I've been very lucky in the freedom that I've been given. Every artist needs two types of freedom: You need the freedom to - the freedom to come up with an idea or treatment - and then you need the other half of the freedom, and that's freedom from - somebody saying, 'This is great. This is how I want you to do it'.

A perfect record does not mean that someone is the greatest. Rocky Marciano never lost a fight, but I never hear anyone say he's the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.

To me, football is very personal. Even as a kid, I looked at football in dramaturgical terms. It wasn't the score that interested me, it was the struggle.

Lombardi, a certain magic still lingers in the very name. It speaks of duels in the snow and November mud He remains for many the heart of pro football, pumping hard right now.

I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game.

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.

I've always been fascinated by Picasso and how he would look at a single image through multiple perspectives and from separate moments in time. He would look at a woman's face and he would see almost a three-dimensional look even though it was a flat canvas. I thought, well why couldn't we do the same thing with a football play?