Untold: The Murder of Air McNair
Netflix
The story of an amazing talent who gets within touching distance of the very top but falls into disaster is a familiar sporting theme.
Netflix’s always watchable Untold series specialises in it. Season four has the story of female soccer player Hope Solo (September 2) and the Michigan sign-stealing/cheating scandal (Wednesday).
But first up is the 2009 murder of Steve ‘Air’ McNair who almost won a Super Bowl with the unheralded Tennessee Titans and less than a decade later was murdered in disputed circumstances.
If you’re an NFL fan you probably know most of the story but if you’re coming to it fresh, it’s an engaging tale.
In 2009, McNair was found shot dead in an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee. Beside him was the body of 21-year-old Sahel Kazemi, one of his many girlfriends. McNair had been shot four times, including twice to the head. Kazemi was shot once in the head.
We flash back to a decade earlier, where we find McNair on the run of his life.
In a peculiarity of American sport, the owner of the Houston Oilers falls out with the city fathers over the cost of an upgrade of their stadium and moves the franchise 800 miles to Nashville, in the process founding the Tennessee Titans.
Initially unloved in this barren NFL territory, the Titans, with a new coach in his early 30s, go on an incredible winning run.
They are undefeated at home for the full season and make their way to the Super Bowl in early 2000 with last second victories Hollywood would blush to write.
McNair was the undoubted star of the team. Time and again he won matches with individual displays of brilliance.
With six seconds to go in the final they were trailing but with McNair in the shotgun position they had a chance.
McNair finds his running back who’s tackled close to the line. He stretches out a long arm but is one yard short of glory.
The Titans are beaten, remembered as the underdog team who almost did it.
Nine years later and a now-retired McNair, married with four children, is lying slumped on a couch.
At his feet on the floor is Kazemi, also dead.
McNair’s friend, business partner and high school teammate Robert Gaddy calls police but he wasn’t the first on the scene.
That was Wayne Neely, who says he initially thought McNair was asleep, and called Gaddy when he realised what was going on.
After their investigations, police determined that it was a murder-suicide with the theory that Kazemi, who had expressed suicidal thoughts to a work colleague, killed him after he abandoned her when she was arrested for drunk driving days before.
However, others believed the police investigation was shoddy, and that other suspects should have been questioned more intently, including a convicted murderer whose gun was used in the shooting.
Adrian Gilliam told investigators that he sold his gun to Kazemi days before the murder.
McNair is remembered for being a brilliant quarter-back who met a terrible end, but we hear from one man who remembers him as more than that.
The Titans’ then young coach Jeff Fisher features extensively in the documentary and speaks highly of his friend’s ability, his qualities as a teammate and his dislike of publicity.
As the shock of the loss sunk in at the final whistle in 2000, coach and quarter-back sank to their knees in an embrace and whispered in each other’s ears.
When asked about it by reporters, Fisher said the conversation should remain private but he has now movingly revealed their simple words.
“I told him I loved him and hoped he’d be OK, and he said, ‘I love you too bro.’ That was it,” Fisher says.
