With Super Bowl Sunday this weekend, TV programming will be all football, all the time.
But if the overkill of commercials, promos, previews and super-jock analysis just isn't quite enough for you (or if you like football movies, but not really football), we've compiled a list of the 10 greatest football movies of all time.
The list was compiled by the Herald-Leader sports department through voting and our typical water-cooler discussions.
There's a little something here for everybody, from the tough, old-school, blue-collar football guys to the folks who just appreciate a good movie.
1. Brian's Song (1971): This television movie chronicles the story of Brian Piccolo, a white football player with terminal cancer, and his African-American and future Pro Football Hall of Fame teammate Gale Sayers.
I don't care how manly a man you are, if you try to say you made it through this entire movie dry-eyed, you're just flat-out lying. And the movie couldn't go wrong with the combination of James Caan as Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as Sayers.
2. Remember the Titans (2000): A feel-good story about the newly integrated T.C. Williams High School and the trials and tribulations of its football team. Sure, it contains some typical Disney sappiness, but the racial-harmony theme usually makes for good football movies (see Brian's Song). Denzel Washington gives a convincing performance as coach Herman Boone.
3. The Longest Yard (1974): The original version starring Burt Reynolds was much, much better than the 2005 remake. And Reynolds' character had one of the great all-time football names: Paul "Wrecking" Crewe.
4. Rudy (1993): Even the most ardent of Notre Dame haters can't dismiss this inspirational tale. Plus, I'm a big Charles S. Dutton fan, and he delivers an underrated and overlooked performance here.
5. Jerry Maguire (1996): One of the first movies to take an in-depth look at the shady, big-business side of sports. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Oscar-winning "Show me the money" chant will live in infamy.
6. The Waterboy (1998): How can you not dig a movie that contains such a dead-on spoof of Col. Harland Sanders? It has great casting as well, with Adam Sandler, Henry Winkler and Kathy Bates. And it was weird, yet kind of cool, to see "The Fonz" playing such a pansy.
7. Friday Night Lights (2004): Not quite as good as the 1990 book by H.G. Bissinger, but it comes closer than most movies do by presenting the good and bad sides of a Texas town's obsession with high school football. The book also inspired a critically acclaimed TV drama, now in its fourth season, that airs on DirecTV.
8. North Dallas Forty (1979): Sex, drugs, alcohol and football. Throw in some vintage Nick Nolte, and you have a classic. The fictional team in this movie, the North Dallas Bulls, is a thinly veiled replica of the 1970s Dallas Cowboys.
9. Heaven Can Wait (1978): A quarterback comes back from the dead and leads his team to the Super Bowl. I can see a remake starring Brett Favre in a few years.
10. Knute Rockne, All-American (1940): I know, I know. Two Notre Dame movies in the top 10? But it's truly a good movie, one that was preserved in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Ronald Reagan plays George "The Gipper" Gipp.
