old school games on hand like one would think. That is the only explanation I can come up with as to why they would not have the 79 Cowboys comeback against the Skins on either the "greatest games" or "greatest rivalries" set.

JOE29

Doesn't NFL Films have videos of every game ? That's what I thought they had said before but maybe i'm wrong about that. According to the Amazon site these are complete games. If these sets had the older games I would try out a few but these more recent games, well I don't need to buy them.

Trevor

Yeah, I'll never expect anything good out of these sets. The Minnesota Vikings "5 Greatest Games" set had nothing from the 60s (their only championship), nothing from the 70s, no Fran Tarkenton, no Tommy Kramer even, just one game from the late 80s and then modern stuff, almost nothing that should have been top twenty, let alone top five.

Dubya

Yeah these are the complete TV broadcasts. Apparently the NFL does not have all of those (I had always heard the broadcasts of the first two Super Bowls were lost but I didn't realize that broadcasts of games from the 70's and 80's were not kept). Although I would prefer the network broadcast of the game, I would settle for the NFL Films version if they have the entire 79 game between the Skins & Cowboys.

jpb07

Alright don't kill the messenger. MOST of that '85 set came out of the trading scene. I was one of a few people who sold the full season on ebay before the NFL asked them to stop (i.e. they bought everything available and then shut it down.) I can think of maybe one instance on the entire set where the WB/NFL Films released discs didn't EXACTLY match what I already had. I have one regret from that time....prior to the NFL shutting it down I had a chance to buy the full broadcasts of EVERY Super Bowl and the deal fell through because I haggled over $25. So despite what they want you to believe, those first few Super Bowls do exist in broadcast form.

Now after the '06 NFC Championship game I got on a plane and had the NFL Films crew who worked that game sitting around me. The main camera guy was one of Steve's friends from school and had been there since NFL Films proper had begun. I was told that upon the broadcast of the games ALL material reverts to NFL control/ownership. This is why you'll never see anything from the networks (unlike their NCAA contract.) With the advent of digital technology they have been able to release more recent games faster while the older games are not always economically feasible.

And for shits and giggles here's a bit of trivia that I'm sure not many people know. Immediately after the game is over NFL Films has someone box up all of the unprocessed film and board a charter plane for NJ. As we were boarding the plane about an hour after the AFC game finished I overheard the cameraman on the phone with someone and then shared it with his team....apparently the box from the Indy/NE game was almost X-RAYED in Indy by some idiot TSA guy. Needless to say, the on the field footage from one of the classic AFC Championship games was almost lost because Joe Sixpack was being a bit overzealous on his job!

Sex Fiend

I agree that the Vikings set was a bummer. The same for the Packers set, which is also mostly 1990 and later (Favre era) material. Some of the other greatest games sets have had some good 70's era material, mostly vintage Super Bowls. They usually aren't complete broadcasts, but close enough for nostalgia's sake.

I've collected most of the sets, with almost all of the Super Bowls from about 1975-1999, as well as the 1972 Cowboys-Dolphins on the Dallas set. I wish they would release a Dolphins GG set so we could get the two Miami SB wins, and a Jets set to get the Namath game. The first two Packers SB wins may or may not ever be available, depending on who you beleive.

JOE29

I agree. Minnesota was my favorite team growing up and I would of loved to have a few of the older games from the 60's-70's era. I looked at that Vikings 5 Greatest Games set until i saw the games that were on it, then i left it alone.
There is a history of the Vikings 2 Disc set coming out in September that looks interesting though. It's advertised to have some footage of the 60-70's era on it which might be worthwhile. I may have to get that just to see some footage of that 70's era even if it's just a little bit.

I also would like to have the Vikings-Chiefs Super Bowl on DVD. That was the earliest Super bowl that I can remember not watching, plus being a Viking fan of that era it would be something that i would like to have even though they lost in it.