20 Years Later, Kyle Chandler's Network Drama Is Still One of the Best Ever Made

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Kyle Chandler as Coach Taylor giving advice to Matt Saracen

Published Oct 22, 2026, 9:36 PM EDT

Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.

Following the triumphant first season of Lanterns on HBO, everyone has been reminded of the sheer excellence of Kyle Chandler. An actor in film and television who's been killing it for 20 years, Chandler vaulted to mainstream stardom after putting on the headset and commanding a team of hungry and determined student athletes in the fictional Dillon, Texas, in Friday Night Lights.

Airing on NBC from 2006 to 2008 and DirecTV from 2008 to 2011, this five-season sports drama follows a high school football team in a small Texas town, led by Coach Eric Taylor (Chandler), and the community's tight-knit, passionate relationship to the team. The perfect intersection between a prestige drama and a classic soap, Friday Night Lights, from creators Peter Berg and Jason Katims, remains as stellar as it was when it first premiered 20 years ago.

'Friday Night Lights' is a Thoughtful and Grounded Portrait of Middle America

From high school to the pros, football is a major cornerstone of American culture, but the average American can't comprehend how integral the sport is to the fabric of southern states. Friday Night Lights is the definitive text on the relationship between culture and football, and how this often violent sport is imbued with so much romanticism. It all starts with the show's revelatory, intimate, and grounded portrait of Middle America, a region frequently broadly stereotyped on television. Each episode captures Dillon as more of a local neighborhood than a small town, and the population's collective spirit evokes the feeling that many Americans express on Sunday before NFL games kick off. When the proverbial and literal lights are turned on for Panthers games, Dillon instantly transforms from a quaint village into a buzzy metropolis.

Friday Night Lights makes you believe a high school football team can represent a town's heart and soul, and that the outcome of a Panthers game carries more weight for Dillon's collective morale than any economic trend or government legislation. Looming large over this pigskin-obsessed community is Coach Eric Taylor, a revered strategist and motivator on the sideline and a mentor to his squad off the field. Shouldering much of the burden alongside him is his wife, Tami Taylor (Connie Britton), who also initially serves as the high school's guidance counselor before being promoted to principal. The operatic nature of the interpersonal relationships between players and coaches creates an overwhelming emotional attachment to these characters that is never too theatrical, as, for many of these adolescents, football gives them direction and purpose.

For many, football has replaced church as the event that rules Sunday throughout the fall. Watching games on Friday through Monday, following a team's day-to-day operations, and cheering on a roster of athletes is considered a religious experience. The beauty of Friday Night Lights is its appeal to audiences disinterested in football or any organized sports, as the game is used as a backdrop to tackle various issues and conflicts for young adults and their families. Football brings plenty of joy and triumph, but it also forces the players of Dillon High School to confront substance abuse, the law, pregnancy, racism, and economic distress.

The exhilaration and fanfare of being cherished community figures and role models has its dark side, which serves as the dramatic backbone for the squad, including memorable characters like Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons) and Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan). For Eric and Tami Taylor, balancing work and home becomes a blurred line that sees them grappling with the nature of football being a representation of life itself.

Friday Night Lights, with its gentle tone and wistful reflection on life, is a profound examination of American values in the 21st century. Dillon is the kind of homey small town that could be vulnerable to the threat of rapidly evolving economic and political climates, but the locals cling to their respect for tradition and integrity to combat shaky times. Plot lines range from the mundane to the most severe circumstances, such as concerns about school funding and potentially fatal injuries, but each story is handled with grace and a nuanced understanding of its subject. Friday Night Lights may have never had an extraordinarily big audience, but perhaps it's because viewers weren't ready for such an honest, non-glamorized look at contemporary America.

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