America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions is an American annual documentary series created by NFL Films (broadcast on NFL Network and CBS). Its 57 installments profile the 57 winning teams of the National Football League (NFL)'s annual Super Bowl championship game; each episode chronicles an individual team.
A spin-off debuted on September 18, 2008, titled America's Game: The Missing Rings which chronicled five of the best teams to never win the Super Bowl.[2]
America's Game weaves together archival NFL Films footage, videotape, audio clips, and interviews into a new program with new talking head style interviews from three or more of the winning team (players, coaches, or administrators) and narration from a celebrity.
In instances of teams winning multiple Super Bowls closely together different people are interviewed for each episode. For example, though Bill Belichick coached the New England Patriots to three Super Bowls in four years (2001, 2003, and 2004) he was only interviewed for the episode on the 2004 team. For the original run of 40 episodes, only two subjects were interviewed twice: Bill Curry (1966 Green Bay Packers and 1970 Baltimore Colts) and Joe Greene (1974 and 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers). Recurring interviewers would become more commonplace when the show resumed on an annual format: Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin (2007 and 2011 New York Giants), Ray Lewis (2000 and 2012 Baltimore Ravens), Peyton Manning (2006 Indianapolis Colts and 2015 Denver Broncos), Julian Edelman (2014, 2016 and 2018 New England Patriots), LeGarrette Blount (2016 New England Patriots and 2017 Philadelphia Eagles), Rob Gronkowski and Devin McCourty (2014 and 2018 New England Patriots), Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes (2019, 2022 and 2023 Kansas City Chiefs). Ernie Accorsi and Rich Dalrymple are the only non-players or coaches to be interviewed for the series—both were their respective team's director of public relations (Accorsi was later promoted to general manager by the Colts).
Of the "Blue Ribbon" top 20 teams, the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys are represented most often as a franchise with three championship teams each. The Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders are each represented twice.
According to Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films, only 20 teams were ranked instead of 40 because they feared negative mail from fans of the franchise whose team was ranked the lowest.[3] Sabol stated that, while the panel chose the 1972 Dolphins as the #1 team, several voters hedged and said Miami's unbeaten season was "the greatest team achievement." Of the voting methods, Sabol said, "That's what I think people were voting on, rather than, 'Could this team beat the '85 Bears?'"[4]
For its initial airings the show was divided into two waves, with the first series being a weekly series counting down the top 20 winning teams, as selected by a 53-person panel of "Blue Ribbon" experts on the NFL.[3] The first 18 episodes aired on NFL Network beginning in November 2006 and the final two programs on CBS the day before Super Bowl XLI in February 2007.
The remaining 20 champions' episodes aired during the NFL's off-season, February through April, before the 2007 season began. The first episode of the remaining 20 champions aired on Thursday, February 8, 2007.
The show began its run with a one-hour "preview special" at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on November 17, 2006, followed by the first of the countdown shows the following week. The "official" premiere episode aired on November 24, the day after the first live regular season game telecast on NFL Network.
After some speculation on the future of the series, the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, winners of Super Bowl XLI had their episode air on September 5, 2007, one night before the season opener.[5] The 2007 New York Giants also received an episode, signaling that the series would be annually renewed at the beginning of the next NFL season; annual releases have come every year since.
The following list compiles the top 20 Super Bowl teams, as determined by the experts. The teams listed below were revealed in countdown form in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLI. The first 18 episodes aired on NFL Network, while the top two teams' specials were shown on CBS on February 3, the day before Super Bowl XLI. Each episode in the top 20 would be introduced with, "NFL Network presents America's Game, a countdown of the 20 greatest Super Bowl champions, and now, number ___"
Beginning February 8, NFL Network began to broadcast the remaining twenty champions' episodes. The 2005 Steelers were not eligible to be in the Top 20 as the voting was done prior to Super Bowl XL.
Following the original 40-episode run, the show took on an annual format. Beginning with Super Bowl XLI and the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, a new episode would air each September, usually the day before the regular season started, in order to commemorate the reigning Super Bowl Champions. The new episodes would air on NFL Network.
A spinoff series, America's Game: The Missing Rings, debuted on September 18, 2008 and aired for five consecutive Thursdays after that, starting at 10 p.m. ET. In this series, the producers picked five very good teams that came close to winning it all but finished short of Super Bowl victories, and devoted an hour to each of them. The basic format of the show was the same. However, the theme song cut off abruptly before the show started, symbolizing the unfinished goals of the teams being profiled.[7]