Super Bowl LI: The Perfect Sporting Film?

Source: NFL via Facebook

You just couldn’t script it, could you? Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots, one of the most successful franchises in the history of the National Football League, produced the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all-time to beat the Atlanta Falcons back in February.

Trailing 28-3 at half time, Tom Brady led the Patriots to a phenomenal victory that will live long in the memory of football fans across the globe. If you want to create a dramatic sporting film based on real events, look no further than this game – it will go down in the annals as one of the craziest matches in Super Bowl history.

If truth be told, nobody saw it coming and that is what made it even better. Heading into the famous half time show, the Patriots and the great Tom Brady were down by 25 points. Only a fool would have claimed that New England were going to win from such a bleak position…

But they did. In true Hollywood style, the Patriots offense rallied and started to close the gap. On the other side of the ball, defensive co-ordinator Matt Patricia made a handful of tweaks to the system and the Falcons just couldn’t cope with the added pressure. A movie would have to go down the route of a favourite bouncing back despite facing major odds rather than a true underdog story; the Patriots were well fancied going into the clash.

To be honest, you wouldn’t even need to focus primarily on the first half at all. While some may be looking for eye-witness accounts from New England players, a greater emphasis on the storyline might work better.

Source: New England Patriots via Facebook

Shooting a movie based on the comeback could be relatively straightforward; open up with the Patriots heading into the locker room with the scoreboard in sight and dive in there with a Belichick speech littered with inspirational quotes and passion. If you want to grab attention right from the beginning, an opening scene like that would certainly fit the bill.

Who knows, we could be set for another equally dramatic event in 2018. Next year’s Super Bowl will take place in Minnesota and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Bill Belichick and the Patriots, currently +600 in NFL betting odds with bet365, competing on the big stage once again.

As long as Belichick and Brady are at Gillette Stadium, New England will always be in contention and a film focusing on how both men have carried the Patriots’ dynasty in recent years would go down a treat with sports fans.

Last year’s Super Bowl was truly remarkable and New England supporters will never forget the comeback. Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons have been criticised for choking but that is completely unfair to the Patriots; they deserved to win based on that second half effort.

When we look back through the history of sporting films, underdog stories tend to dominate so it is about time that we celebrated an era of success; the New England Patriots deserve a movie on Super Bowl LI – let’s hope that a film maker out there agrees.

 

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