‘The Murder of Air McNair’: True crime meets NFL retrospective

Most NFL players pass through the consciousness of sports fans for only a few short years. The transition from week-in, week-out star to afterthought is startlingly quick. One minute they’re a key member of your fantasy team, the next, they’re “remember this guy?” nostalgia.

Only a few players from any era transcend their playing days, some because of stardom, others because of tragedy. Steve McNair played 13 years in the NFL, some of them very good, one of them magnificent. But he’s remembered now mostly for the final moments of his life, a tragic ending that threw a shadow over his entire career.

McNair is the subject of a new entry in Netflix’s “Untold” series of sports documentaries, entitled “The Murder of Air McNair.” Directed by Rodney Lucas and Taylor Alexander Ward, it’s a comprehensive look at the life of one of the NFL’s early 2000s stars … starting, and ending, with his shocking death. Pitched somewhere between a true-crime narrative and an NFL retrospective, it’s a clear-eyed look at a life that ended far too soon.

The documentary opens with audio from a 911 call on July 4, 2009, where one of McNair’s close friends discovered the bodies of a man and a woman, dead of gunshot wounds in a Nashville condo. There was initial confusion in the wake of the call — Who are these people? How did they die? Why are there so many high-level law enforcement officials arriving at the crime scene? — but the tragic truth quickly became clear.

McNair and his girlfriend, Jenni Kazemi, died of gunshot wounds — McNair of four to the body and head, Kazemi of one, self-inflicted, to the temple. It’s a sadly straightforward story — a love affair gone sour, a gun bought on the street, a violent ending — and so the documentary must fill out its allotted run time with stories that range far from McNair himself.

“Air McNair” is as much a story of the turn-of-the-millennium Titans as it is of Air McNair. Those Titans are worthy of a documentary of their own, from their final days in Texas as the Oilers, to their brief stopover in Memphis, to their attempt to make the state of Tennessee fall in love with them.

The Titans’ 1999 season was a remarkable one — their first in their home stadium, an undefeated 8-0 record at home, a playoff run that included both the Music City Miracle and the famous “One Yard Short” play to end Super Bowl 34. Under the guidance of head coach Jeff Fisher — who appears frequently throughout the documentary — McNair engineered a magical season for the Titans and earned co-MVP, with Peyton Manning, for himself.

It’s a bit odd, really, that we don’t hear much from McNair himself, given how often he was in front of cameras during his career. He’s a cipher, lurking around the edges of his own story. His most extended appearance on camera is his 2008 retirement news conference as a Baltimore Raven, when he stepped away from the game with clear regret but also diminished skills.

At that point, the documentary pulls back from McNair’s life between retirement and death. While McNair was married with children, he also apparently carried on an active extracurricular life. (“Steve had an itch that he tried to scratch,” his college teammate Robert Gaddy says.) He was deeply involved with Kazemi, a former Dave & Buster’s waitress, but he was not solely involved with her, which — according to text messages — may have precipitated what happened next.

Several figures float in and out of the documentary. Kazemi’s ex-boyfriend, in particular, elicits a bit of pity — he was a longtime Titans fan who idolized McNair, only to have his girlfriend leave him for … Steve McNair. Like several others, he was labeled a “Person of Interest” but quickly cleared.

There’s a late attempt to muddy the waters of the official murder-suicide story; a private investigator points out some what-if holes in the narrative and criticizes the police work. But it comes across as Monday-morning quarterbacking, creating doubt based on the fact that all the pieces aren’t in perfect order.

Several figures in the documentary note that McNair, who was just 36 when he was murdered, is more than just his final moments, that he deserves to be remembered for more than his lurid death. But the documentary is entitled “The Murder of Air McNair,” probably because “The Life of Steve McNair” wouldn’t garner nearly as much interest.

Which is a shame, because McNair’s self-made life — from small-town Mississippi quarterback to Super Bowl star — is worthy of respect. “With the exception of the ending,” Fisher says, “it couldn’t have worked out any better.”