NFL Dream Season was a joint venture between ESPN and NFL Films and was the initial incarnation of Fantasy Football.

They poured through old NFL Films footage and combined physical film with imagination and created matchups that never happened to answer the question, “What team is the greatest in NFL history?”

The Premise

The year was 1988. The internet did not exist. Neither did other upcoming awesome stuff like DVD players or Pamela Anderson.

The argument about best NFL team ever is not a new one. But the way NFL Films attempted to solve it was as novel as it was bold.

The staff at NFL Films took an internal poll and decided on the 20 best teams in NFL history.

They took those results and ran them through a computer game called NFL Challenge, an MS-DOS computer program (watch it here, you can still play today).

ESPN used the computer simulation results to play each fictional game using NFL Films footage to make it appear that one was watching an actual game.

NFL Films added subjective assessments from active and retired coaches to help gauge intangibles and add them to the equation.

From there, they created four divisions of five teams each.

The Gameplay

With the 20 greatest NFL teams chosen, they started the “Dream Season.”

Each team played a regular season schedule of six games. The four division winners advanced to a four team “dream” playoffs. The final two teams played each other in the “Dream Bowl” to determine the greatest NFL team of all-time.

Now that the format and teams had been decided, how to go about creating hour-long episodes of each game? By making each episode a mini-game of itself.

Every game during NFL Dream Season had a play by play crew of two Pro Football Hall of Famers; Merrill Reese, the voice of the Philadelphia Eagles since 1977. And Steve Sabol, the face, president, and co-founder (with his dad Ed) of NFL Films.

To create dream matchups between teams that didn’t play at the same time (hence no footage) the team at NFL Films painstakingly edited and cut scenes from old games and combined them.

“It just took a whole lot of patience, like doing the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the world,” said Sabol, who said it took up to 10 weeks to create just one game.

Each game also featured a pregame show hosted by Reese and Sabol from inside a set that looked like an NFL broadcast booth – complete with actors as other media members to create ambiance and a sense of realism.

The halftime show was hosted by Chris Berman who showed highlights of other “dream” games in progress.

And of course a post-game recap with aforementioned duo of Reese and Sabol. And “Boomer” hosted the postgame show and recapped that week’s outcomes and stats. It was awesome!

Because linear time wasn’t a thing, it lead to some really cool anomalies.

• Weeb Eubank coaching against himself in a battle of ’59 Colts vs. ’68 Jets
• Norm Van Brocklin quarterbacking two teams at the same time (Eagles and Rams)
• Paul Warfield playing wide receiver for two teams in the same game (Browns vs. Dolphins)
• Chuck Noll coaching the Steelers while blocking for the Browns in the same game

Each “game” consisted of roughly 40 plays. Some game match-ups were reduced to highlights shared via Berman during halftime/post game simply because they could not find enough suitable footage.

The Results

The series ran a total of six weeks and featured six full games.

Week by week, the matchups were: (1) 1985 Bears vs. 1977 Cowboys; (2) 1984 49ers vs. 1966 Packers; (3) 1976 Raiders vs. 1969 Chiefs; (4) 1986 Giants vs. 1982 Redskins; (5) 1972 Dolphins vs. 1968 Jets; (6) 1986 Bears vs. 1976 Raiders.

Here are the final regular season standings and results from the playoffs and Dream Bowl:

East
1978 Steelers 6-0
1986 Giants 4-2
1959 Colts 3-3
1960 Eagles 2-4
1968 Jets 1-5

West
1984 49ers 5-1
1977 Cowboys 3-3
1983 Raiders 2-4
1963 Chargers 1-5
1951 Rams 1-5

North
1976 Raiders 6-0
1985 Bears 5-1
1966 Packers 4-2
1953 Lions 2-4
1964 Browns 1-5

South
1972 Dolphins 6-0
1982 Redskins 3-3
1955 Browns 3-3
1969 Chiefs 2-4
1971 Cowboys 0-6

Semis
1978 Steelers over 84 49ers (21-20)
1972 Dolphins over 76 Raiders (24-21)

Dream Bowl
1978 Steelers over 1972 Dolphins (21-20)

Conclusion

NFL Dream Season is reflective of a time when NFL Films and ESPN were both at their height of their powers. Some people would lump the NFL into that statement as well.

Watching the series is a lot of fun and even 30+ years later it is incredible to consider the amount of work and man hours put into the production.

Watch it on YouTube via Dave Volsky’s channel: