Cory Puffett: Multimedia Pick

N "if" L: Dallas Cowboys four-time
Super Bowl champs?

I am a sports junkie and the story had better be important for me to stray from the world of ESPN, NFL Network, etc. into the realm of hard news, current events, and anything related to politics.

Last year, a contributor to NFL.com, Dave Dameshek, began a series of video blogs titled the "N "if" L." In these videos, Dameshek takes crucial moments in the history of the NFL and asks, "what if this had played out differently?"

There was not a set reason I chose this one of the several other editions he made, such as "What if Elway hadn't skipped out on the Colts?" But, of course, there has to be a reason that I selected this as my example for this blog post.

I love just about anything, especially in the sports world, that takes a piece of history and picks one thing about it to change. People do this all the time, but Dameshek tries to follow the domino effect that one thing creates. Clearly he isn't right about everything, but it is fascinating to me nevertheless.

Dameshek does another video series I enjoy watching on a weekly basis, the "Shame Report," wherein he looks at everything that happened over the course of a week in the NFL Regular Season and picks the five most shameful things that happened and displays them for everyone to see.

So why did I not pick that over the "N "if" L?" I made my selection because I think it was genius to make the whole thing very cartoonish. With the crazy chain of events that each scenario brings, we need something visual to help keep track of it all. Doing an animation for the drawings helps with that. But he goes the extra step and animates the entire studio, and himself.

This may not be a fantastic example of news, but it most certainly is a great example of multimedia and a different and fun way of using it.