The death of Steve Sabol is being felt all over the league, as the former president of NFL Films was an inspiration to many in the professional football world.
SI.com’s Peter King, a titan of the industry himself, thinks he’s got a fitting tribute for Sabol, who passed away on Tuesday at age 69 after a battle with brain cancer.
King penned a thoughtful piece on NFL.com about Sabol’s impact among NFL movers and shakers, which clearly illustrates how much Sabol meant and will continue to mean to football.
A general manager told King that Sabol was “the most ethical person I knew,” and Brett Favre told King that Sabol “changed the face of the NFL without ever playing in it.”
Now, King thinks that the perfect tribute to Sabol would be to do an episode of the NFL Network’s A Football Life on Sabol. The wildly popular series, which documents some of the biggest figures in the game today, like Bill Belichick and Ray Lewis, was based off one of Sabol’s final public quotes.
“So they talk about heaven, and I don’t know what is waiting for me up there,” Sabol said, as King points out. “But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. That life cannot be better than the one I’ve lived down here, the football life. It’s been perfect.”
King says it’s time to honor Sabol in the same way he’s honored some of the game’s immortals.
“The next show I want to see?” he writes. “Steve Sabol: A Football Life.“
Click here to see Sabol’s top 10 innovations in sports television >>
