A writer named Mark Bowden answers the headline question in a fantastic piece for The Atlantic. In it, he pulls back the curtain on the creativity and hard work that go into producing an NFL football game.

Told primarily from the perspective of CBS director Bob Fishman (“Fish”), the article goes into incredible detail about the strategic and creative decisions that frame every moment, every play, every game. It’s an outstanding piece of work.

But the cameras are all, of course, just tools. The goal is to tell stories with them. The game itself is the primary story, but within it are dozens of subplots.

I go insane for stories like this.

Behind nearly everything we consume regularly there lies an expert, someone who understands and appreciates complexity in a way that an outsider just can’t. This article gave me a new — and welcome — appreciation of NFL broadcasts. I’m fairly certain I’ll never watch a game the same way again. Wouldn’t want to, actually.

Related: my latest piece for Examiner.com is about a documentary film by Gary Hustwit called Objectified, which takes a look at the somewhat esoteric world of product design.

I used the line “The essence of any good documentary involves taking a subject that’s tough to access for a layperson and making clear why some folks treat it as an obsession.” I rewrote that several times before getting it right, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.