by Marc Hustvedt on February 5th, 2010
You really can’t script a better Super Bowl—two best-in-breed Pro Quarterbacks in Peyton Manning and Drew Brees marching their nearly-undefeated teams into the big game. Brees’ Saints are the scrappy first-timers to the dance, carrying the hopes of a wounded city galvanized by the unlikely success of this band of brothers. Then there’s the always calculating Manning, one of the only true player-coaches left in the game, himself a seasoned general on the field marching his Ring-sporting champs back into the stadium where they won it all in 2007.
But the latest episode (above) out from 12 Angry Mascots of their popular web series NFL Writers Room, thrashes all notions that this game is actually determined on the field. Atom.com picked up the latest episode, and probably the last of the season of the ESPN commissioned comedy, in a exclusive distribution deal for the Super Bowl edition. The New York based comedy crew delivers a three and half minute gem written and directed by Scott Rogowsky, who stars in the series alongside fellow mascots Emily Axford, Chris Chuang, Zach Lombardo, Tom McCaffrey, Zach Norton, Nicole Shabtai and Trevor Williams. (8 out of 12 isn’t bad for three minutes.)
by Tim Goessling on November 2nd, 2009
Sometimes in sports, an event occurs that seems to be straight of a movie. A buzzer beater to win the championships, a walk off homerun for the series, or an impossible catch to keep a drive alive all qualify in this case. ESPN The Magazine has seized on the human and sometimes amazing drama of sports for their web series: NFL Writers Room.
Right from the kickoff, you must realize that this is a web series for football FANS, not just people who like one team, but people who are familiar with every game, player, coach, and throwback uniform design. You know the type: four different fantasy teams going at once, obsessively tracking player data to predict game winners, and knowing detailed data on every single major player. This is a web series for them.
Created by NY-based production team 12 Angry Mascots, the series is a behind the scenes look of the fictional NFL “writer’s room.” Each week before Sunday’s game the team previews upcoming games and the “dramatic ways” each of them could play out. For example, last Saturday’s episode featured the many different ways that the Minnesota-Green Bay game could have played, with a special focus on the Brett Favre story line. The writers debated how many touchdowns he should score and included a funny debate if Favre should go for a “Lambeau Leap”. In a funny twist, the writers also bicker about if the game’s storyline gels with the theme for the season: “despair & disparity.”
