friday night lights a town a team a dream

Introduction by Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin

Talk to any of the millions of devoted Friday Night Lights fans and they'll tell you: it's not just a show about high school football. Its rich, interesting characters and honestly portrayed relationships make the show's portrait of West Texas life compelling and relatable in ways that have nothing--and everything--to do with touchdowns.

A Friday Night Lights Companion celebrates the show, its fearlessness, and what it's meant to those who love it.

* Dave Campbell's Texas Football managing editor Travis Stewart provides a moving tribute to the power of high school football, by way of unlikely hero Matt Saracen
* Jonna Rubin shares the lessons she's learned from the best marriage on television: Eric and Tami Taylor's (lesson number one: drink more wine)
* Television Without Pity writer Jacob Clifton offers a meditation on one of Friday Night Lights' most fundamental values: being a part of something bigger than yourself
* The Washington Post's Jen Chaney reminds us what we love most about all our favorite Dillon residents, from Tim Riggins to Buddy Garrity to Jess Merriweather
* New New Media author Paul Levinson shows how the alliance between NBC and DirecTV saved Friday Night Lights
* And more writing and reflections on Friday Night Lights

A Friday Night Lights Companion takes you from series pilot to series finale, through all five masterfully crafted seasons' worth of love, loss, family, and football.