Haven’t stopped watching the most exciting two minutes from Super Bowl 53 since Sunday? You’re not alone. The ‘NFL 100’ commercial that aired to celebrate the league’s upcoming centennial season provided more highlights than 60 minutes of Rams vs. Patriots.
As we replay the ad over and over and think about how we can re-create it at home, the challenge is figuring what was more impressive — the volume of NFL celebrities or the level of the action.
Here’s breaking down every scene and making sure you didn’t miss anything that a cast of 50 — including 22 current players, 22 former players, two officials, one future player, a gamer, a broadcaster and a commissioner — did in the full version of the spot, directed and coordinated brilliantly by Peter Berg of “Friday Night Lights.”
MORE: “NFL 100” commercial was shot for free, no player was paid
1. Roger Goodell at his most Goodellian. He never breaks character, even when playing a caricature of himself. He sells right away that everything is hunky dory in the NFL, even though you know there’s about to be chaos.
2. Aaron Donald sits with Dick Butkus and Mean Joe Greene. The NFL’s most ferocious defensive player and premier inside sack artist to the right of two Hall of Famers who once held those respective titles? Yes, please. Somewhere, late great former Rams Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones had to be smiling.
3. Peyton Manning behind Orlando Pace again. True Heisman Trophy geeks know that in the 1996 voting, Pace finished fourth as an offensive tackle while a junior Manning was eighth.
4. Alvin Kamara and Drew Brees clap for the commissioner. Nominate them for best supporting Oscars now.
5. Michael Strahan golf clapping, too. You can bet he thinks he should have hosted that dinner like everything else on TV.
6. Rob Gronkowski sits with Brian Urlacher. Or was it Dwayne Johnson and John Cena?
7. Juju doesn’t remember Ninja. Smith-Schuster can’t recall that he once gamed with e-sports superstar Tyler Blevins, just like soon he might not remember he once played with Antonio Brown.
8. Marshawn Lynch and cake. Leave it to Beast Mode to keep quiet and still cause a big stir. Make that 28 times he’s fumbled in his career.
9. Ndamukong Suh and Mike Singletary go crazy eyes. Pray for that golden football.
10. Christian McCaffrey gets even crazier. Have to admit, few offensive players look so scary when going after the football. If only Cam Newton had him in the backfield late in Super Bowl 50.
11. Joe Montana to Jerry Rice. Outside of Peyton, no QB has better comedic acting chops than Joe Cool. His “No can do, Cowboy!” toward Michael Irvin is the best line of the ad up to this point. Unfortunately, it was the worst pass of his career.
12. Deion Sanders goes Prime Time before being Urlached. No Falcon or Bear was harmed in the filming of this motion picture.
13. Larry Little, Paul Warfield and Larry Csonka. Those ’72 Dolphins are still sipping the same sweet champagne after all these years.
14. Donald cheers on a running Todd Gurley. “C’mon, TG!” is something he wish he could have also said in the Super Bowl.
15. Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith. Sanders’ elusiveness is still there at age 50, but Smith’s shade game is still on point, too: “Y’all know I have more yards than they do, right?” takes over as the best line until …
16. Peyton throws ‘deep’ to LaDainian Tomlinson. “You still got it,” Strahan marvels. “That hurt,” Manning says while wincing. It’s arguable he didn’t get enough screen time, and Eli was definitely underused in a cameo.
17. Ed Reed goes Black Panther on LaDainian. The new Ravens Hall of Fame safety looked like he could still play and take out anyone at 40. The only thing missing from the best suit in the ad was vibranium. LT flashed his famous TD pose a little toon soon.
18. Jim Brown. “Boy, this is a great party.” He retired early from the NFL for acting, so he didn’t sign up to act as a runner.
19. Baker Mayfield and Tom Brady. “Get out there old man,” from Mayfield, the best line of the ad. The Browns quarterback follows that up with the best expression of the ad when Brady tosses all his Super Bowl rings — only five of six at that point — toward him. Yeah, it was totally worth it to get Mayfield to Boston to school that scene.
20. Terry Bradshaw vs. Donald to Larry Fitzgerald. There’s a lot of Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Panthers love in those two minutes.
21. Fitzgerald vs. Odell Beckham Jr. vs. Derwin James vs. Jalen Ramsey vs. Patrick Peterson. What was Bradshaw thinking throwing into triple coverage? No wonder he has “only” four rings.
22. The Immaculate Reception 2: Electric Boogaloo. Now we get it. Bradshaw needed the pass tipped before Franco Harris could catch it and Greene could love it. Minor deduction for not getting Frenchy Fuqua involved.
23. JuJu Smith-Schuster tiptoes on the table. It’s unsure how he got the ball from Harris, other than sharp editing. But the red shoes choreography deserves a Tony. Shaking Marshon head, smh.
24. Here we Goodell again. Yep, through all the chaos in his league, he’s up at a podium, stating the obvious, calling OBJ open vs. Derwin James.
25. “Pat. Russ.” Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson had a great duel in December, and they got together again to film their scene at the Pro Bowl in Orlando in January. Mahomes had no choice but to no-look pass when flashing so quickly on the screen.
26. Bend it like Odell, again. It was impressive that Mahomes hit Beckham on a catch reminscent of his lasting 2014 highlight, given Beckham filmed his scenes all the way out in LA.
27. Sarah Thomas and Ron Torbert. Give NFL officials a break, will ya? Thomas is the NFL’s first female NFL official, the down judge on Torbert’s crew. Torbert, by the way is only the sixth African-American head referee in the league. Torbert correctly ruled Beckham’s catch on the ballroom table, while Thomas was right to call it a first down.
28. Tony Gonzalez vs. Von Miller. Congrats to Gonzalez, who joined Reed both in the Hall of Fame Class of 2019 and in this commercial. Good thing he was in great shape to be handle being thrown down by Miller, Broncos outside linebacker turned cowboy hipster.
29. Richard Sherman vs. Sam Gordon. Sherman has been one of the league’s smartest, outspoken and progressive-thinking players. It was brilliant to pair him with Gordon, the fierce, soon-to-be 16-year-old girls tackle-football advocate. She’s the third grounbreaking woman to appear in the ad, along with Thomas and, briefly, broadcaster Beth Mowins.
30. Gordon to Saquon Barkley… to the house? Gordon makes the running back move she’s had since age 9 and gets the ball to Barkley, who’s only six years older. He makes his patented hurdle and seems to run away from every other player in the room, all of whom are older than him.
Got it all? Good. Time to watch it again for a 100th time.
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