The BEST episodes directed by Ken Rodgers
#1 - Four Falls of Buffalo
30 for 30 - Season 3 - Episode 5
In 1989, the Buffalo Bills were a talented team full of big personalities -- including future Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. Dysfunction and in-fighting ran as deep as the talent in their locker room., but the team known as "The Bickering Bills" would soon transform themselves into an elite force. From 1990-1993, the Bills went on an unprecedented run of AFC Championship victories, appearing in a record four straight Super Bowls. Of course, that isn't what the Bills are mostly remembered for. This is the story of a team that went down in history not for herculean achievement of making four straight Super Bowls, but for losing them all.
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#2 - Elway to Marino
30 for 30 - Season 2 - Episode 8
In the spring of 1983, the NFL may have been at its weakest point. The previous season had been marred by a players strike, the upstart USFL was poaching star players and Al Davis was successfully suing the league. But the momentum began to change on April 26, 1983 – the day of the NFL Draft – when a new generation of superstars was poised to enter the league. Six quarterbacks were selected in the first round of that draft – still the most ever. Elway to Marino explores this landmark draft through the eyes of the players, head coaches, general managers, team owners and agents who participated – including Marvin Demoff, who represented both John Elway and Dan Marino, and kept a diary in the months leading up to the most dramatic draft day in NFL history. We’ll learn the inside story of the draft picks, the back room deals, and the tension between future Hall of Famers and the teams that selected them.
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30 for 30 - Season 4 - Episode 14
Al Davis vs the NFL presents an intimate look inside one of the great rivalries in the history of the National Football League - Raiders legend Al Davis and former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Their battle grew so intense that players, owners, franchises - even the League itself - became characters in a three-decade long Shakespearean feud that changed football forever. As the Raiders play their inaugural season in Las Vegas with a brand-new stadium, something Al Davis often dreamed of building himself, it's time to examine the adversarial relationship between the two visionaries most responsible for building the league to its current greatness and who, in the course of trying to destroy each other, created the NFL landscape that thrives today.
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#7 - The Two Bills
30 for 30 - Season 3 - Episode 25
Bill Belichick will one day join Bill Parcells in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When the time comes, they'll have far more in common than a place in Canton-or a first name. The Two Bills, directed by Ken Rodgers and produced by NFL Films, traces the four-decade relationship between these two coaching masters. They first met when Belichick was a teenager and his father was coaching for Navy while Parcells was coaching at Army. On the same day in 1979, they became assistants with the New York Giants, and after Parcells took over as head coach, they won two Super Bowls together. Buttressed by what he learned from Parcells, Belichick would go on to win five Super Bowls of his own with the Patriots. Through all the ups and downs of their careers, including some memorable games when they were on opposite sides of the field, they forged a bond that few men of their stature have ever experienced. Two Bills, but one epic story.