Goofs

When Brian and Gale are talking at the Sayers' staircase, Brian is standing at the base of the stairs holding a towel. After a quick shot of Gale, Brian is over by the wall with no towel in sight.

When Piccolo is in the hospital and gets the pizza, the position of the Brown Derby can changes.

When Sayers gets out of the cab, he picks up the ball. His position relative to the fence post changes. Also, the tail of his coat is flipped up.

The pattern of sweat on Sayer's sweatshirt changes when he is working out with Piccolo after the knee injury.

The position of Sayer's head changes when he is talking with Piccolo in the hospital.

When the coaches ask Sayers to room with Piccolo in 1965, they warn that people in cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, and Miami won't take well to integrated roommates. Atlanta didn't join the NFL until 1966, New Orleans 1967, and Houston and Miami until the AFL/NFL merger in 1970. Miami wasn't even in the AFL until 1966.

Jack Concannon and Dick Butkus were shown preparing the rookie initiation of Brian and Gayle, but Concannon was not with the Bears in 1965, and Butkus was a rookie himself that season.

When Gale Sayers suffers his knee injury, it's during his fourth year on the team, which was the 1968 NFL season. George Halas had retired as the Bears Head Coach after the 1967 season, although he was still serving as the Bears owner, and functionally as Bears general manager.

Brian Piccolo was on the Bears' taxi squad in 1965 (not eligible to play in games) and used primarily on special teams in 1966. The meeting when Gale Sayers is asked to room with Piccolo actually took place before the 1969 season, not 1965 as portrayed.

The character (and real life player) J.C. Caroline, portrayed by Bernie Casey, was the Bears team captain in the year that Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams joined the team. However, the film depicts Caroline being with the team through the 1965 - 1969 seasons, while he actually retired as a player after the 1965 season.

When the 1965 Bears are in training camp, a player wearing number 44 is shown taking snaps at quarterback. Quarterbacks always wear numbers from 1-20. Further, quarterbacks wear red vests in practice because *nobody* is supposed to hit their own quarterback.

While the statement about QB numbering is true during the regular season, training camp is not as structured as there are dozens more players on the field than will be on the roster on opening day. Additionally, the NFL in 1965 was much different than it is currently. While teams today do not want to risk their QBs being injured in practice, there was not the same concern in that era when players didn't receive the types of salary as the do now and were expected to play through the pain.

In Gale Sayers' first game, the announcer says that Sayers got a touchdown pass from Dick Butkus. The quarterback wore number 10, and Butkus' number was 51. Also, Butkus was a linebacker not a quarterback. However, the announcer did not say TD pass from "number 10 Butkus"; he said :number 10 Bukich:, referring to Rudy Bukich, who was the Bears QB from 1962 to 1968 and wore jersey number 10.

Brian Piccolo calls Gale Sayers "Magic", but his nickname (given to him in college) was "The Kansas Comet".

"(Black) Magic" was Piccolo's personal nickname for Sayers.

Just before Brian tears up the speech he wrote for Gale, it is clear that the pages are completely blank.

The Bears are shown playing at Soldier Field in Chicago. While this was the team's home stadium at the time of filming, Brian Piccolo's entire career had taken place while the team was playing at Wrigley Field.

There is one moving camera shot on the football field with James Caan and Billy Dee Williams watching the action, but the view shows no players on the field. The crowd also roars as if a good play was made.

During the opening credits, when Gale talks to the janitor, it is clear the janitor is just moving a dry mop around on the floor. There is also no bucket in sight.

After Gale Sayers makes the announcement in the locker room about Brian Piccolo's illness and the team visits him in the hospital room, which is supposed to be in Chicago, the exterior hospital establishing shot shows the name of the hospital, the "New North Hospital of Los Angeles". Further, while Piccolo did return to Chicago for the diagnosis, he ultimately transferred to a hospital in New York City, which is where he died.

When his teammates visit Brian in a Chicago hospital, they are drinking Brown Derby beer. Brown Derby beer was sold only in California.

When the coach comes in the room to talk to Brian and Gayle to let Gayle know he will become number one fullback, the boom mic's shadow shows above Gayle's head in the shot when the camera focuses on coach and Gayle.

When Piccolo and his teammates are eating pizza in his hospital room, James Caan calls Bernie Casey by his real first name instead of by his character's name.

When Brian is telling Gale how he got the starting position for "all the wrong reasons" (after Gale's injury), he states that Gale went to USC, but Gale Sayers actually went to the University of Kansas.

During the first conversation between George Halas and Sayers, Halas asks Sayers about how much pass receiving Sayers did in college. The Bears' college scouting staff would have had a 'full book' on just what Sayers could and couldn't do before spending a first-round draft choice on him. Halas would have known all of this.

At one point, Piccolo refers to Wake Forest as "Forest". No one remotely connected to the Atlantic Coast Conference would ever shorten the school's name to "Forest". It would be referred to as "Wake".