Long before the Falcons step onto the Georgia Dome turf to face an opponent such as the Green Bay Packers, before the Falcons practice the blitzes they will throw at Aaron Rodgers and before Matt Ryan will face a mock look at the stunts that will be run against him, the players and coaches will sit in the dark and watch film. Film is the very first ingredient for any Falcons’ victory and the coaches and players will all agree that without film, success would be fleeting Sunday afternoon. Each Monday the Falcons coaches rely on one man and his crew to provide them with the necessary film that hopefully leads to a victory the next week.
Mike Crews has been with the Falcons organization for 14 years and for the past 11, he has been the team’s Video Director. Crews and his staff film each game and practice, then edit the footage down over the course of 80-110 hours each week to help the coaches and players prepare for the following week. “We have a standard list of ‘cut-ups’ that the coaches always want and we make them always available for them.”
The “film,” a term that seems a bit antiquated considering everything is digital these days, is sent to players and coaches via email or through USB drives and DVDs. Crews and his staff breaks down the film into categories such as “offense,” “defense,” and “kicks.” Data will also be attached to each clip such as play call, down and distance. “They may want to look at a certain play thirty different ways,” says Crews about how he takes the film copy and intercuts different angles.
The team relies on Crews and his staff for this valuable information almost as soon as the game is over because life in the film room operates just as coaches do in post-game press conferences. The coaches are always trying to move on to the next opponent and putting a big win or a tough loss behind them in a hurry. Crews and his team will in most cases spend Sunday night editing the film to have it ready for the coaches’ consumption early Monday morning. On some road trips, the coaches are wanting film on the plane ride home and Crews tries to honor those requests. “The requests vary but are mostly determined by the different staffs and different coaches.”
As far as planning for the next opponent, Crews and his staff try and stay ahead of the game. Crews says he and the video staff will begin working on the Falcons opponents at least one week before the game, breaking down film and providing the coaches with the much-needed film to study how Aaron Rodgers calls plays or how Charles Woodson lines up for a corner blitz. “We are always one week ahead. Week by week, we’ll get all the games from the league and we’ll load them and go to work. Crews helps the coaches out by creating an analysis database with reports for the staff.
And just when you start to think that perhaps Crews doesn’t have enough on his plate, he is also in charge of overseeing the college video systems that help the scouts and coaches watch film for potential future Falcons. “We will get all of the college games in and load them for our area scouts, so they can have access to watch them before they go out to see a player.”
Crews will typically use five projectors, five laptops and three cameras (one sideline, one in each endzone) for each game or practice, and the storage isn’t quite the old metal cans that one might see on an NFL Films set. “The cameras are hooked directly into the laptops, so it is immediately available.”
Film study has come a long way since coaches first starting watching game tape early in the NFL’s history. Everything has gone digital and Crews is able to record directly into laptops with his team, which makes editing easier but the process harder. “It is easier to get the film in now but it actually becomes harder because they can ask for more, more angles, more shots. There is no limit to what they can ask for now.”
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