David Owen Plaut (born September 2, 1953) is an American filmmaker and author. During his 42-year career at NFL Films he was a creator and show runner of television series for ESPN, HBO, Showtime, NBC Sports Network and NFL Network. He was nominated for 12 national Sports Emmy Awards, and was a seven-time winner. Plaut was senior producer for the annual Super Bowl champions video and DVD from 1985 to 2018. He was a writer/producer on over 900 weekly NFL TV series episodes. Outside of NFL Films Plaut authored five books, and was the book critic at USA Today Sports Weekly for fifteen years.
Early life and education Plaut was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, Arthur Plaut, had a varied career in media with King Records, Ziv Television Programs and local radio station WSAI, along with his own local advertising agency. David's mother Bette (née Ginsburg) also worked in advertising at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample and in public relations before becoming a stay-at-home mom for David and his sister Amy. He was raised in the Jewish religion.
Plaut attended Cincinnati public schools until 1967, when his father accepted a job with KSDO radio in San Diego. After the move, Plaut attended Patrick Henry High School. Immediately following his graduation in 1971, Plaut began a five-year association with the San Diego Chargers football team as a training camp administrative assistant. He returned to southern California at the beginning of summer to rejoin the Chargers after completing each of his undergraduate academic years at Northwestern University. Plaut majored in Radio/TV/Film and earned his bachelor's degree in 1975.
Broadcasting career After college graduation, Plaut worked with NBC Sports during the 1975 NFL season as an on-site TV crew member for the network's west coast game broadcasts. In January 1976 he was hired by San Diego radio station KGB as an on-air personality. Appearing on a daily broadcast entitled “Studs on Sports,” Plaut wrote and performed comedy sketches lampooning contemporary local and national sports subjects.
Film and television career In late spring 1976, Plaut was offered a production job by Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films. The two had first met in 1973 when Sabol brought a location crew to the Chargers’ training camp. Plaut accepted the offer and moved east to the company's Philadelphia studios that August.
Plaut's first years with NFL Films were highlighted by a series of comedy shorts he produced for NBC's pregame show Grandstand. Most were parodies or satires about topical NFL stories, which included "End Zone Antics", "Metric Football", "As the Pigskin Turns", "NFL’s Wild Kingdom" and "Dr. Grogan and Mr. Hyde". In 1978 Plaut produced his first long-form comedy, a one-hour special entitled Super Bowl: Laughter and Legend, hosted by Ed McMahon.
Eventually, Plaut would go on to produce six additional full-length football follies films. The most noteworthy was 1987's NFL TV Follies, starring improvisational comic Jonathan Winters. In the film, a fictitious TV channel decides to junk its failing format and switch to all-football programming. It enabled Plaut and co-producer Dave Douglas to create parodies of children's shows, crime dramas, sci-fi fantasies, nature documentaries, household product commercials, local news and highbrow public television programming, among others. NFL TV Follies anticipated the creation of the actual all-football channel, NFL Network, 16 years before its inception. Ironically, many of Plaut's productions during the final decades of his career with NFL Films would be broadcast on NFL Network.
During the 1980 and 1981 seasons, Plaut was producer for Irv Cross’ weekly feature "Focus on Football", which aired on the CBS pregame show, The NFL Today.
In the mid-1980s, NFL Films began producing proprietary programming for the growing home video market. When the 1985 Chicago Bears became a national phenomenon, Plaut was chosen to produce what was referred to in-house as an “instant highlight.” Just five days after Chicago defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX, Plaut completed a one-hour film on the Bears’ season. Within a few weeks it was in stores and available to Chicago-area fans. Since then, NFL Films has produced a Super Bowl champions video every season. Eventually other sports followed their lead, and now every major North American professional sport annually releases an “instant highlight” film honoring their championship team.
Plaut was also part of the production crew that produced home videos celebrating the greatest moments in Philadelphia and Chicago sports history. Soon after he co-produced a home video for The Sporting News, The Greatest Moments in American Sports History.
In the late 1980s Plaut became the lead producer for all prime-time historical content aired on ESPN, first for Monday Night Magazine, then for the weekly feature Distant Replay. He also began producing 90-minute programs in the NFL's Greatest Games series, starting with his 1997 production of the Cowboys-Packers Ice Bowl. He would go on to produce a dozen shows in the series.
Plaut also created and produced for ESPN an anthology series covering the greatest sporting events and personalities of the 20th century, Sports Almanac, which ran for two seasons. In 1998 he co-produced the Emmy-nominated ESPN special Replay! – The History of the NFL on Television. In 2001, as part of ESPN’S Black History Month programming, Plaut wrote and directed Black Star Risen: The Alan Page Story, the first of two films he would ultimately produce on the life of the Hall of Fame player and Minnesota Supreme Court justice.
With the debut of NFL Network in 2003, Plaut contributed multiple episodes for such series as America’s Game, A Football Life and The Timeline. He was also the creator and co-showrunner for Caught in the Draft, a series devoted to the history of the NFL college draft. On January 15, 2016, his production of Super Bowl I: The Lost Game was the highest-rated non-game program ever to air on NFL Network.
In 2009 he was co-showrunner for Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League, timed to premiere during the 50th anniversary of the AFL. The five-episode series was carried on Showtime. Along with his over-the-air films, Plaut produced eight feature-length team histories for NFL Films’ home video division between 1999 and 2013. Plaut's final production at NFL Films was the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII Champions home video, completed just a week before his retirement.
In 2022 Plaut came out of retirement to produce and direct Give Me Liberty: The Early Years of Patrick Henry High, a one-hour documentary chronicling the experimental San Diego high school he attended from 1968 to 1971. In 2025, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nominated the film for Best Documentary in the Pacific Southwest Chapter Emmy Awards competition.
Selected filmography
Television series +TitleYearNFL Game of the Week1979-1986NFL Monday Night Magazine1987-1992Sports Almanac1992, 1995Distant Replay1993-2006NFL's Greatest Games1997-2017Lost Treasures of NFL Films1999-2000America's Game2005-2008Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League2009The Top 100: NFL's Greatest Players2010A Football Life2011, 2014–2015Star Spangled Sundays2013Caught in the Draft2014-2015The Timeline2015-2017
Films +TitleYearSuper Bowl: Laughter and Legend1978Best Ever Professionals1981Second Chance: The Rolf Benirschke Story1982Legend of the Lightning Bolt: History of the Chargers1984World Champions: 1985 Chicago Bears1986Greatest Moments in Philadelphia Sports History1986Giants Among Men - Super Bowl XXI Champion New York Giants1987NFL TV Follies1987Greatest Moments in Chicago Sports History1987Warpath - Super Bowl XXII Champion Washington Redskins1988NFL Strange But True Body Shapes1988Team of the Decade - Super Bowl XXIII Champion San Francisco 49ers1989Super Duper Football Follies1989Masters of the Game – Super Bowl XXIV Champion San Francisco 49ers1990Football Follies on Parade1990Greatest Moments in American Sports History1990True Blue - Super Bowl XXI Champion New York Giants1991Washington Redskins - Super Bowl XXVI Champions1992NFL's Greatest Rivalries1992Dallas Cowboys - Super Bowl XXVII Champions1993LT: The Lawrence Taylor Story1993NFL's 100 Greatest Touchdowns1993Dallas Cowboys - Super XXVIII Champions1994NFL's 100 Greatest Follies1994San Francisco 49ers - Super Bowl XXIX Champions1995Dallas Cowboys - Super Bowl XXX Champions1996NFL's Greatest Ever Running Backs1996Green Bay Packers - Super Bowl XXXI Champions1997Denver Broncos - Super Bowl XXXII Champions1998Replay: The History of the NFL on Television1998Blue Diamond: 75 Years of Giants Football1999St. Louis Rams - Super Bowl XXXIV Champions200021st Century Football Follies2000Joe Montana: A&E Biography2001Black Star Risen: The Alan Page Story2001Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Super Bowl XXXVI Champions2003Dallas Cowboys: The Complete History of America's Team2003Cardiac Cats: 2003 NFC Champion Carolina Panthers2004Three Games to Glory: The 2004 Patriots2005Philadelphia Eagles - 2004 NFC Champions2005Pittsburgh Steelers: The Complete History2005Seattle Seahawks - 2005 NFC Champions2006Indianapolis Colts - Super Bowl XLI Champions2007New York Giants - Super Bowl XLII Champions2008History of the Washington Redskins2008Arizona Cardinals - 2008 NFC Champions2009History of the San Diego Chargers2009New Orleans Saints - Super Bowl XLIV Champions2010History of the Miami Dolphins2010Lombardi2010Green Bay Packers - Super Bowl XLV Champions2011Two Minutes to Glory2011The Longest Game Ever: 1971 AFC Championship2011Behind the Steel Curtain2012Don Shula: 3472012New York Giants - Super Bowl XLVI Champions2012New Orleans Saints Greatest Moments2013Seattle Seahawks - Super Bowl XLVIII Champions2014Super Bowl I: The Lost Game2016Philadelphia Eagles - Super Bowl LII Champions2018
Writing career Plaut's first professional assignment came in 1974, when he wrote a piece for Pro!, the NFL's official game program. The story covered the career of player-turned-official Pat Harder. Plaut went on to write several other articles for Pro! (later named Gameday), including a personality profile on Washington quarterback Joe Theismann and a feature focused on NFL teams’ humorous road trip travel mishaps.
In 1989 he wrote the first of three baseball books for Philadelphia-based publisher Running Press. His fourth baseball book, Chasing October: The Dodgers-Giants Pennant Race of 1962 was published by Diamond Communications in 1994. In 2012, an updated version of Chasing October was released as an e-book and audio book to mark the 50th anniversary of that season.
From 1991 to 2006 Plaut was book critic for USA Today Baseball Weekly (later renamed Sports Weekly).
In 2010 Plaut collaborated with NFL Films colleague Greg Cosell and former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski on The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays, published by ESPN Books. It was the nation's top-selling pro football book that season.
Bibliography +TitleYearStart Collecting Baseball Cards, Running Press1989Baseball Wit and Wisdom, Running Press1992Speaking of Baseball, Running Press1993Chasing October: The Dodgers-Giants Pennant Race of 1962, Diamond Communications1994The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays, ESPN Books (co-author)2010
In popular culture In 1973 Plaut provided the voice characterizations of puppet character “Grouchy the Crocodile” for an attraction at Lion Country Safari amusement park in Irvine, CA. The character's voice resembled film and TV comedian Groucho Marx.
Edgar Award-winning author Stuart Kaminsky named one of the recurring characters in his Toby Peters mysteries series after Plaut, who was a film student of his at Northwestern University from 1971 to 1975.