• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, September 10, 2007

For football fans, it's the happiest time of the year: The start of the National Football League season--when every team is destined for the playoffs--and a peek at the new Nike football ads.

The company says this year's version, themed "Leave Nothing," "captures the essence of football--pouring heart and soul into every day and every play, leaving nothing on the field by game's end."

The 60-second spot, directed by Michael Mann for Wieden & Kennedy, features a parade of NFL powerhouses seamlessly morphing into one another as they barrel through the sun, rain and snow of an entire season.

The ads star Shawne Merriman (San Diego Chargers), Steven Jackson (St. Louis Rams), Steve Hutchinson (Minnesota Vikings), Calvin Johnson (Detroit Lions), and Amobi Okoye (Houston, Texans).

TV broke over the weekend, during regionally and nationally televised high school football match-ups on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN2 and FOX Sports Net.

Print ads, running in Sports Illustrated and ESPN, feature intense portraits of practicing athletes with quotes like "If it hurts me I can only imagine what the guy's feeling on the ground," "When I get the ball I inflict my will," "You were right there with me. Until the snap," and "If I told you the play, you still couldn't beat me."