Best Selling Football Books

The top 50 most popular and best selling football ebooks at the Apple iBookstore. Chart of the football iBook best sellers updated daily.

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Sports Ebook Best Sellers

Top Football eBook Best Sellers

1

My Conference Can Beat Your Conference - Paul Finebaum & Gene Wojciechowski Cover Art

My Conference Can Beat Your Conference

My Conference Can Beat Your Conference Why the SEC Still Rules College Football by Paul Finebaum & Gene Wojciechowski

An all-access pass into the powerhouse teams and passionate fanbases of the legendary Southeastern Conference, from one of the most influential men in college football: ESPN’s Paul Finebaum. Proud owner of 14 prestigious college football programs, producing seven consecutive national championships, twelve NFL first round draft choices, and a budget that crushes the GDP of Samoa, the Southeastern Conference collects the most coveted ratings, rankings, and revenue of any conference in college football. With its pantheon of illustrious alumni like Bear Bryant, Herschel Walker, Peyton Manning, and Nick Saban, the SEC is the altar at which millions of Americans worship every Saturday, from Texas to Kentucky to Florida. If the SEC is a religion, its deity is radio talk-show host Paul Finebaum. In My Conference Can Beat Your Conference, Finebaum, chronicles the rise of the SEC and his own unlikely path to college football fame. Finebaum offers his blunt wisdom on everything from Joe Paterno and the Penn State scandal to the relevancy of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s girlfriend, and chronicles the best of his beloved callers, and the worst of his haters.

2

2025 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football - Paul Wadlington Cover Art

2025 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football

2025 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football by Paul Wadlington

The 13th annual edition of the Burnt Orange Bible football preview is the best Texas Longhorn, Southeastern Conference, and College Football Preview around.

3

Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies - Howie Long & John Czarnecki Cover Art

Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies

Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies by Howie Long & John Czarnecki

Tackle football basics in a day? Easy. If you've ever wanted to know the difference between a touchdown and a touchback, or how a running back's role differs from a linebacker's, this handy guide gets you up-to-speed in no time. Football Rules & Positions In A Day For Dummies gives you a focused guide to the rules, regulations, and player roles of one of the most popular American sports. The essential information you need to understand and enjoy America's greatest game Expert coverage of the game's rules and regulations Helpful breakdowns of football positions and their roles in offense, defense, and special teams Online component takes you beyond the book with bonus content and features Get set to impress your friends with your newfound knowledge in no time!

4

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition) - H. G. Bissinger Cover Art

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition)

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition) A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger

Named Sports Illustrated' s best football book of all time and a #1 NYT bestseller, this is the classic story of a high school football team whose win-loss record has a profound influence on the town around them. Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa -- the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Pulitzer Prize winner H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires -- and sometimes shatters -- the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. The inspiration for the hit television program and film of the same name, this anniversary edition features a new afterword by the author.

5

Football - Chuck Klosterman Cover Art

Football

Football An Essay from Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

Originally collected in Eating the Dinosaur and now available both as a stand-alone essay and in the ebook collection Chuck Klosterman on Sports , this essay is about football.

6

Turf Wars - DeMaurice Smith Cover Art

Turf Wars

Turf Wars The Fight for the Soul of America's Game by DeMaurice Smith

An NFL insider’s explosive account of the ruthless power struggles between owners and players over the future of football. During his fourteen years as the head of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith was a front line advocate for football players through some of the most tumultuous crises in NFL history: Colin Kaepernick’s protests, Deflategate, a lockout, two collective bargaining agreements, and more. But after witnessing the league’s troubling response to discrimination and racial unrest, both within the league and beyond, Smith realized it was time to pull back the curtain and speak truth to power. Drawing from his years of unprecedented access and unparalleled knowledge of America’s favorite sport, Smith documents his years leading the NFLPA and explains how the NFL distorts the truth, telling partial stories to insulate itself and grow its $20-billion-a-year brand—and the players’ battles to protect themselves. From contract negotiations to battles over suspensions, Smith shows us how the union fought to protect players from the greed, racism, and dishonesty the league is built on. He also takes readers inside closed-door meetings and unreported conversations and confrontations with the industry’s most powerful figures such as Robert Kraft, Jerry Jones, Tom Brady, and Roger Goodell. Turf Wars puts every NFL crisis—both familiar and lesser known—within a broader cultural and historical context, framing the league’s extraordinary rise as a mirror to America’s own history. Revelatory and profound, Turf Wars is a book about the soul of football: its degradation, and how to save it.

7

The Wing-T from A to Z—Volume 1: The Base Plan (2nd Edition) - Dennis Creehan Cover Art

The Wing-T from A to Z—Volume 1: The Base Plan (2nd Edition)

The Wing-T from A to Z—Volume 1: The Base Plan (2nd Edition) by Dennis Creehan

The Wing-T from A to Z—Volume 1: The Base Plan provides coaches at all competitive levels with a useful tool that can enable them to better understand the intricacies of the Wing-T offense. In this comprehensive overview, the fundamentals and nuances of the Wing-T offense are presented in great detail. Volume 1 provides an excellent guide to understanding and developing a sound base plan for the Wing-T offense, featuring chapters on philosophy and organization, goal line attack, and movements.

8

The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles - Zach Berman & Malcolm Jenkins Cover Art

The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles

The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles A Curated History of the Eagles by Zach Berman & Malcolm Jenkins

In The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles, take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team. This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans' history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the team's iconic identity. Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it came to prominence in the modern NFL landscape, and how it'll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.Eagles fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at team history.

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The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Philadelphia Eagles - Steve Silverman Cover Art

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Philadelphia Eagles

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Philadelphia Eagles Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments from Philadelphia Eagles History by Steve Silverman

Genuine fans take the best team moments with the less than great, and know that the games that are best forgotten make the good moments truly shine. This monumental book of the Philadelphia Eagles documents all the best moments and personalities in the history of the team, but also unmasks the regrettably awful and the unflinchingly ugly. In entertaining—and unsparing—fashion, this book sparkles with Eagles highlights and lowlights, from wonderful and wacky memories to the famous and infamous. Such moments include the 1960 Championship game where the Eagles managed to defeat the Packers, as well as the Terrell Owens saga and the untimely death of Jerome Brown. Whether providing fond memories, goose bumps, or laughs, this portrait of the team is sure to appeal to the fan who has been through it all.

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Game of My Life Philadelphia Eagles - Bob Gordon Cover Art

Game of My Life Philadelphia Eagles

Game of My Life Philadelphia Eagles Memorable Stories of Eagles Football by Bob Gordon

In the newly updated Game of My Life Philadelphia Eagles, several legendary Eagles players share their fondest memories as each one recalls the game that sticks out the most from his Eagles career. The games they choose may very well be the ones with which you most associate them—a championship game, a playoff game, or a heralded comeback. But a fair number of choices may surprise you, as some Eagles cite encounters that time has buried deep within history’s vault. No matter which game each player chooses as his most memorable, each one tells a story. Each fills in a bit more of the complex legacy that defines the Philadelphia Eagles. More importantly, and certainly more poignantly, each story humanizes the larger-than-life warriors who strapped on their winged helmet each Sunday and played for the glory of the city of Philadelphia. Some of the former Eagles players profiled in this book are: • Chuck Bednarik • Brian Dawkins • Tommy McDonald • Bill Bergey • Seth Joyner • Keith Jackson • Mike Quick • Brian Baldinger • Claude Humphrey • Bill Bradley • Lito Sheppard • Vince Papale The new edition includes insight on the 2018 Super Bowl run.

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If These Walls Could Talk: Raiders - Lincoln Kennedy & Paul Gutierrez Cover Art

If These Walls Could Talk: Raiders

If These Walls Could Talk: Raiders Stories from the Raiders Sideline, Locker Room, and Press Box by Lincoln Kennedy & Paul Gutierrez

A behind-the-scenes perspective on Raiders history, from Oakland to Vegas Having spent eight seasons at offensive tackle for the Oakland Raiders before joining the radio broadcasting team, Lincoln Kennedy knows what it means to live and breathe Silver and Black football. In If These Walls Could Talk: Raiders , Kennedy provides insight into the team's inner sanctum as only he can, from his experience anchoring the O-line in Super Bowl XXXVII to the current roster in Vegas helmed by Derek Carr, from Jon Gruden to...Jon Gruden. Featuring conversations with players and coaches past and present as well as off-the-wall anecdotes only Kennedy can tell, this indispensable volume is your ticket to Raiders history.

12

Philadelphia Eagles - Fran Zimniuch Cover Art

Philadelphia Eagles

Philadelphia Eagles Where Have You Gone? by Fran Zimniuch

Philadelphia Eagles: Where Have You Gone? takes an informative stroll down memory lane with the Philadelphia Eagles of yesteryear, helping fans who are wondering where the time has gone. Local icons such as Chuck Bednarik, Tom Brookshier, and Ron Jaworski have remained in the spotlight years after their playing days ended. But this book tells fans about what happened to players like Pete Liske, Leroy Keyes, Super Bill Bradley, and other favorites who have made being an Eagles fan in Philadelphia so much fun. The book goes beyond the helmet and shoulder pads and takes a look at the human side of these former guardians of the gridiron. From Norm Van Brocklin to Jeff Kemp, Wilbert Montgomery to Cyril Pinder, Jim Skaggs to Guy Morriss, and Don Hultz to Tim Rossovich, the book looks not only at the playing careers of many former Birds, but also at their lives after their playing days ended. Many former players have stayed in the game at some level and enjoyed coaching. Many fans, however, do not know which former Eagles player later became an NFL official, which former defensive standout became a salmon fisherman, which wide receiver became a respected judge, or which player now operates hospital-based centers treating sleep apnea. This reissue of Philadelphia Eagles: Where Have You Gone? , first published in 2004, reveals all this and more, providing fans with a look into the past while also bringing them up-to-date with some of Philadelphia’s greats. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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Tales from the Philadelphia Eagles Sideline - Gordon Forbes Cover Art

Tales from the Philadelphia Eagles Sideline

Tales from the Philadelphia Eagles Sideline A Collection of the Greatest Eagles Stories Ever Told by Gordon Forbes

Even in their worst of seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles maintained their tradition of toughness, thanks to great players—legends like Chuck Bednarik and Steve Van Buren to modern-day heroes. In Tales from the Philadelphia Eagles Sideline , veteran football writer Gordon Forbes profiles the individuals who have thrilled Philadelphia fans since the team’s inception in 1933 through Andy Reid’s perennial championship contenders of today.

14

The Big 50: Philadelphia Eagles - Mark Eckel Cover Art

The Big 50: Philadelphia Eagles

The Big 50: Philadelphia Eagles The Men and Moments that Made the Philadelphia Eagles by Mark Eckel

The Big 50: Philadelphia Eagles: The Men and Moments that Made the Philadelphia Eagles is an amazing, full-color look at the 50 men and moments that made the Eagles the Eagles. Experienced sportswriter Mark Eckel recounts the living history of the Eagles, counting down from No. 50 to No. 1. Big 50: Eagles brilliantly brings to life the Eagles remarkable story, from Chuck Bednarik to Reggie White and Randall Cunningham to the roller-coaster that was Donovan McNabb and up to today.

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100 Things Eagles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die - Chuck Carlson Cover Art

100 Things Eagles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

100 Things Eagles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Chuck Carlson

Most Philadelphia Eagles fans have soaked up some victories at the Vet and the Linc, and know all the key stats and players from Bednarik to Cunningham to McNabb to Wentz. But only real fans know how to tailgate Philly-style, are aware of the important role pickle juice played for the Eagles during their 2000 season opener, and can absolutely identify "the Praying Tailback." 100 Things Eagles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the must-have guide for true fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. Whether you're a die-hard booster from the days of Bert Bell or a recent supporter of Carson Wentz, these are the 100 things all fans need to know and do in their lifetime. Veteran journalist Chuck Carlson has collected essential Eagles knowledge, trivia, and must-do activities and ranks them from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as you progress on your way to fan superstardom!

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Sonny Jurgensen And The 1962 Philadelphia Eagles - Robert Grey Reynolds Jr. Cover Art

Sonny Jurgensen And The 1962 Philadelphia Eagles

Sonny Jurgensen And The 1962 Philadelphia Eagles by Robert Grey Reynolds Jr.

One sportswriter predicted that the Philadelphia Eagles of 1962 would host the NFL Championship. In a preseason summary a columnist assessed the main weakness of the club as its ground game. The 1960 Eagles had won the NFL title with a victory over the Green Bay Packers. The 1961 team went as far as playing the Detroit Lions in the runner-up bowl in Miami. However the '62 Philadelphia squad badly underachieved. It finished a disappointing 3-10-1. There were a number of reasons for the Eagles' decline. One of them was their quarterback, Sonny Jurgensen, being unable to equal his great year in 1961, the first in which he had been the club's starter for the entire year.

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Soldiers First - Joe Drape Cover Art

Soldiers First

Soldiers First Duty, Honor, Country, and Football at West Point by Joe Drape

In Soldiers First, bestselling author Joe Drape reveals the unique pressures and expectations that make a year of Army football so much more than just a tally of wins and losses. The football team at the U.S. Military Academy is not like other college football teams. At other schools, athletes are catered to and coddled at every turn. At West Point, they carry the same arduous load as their fellow cadets, shouldering an Ivy League–caliber education and year-round military training. After graduation they are not going to the NFL but to danger zones halfway around the world. These young men are not just football players, they are soldiers first. New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape takes us inside the world of Army football, as the Black Knights and their third-year coach, Rich Ellerson, seek to turn around a program that had recently fallen on hard times, with the goal to beat Navy and "sing last" at the Army-Navy game in December. The 2011 season would prove a true test of the players' mettle and perseverance. Drawing on his extensive and unfettered access to the players and the coaching staff, Drape introduces us to this special group of young men and their achievements on and off the field. Anchoring the narrative and the team are five key players: quarterback Trent Steelman, the most gifted athlete; linebacker Steve Erzinger, who once questioned his place at West Point but has become a true leader; Andrew Rodriguez, the son of a general and the top scholar-athlete; Max Jenkins, the backup quarterback and the second-in-command of the Corps of Cadets; and Larry Dixon, a talented first-year running back. Together with Coach Ellerson, his staff, and West Point's officers and instructors, they and their teammates embrace the demands made on them and learn crucial lessons that will resonate throughout their lives—and ours.

18

The Why Is Everything - Michael Silver Cover Art

The Why Is Everything

The Why Is Everything A Story of Football, Rivalry, and Revolution by Michael Silver

From an award-winning journalist, the inside story of the brilliant, hypercompetitive young coaches who threw out decades of received wisdom to fundamentally remake America’s most popular sport. When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL’s youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn’t justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan’s office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree—including Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur—came up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick. But for the most part, coaches learned a particular system and stuck to it no matter what—no matter the players on their team, no matter what the opponent might do. This group of young coaches would change all that. The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans. Drawing on unmatched access across the league, longtime NFL reporter Mike Silver takes us into the key moments in this still-unfolding revolution, from the education of Mike Shanahan, Kyle’s father and a two-time Super Bowl champion, in the 1980s; to the Washington Redskins’ football laboratory in the early 2010s, where the coaches first worked together, shocking the league with their cutting-edge scheme for rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III; to McVay’s Super Bowl victory in 2022 and Kyle Shanahan’s Super Bowl agony in 2019 and 2024. Less than a decade after their emergence, these men are the stars of their profession and have helped propel the NFL to new heights of viewership and drama. With The Why Is Everything, Silver reveals how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection.

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The Boys of Riverside - Thomas Fuller Cover Art

The Boys of Riverside

The Boys of Riverside A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory by Thomas Fuller

NAMED A BEST BOOK BY BOOK RIOT , AND MORE! • The incredible story of an all-deaf high school football team’s triumphant climb from underdog to undefeated, their inspirational brotherhood, a fascinating portrait of deafness in America, and the indefatigable head coach who spearheaded the team, by New York Times reporter and Page One Correspondent, Thomas Fuller. " The Boys of Riverside is another example of how anyone can achieve their dreams, making what appears impossible, possible.” —Marlee Matlin, Academy Award winner "Remarkable"— Wall Street Journal • "Narrative nonfiction at its finest, filled with drama, detail and action."— Los Angeles Times  • " Inspiring." — Parade.com In November 2021, an obscure email from the California Department of Education landed in New York Times reporter, Thomas Fuller’s, inbox. The football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, a state-run school with only 168 high school students, was having an undefeated season. After years of covering war, wildfires, pandemic, and mass shootings, Fuller was captivated by the story of this group of high school boys. It was uplifting. During the gloom of the pandemic, it was a happy story. It was a sports story but not an ordinary one, built on the chemistry between a group of underestimated boys and their superhero advocate coach, Keith Adams, a deaf former athlete himself. The team, and Adams, tackled the many stereotypes and seemed to be succeeding. Fuller packed his bags and drove seven hours to the Riverside campus. The Boys of Riverside looks back at the historic 2021 and 2022 seasons in which the California School for the Deaf chased history. It follows the personal journeys of their dynamic deaf head coach, and a student who spent the majority of the season sleeping in his father’s car in the Target parking lot. It tells the story of a fiercely committed player who literally played through a broken leg in order not to miss a crucial game, as well as myriad other heart-wrenching and uplifting narratives of players who found common purpose. Through their eyes, Fuller reveals a portrait of high school athletics, inspiring camaraderie, and deafness in America.

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Football Scouting Methods - Steve Belichick Cover Art

Football Scouting Methods

Football Scouting Methods by Steve Belichick

Reprint of the 1962 edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Considered the bible of scouting techniques" according to the Los Angeles Times, Football Scouting Methods explains the basic scouting strategies and insights of author Steve Belichick. He was widely viewed as the ablest football scout of his time and coached at the U.S. Naval Academy for 33 years; his son is New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a three-time Super Bowl winner. When Steve Belichick died in November 2005, the New York Times headline cited him as "Coach Who Wrote the Book on Scouting," and quoted Houston Texans General Manager Charley Casserly calling Football Scouting Methods "the best book on scouting he had ever read." Joe Bellino, Navy's Heisman Trophy winner in 1960, told the Times that Steve Belichick "was a genius. On Monday nights, he would give us his scouting reports, and even though we were playing powerhouses, I always felt we were prepared because he found a way for us to win." In recent years Football Scouting Methods has been one of the top ten most sought out-of-print books; used copies have been quite scarce. This reissue edition makes the original 1962 text available once again in exact facsimile. The book covers how to scout opponents, recognize defenses, analyze offenses, discover "tip-offs" that reveal the opponent's plays, compose a useful report, self-scout, and conduct postgame analysis. "Steve Belichick taught many younger men how to scout and how to watch film and how to prepare their teams for the next week's game," David Halberstam noted in the Washington Post, and his best student was his own son Bill Belichick, "one of whose greatest skills as a coach to this day remains his ability to analyze other teams, figuring out both their strengths and their vulnerabilities, and shrewdly deciding how to take away from them that which they most want to do." When CBS asked Bill Belichick to name his favorite book, he replied "Well, I've got to go with my dad's. Football Scouting Methods. I'd have to go with that."

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The Cost of These Dreams - Wright Thompson Cover Art

The Cost of These Dreams

The Cost of These Dreams Sports Stories and Other Serious Business by Wright Thompson

The instant New York Times bestseller! From one of America's most beloved sportswriters and the bestselling author of Pappyland , a collection of true stories about the dream of greatness and its cost in the world of sports. "Wright Thompson's stories are so full of rich characters, bad actors, heroes, drama, suffering, courage, conflict, and vivid detail that I sometimes thinks he's working my side of the street - the world of fiction." - John Grisham There is only one Wright Thompson. He is, as they say, famous if you know who he is: his work includes the most read articles in the history of ESPN (and it's not even close) and has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series ten times, and he counts John Grisham and Richard Ford among his ardent admirers (see back of book). But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive. Wright Thompson figures people out. He jimmies the lock to the furnaces inside the people he profiles and does an analysis of the fuel that fires their ambition. Whether it be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Pat Riley or Urban Meyer, he strips the away the self-serving myths and fantasies to reveal his characters in full. There are fascinating common denominators: it may not be the case that every single great performer or coach had a complex relationship with his father, but it can sure seem that way. And there is much marvelous local knowledge: about specific sports, and times and places, and people. Ludicrously entertaining and often powerfully moving, The Cost of These Dreams is an ode to the reporter's art, and a celebration of true greatness and the high price that it exacts.

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Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 - Pat Kirwan & David Seigerman Cover Art

Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0

Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan & David Seigerman

Renowned NFL analysts' tips to make football more accessible, colorful, and compelling than ever before More and more football fans are watching the NFL each week, but many of them don't know exactly what they should be watching. What does the offense's formation tell you about the play that's about to be run? When a quarterback throws a pass toward the sideline and the wide receiver cuts inside, which player is to blame? Why does a defensive end look like a Hall of Famer one week and a candidate for the practice squad the next? These questions and more are addressed in Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 , a book that takes readers deep inside the perpetual chess match between offense and defense. This book provides clear and simple explanations to the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game. This updated edition contains recent innovations from the 2015 NFL season.

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Coaching Confidential - Gary Myers Cover Art

Coaching Confidential

Coaching Confidential Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers

A behind-the-scenes look at the high-pressure lives of NFL head coaches Coaching Confidential chronicles a year in the life of an NFL head coach. But not just one head coach. A composite portrait is drawn through interviews with at least 20 current and former head coaches (including Super Bowl winners such as Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin, Jimmy Johnson, Tony Dungy, Sean Payton, Mike Shanahan, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren, Brian Billick, and Joe Gibbs), taking us through the professional and personal challenges of the job. This book covers the draft, free agency, big trades, training camp, family crisis, player troubles, coaching relationships with members of the staff, coach-owner dynamics, rivalries, Xs and Os, the playoffs--all the way to the Super Bowl.      Just getting to Sunday is almost a relief for NFL head coaches. It's during that three-hour window 16 days a year when they can simply concentrate on what they do best, which is trying to win football games. But the job is, of course, much more than that.

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Defensive Coordinator's Football Handbook - Leo Hand Cover Art

Defensive Coordinator's Football Handbook

Defensive Coordinator's Football Handbook by Leo Hand

Defensive Coordinator's Football Handbook  is a complete guide for football coaches. The information contained in the book has been compiled by Leo Hand during 47 years of coaching championship teams at both the high school and collegiate levels. Numerous topics are covered that will enable any coach to successfully understand and defend modern offenses. Including:    • An overview of contemporary offensive trends  • A system for identifying offensive formations and personnel groupings  • A system for creating multiple defensive fronts and secondary coverages  • The base reads, reactions, and techniques for defensive linemen and linebackers  • Synopses of the responsibilities and techniques necessary to install different odd and even eight-man and seven-man fronts  • Run responsibilities and techniques for both three-deep and four-deep secondaries  • Strategies and tactics necessary to stop 19 of today's most potent running plays  • An explanation of the adjustments and techniques necessary to install variations of man-to-man pass coverages as well as variations of zone and combo pass coverages versus different contemporary offensive formations  • Different stunt strategies that enable your defense to actually attack the offense

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The Opening Kickoff - Dave Revsine Cover Art

The Opening Kickoff

The Opening Kickoff The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation by Dave Revsine

A New York Times Bestseller and Boston Globe Bestseller! It’s America’s most popular sport, played by thousands, watched by millions, and generating billions in revenues every year. It’s also America’s most controversial sport, haunted by the specter of life-threatening injuries and plagued by scandal, even among its most venerable personalities and institutions. At the college level, we often tie football’s tales of corruption and greed to its current popularity and revenue potential, and we have vague notions of a halcyon time--before the new College Football Playoff, power conferences, and huge TV contracts. Perhaps we conjure images of young Ivy Leaguers playing a gentleman’s game, exemplifying the collegial in collegiate. What we don’t imagine is a game described in 1905, not today, as "a social obsession--this boy-killing, man-mutillating, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport." In The Opening Kickoff, Dave Revsine tells the riveting story of the formative period of American football (1890-1915). It was a time that saw the game’s meteoric rise, fueled by overflow crowds, breathless newspaper coverage and newfound superstars—including one of the most thrilling and mysterious the sport has ever seen. But it was also a period racked by controversy in academics, recruiting, and physical brutality that, in combination, threatened football’s very existence. A vivid storyteller, Revsine brings it all to life in a captivating narrative.

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Bringing the Heat - Mark Bowden Cover Art

Bringing the Heat

Bringing the Heat by Mark Bowden

“An ambitious, remarkably frank” chronicle of the Philadelphia Eagles’ bid for the NFL championship by the #1 New York Times –bestselling author ( Kirkus Reviews ).   In 1992, the Philadelphia Eagles—a team assembled in the image of their iconoclastic, controversial former head coach, Buddy Ryan—were known for their ferocious defense led by Reggie White, Seth Joyner, and Andre Waters, and for the otherworldly talents of quarterback Randall Cunningham.   Now was the time for the Eagles’ campaign for the championship. But as the season progressed, it disintegrated into an ugly flurry of greed, racism, violence, personal and professional feuds, one tragic death, and a very wild face-off in the stands between a player’s wife and mistress. By midseason, the sentiment of both fans and press was the same: “shut up and play.”   Told through the personal stories of the teammates themselves, as well as the coaches, managers and owner, Bringing the Heat spares nothing—and no one—in “a phenomenal feat of reportage, perfect for football fans coast to coast” (H. G. Bissinger, author of  Friday Night Lights ).   “Overflows with stories of pro football dreams, of bravery in the face of injury. Yet it also unflinchingly tells of the darker side of life in the NFL: uncontrollable egos, ruined families, marital infidelity.” — The New York Times Book Review   “There are now four mandatory books on football: Dan Jenkins’s  Semi-Tough ; George Plimpton’s Paper Lion ; H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights , and the hilarious, incorrigible son of them all, Mark Bowden’s Bringing the Heat .” —Michael Bamberger, Sports Illustrated

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Giants Among Men - Jack Cavanaugh Cover Art

Giants Among Men

Giants Among Men How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL by Jack Cavanaugh

From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball’s Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal’s Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five streaight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants. In Giants Among Men , Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL’s golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus. Central to Cavanaugh’s narrative, and emblematic of the Giants’ bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli, who anchored a Giants defense unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant “Dee-fense!” But while Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship with the fans, who were equally at east hobnobbing with Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx. But the Giants of this era didn’t merely affect the fans’ relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the NFL careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of future Hall of Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, and Y. A. Tittle, along with stars like Charlie Conerly, Rosey Grier, and Pat Summerall. Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of large-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.

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Waking the Giant - Gregg Evans & Matt Maher Cover Art

Waking the Giant

Waking the Giant Inside the Rebirth of Aston Villa by Gregg Evans & Matt Maher

The inside story of one football club's astonishing revival Featuring exclusive interviews with Jack Grealish, John McGinn, Ollie Watkins, Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa, along with many other key figures In early July 2018, Aston Villa were staring into the abyss. Locked in a cash crisis triggered by defeat in the Championship play-off final, one of English football’s most historic and successful clubs stood on the brink of financial catastrophe. Yet less than six years later, Villa were celebrating qualifying for the Champions League for the first time in their history. Waking The Giant takes you inside one of the most extraordinary revival acts in modern football, from the last-minute takeover by billionaire duo Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens which saved the club, through the promotion and equally remarkable Premier League survival inspired by boyhood supporter Dean Smith, right up to the present day and their return to the European elite under Unai Emery. It is a tale of triumph plucked from the jaws of despair, several times over, with Villa frequently defying the odds to keep climbing and reclaim their place at English football’s top table. From club record runs to great escapes from relegation and British record transfers, this is a rollercoaster ride not to be missed. Featuring exclusive interviews with: Jack GrealishJohn McGinnOllie WatkinsTyrone MingsEzri KonsaAlbert AdomahDamian Vidagany, Director of Football OperationsJesus Garcia Pitarch, former sporting directorDean Smith, former managerKeith Wyness, former CEO And dozens of other off-the-record conversations with key figures, managers, coaches, players and staff. Reviews To come… About the author Gregg Evans writes for The Athletic and the New York Times. Before that he covered West Midlands football for Reach PLC, formerly Trinity Mirror and had stories published in the Birmingham Mail, Sunday Mercury and Daily Mirror. He's also a regular on the 1874 Aston Villa Podcast. He's on X as @greggevans40. Matt Maher is chief sports writer at the Express & Star and has covered sport in the West Midlands for more than 15 years. His coverage of Aston Villa saw him named regional sports writer of the year in 2021. He's on X as @mjmarr_star.

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The Missing Ring - Keith Dunnavant Cover Art

The Missing Ring

The Missing Ring How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize by Keith Dunnavant

Keith Dunnavant's The Missing Ring is more than a football book. It is both a story of a changing era and of an extraordinary team on a championship quest. Very few institutions in American sports can match the enduring excellence of the University of Alabama football program. Across a wide swath of the last century, the tradition-rich Crimson Tide has claimed twelve national championships, captured twenty-five conference titles, finished thirty-four times among the country's top ten, and played in fifty-three bowl games. Especially dominant during the era of the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant, the larger-than-life figure who towered over the landscape like no man before or since, Alabama entered the 1966 season with the chance to become the first college football team to win three consecutive national championships. Every aspect of Bryant's grueling system was geared around competing for the big prize each and every year, and in 1966 the idea of the threepeat tantalized the players, pushing them toward greatness. Driven by Bryant's enthusiasm, dedication, and perseverance, players were made to believe in their team and themselves. Led by the electrifying force of quarterback Kenny "Snake" Stabler and one of the most punishing defenses in the storied annals of the Southeastern Conference, the Crimson Tide cruised to a magical season, finishing as the nation's only undefeated, untied team. But something happened on the way to the history books. The Missing Ring is the story of the one that got away, the one that haunts Alabama fans still, and native Alabamian Keith Dunnavant takes readers deep inside the Crimson Tide program during a more innocent time, before widespread telecasting, before scholarship limitations, before end-zone dances. Meticulously revealing the strategies, tactics, and personal dramas that bring the overachieving boys of 1966 to life, Dunnavant's insightful, anecdotally rich narrative shows how Bryant molded a diverse group of young men into a powerful force that overcame various obstacles to achieve perfection in an imperfect world. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the still-escalating Vietnam War, and a world and a sport teetering on the brink of change in a variety of ways, The Missing Ring tells an important story about the collision between football and culture. Ultimately, it is this clash that produces the Crimson Tide's most implacable foe, enabling the greatest injustice in college football history.

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The Real All Americans - Sally Jenkins Cover Art

The Real All Americans

The Real All Americans The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation by Sally Jenkins

Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike. If you’d guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you’d be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle’s first students. Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team. Pratt liked the idea, and in less than twenty years the Carlisle football team was defeating their Ivy League opponents and in the process changing the way the game was played.   Sally Jenkins gives this story of unlikely champions a breathtaking immediacy. We see the legendary Jim Thorpe kicking a winning field goal, watch an injured Dwight D. Eisenhower limping off the field, and follow the glorious rise of Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner as well as his unexpected fall from grace.   The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations. It is an inspiring reminder of the extraordinary things that can be achieved when we set aside our differences and embrace a common purpose.

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Twelve Mighty Orphans - Jim Dent Cover Art

Twelve Mighty Orphans

Twelve Mighty Orphans The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football by Jim Dent

The remarkable true story of an orphanage and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known, now a major motion picture. More than a century ago, a school was constructed in Fort Worth, Texas, for the purpose of housing and educating the orphans of Texas Freemasons. It was a humble project that for years existed quietly on a hillside east of town. Life at the Masonic Home was about to change, though, with the arrival of a lean, bespectacled coach by the name of Rusty Russell. Here was a man who could bring rain in the midst of a drought. Here was a man who, in virtually no time at all, brought the orphans' story into the homes of millions of Americans. In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Twelve Mighty Orphans —a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least thirty pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing—not even a football—yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. Jim Dent, author of the New York Times bestselling The Junction Boys, returns with his most powerful story of human courage and determination in Twelve Mighty Orphans : The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams. A remarkable and inspirational story of an orphanage and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known, Twelve Mighty Orphans is a profound lesson in fighting back and clinging to faith. The real winners in Texas high school football were not the kids from the biggest schools, or the ones wearing the most expensive uniforms. They were the scrawny kids from a tiny orphanage who wore scarred helmets and faded jerseys that did not match, kids coached by a devoted man who lived on peanuts and drove them around in a smoke-belching old truck. In writing a story of unforgettable characters and great football, Jim Dent has come forward to reclaim his place as one of the top sports authors in America today. This is their story—the original Friday Night Lights, now a major motion picture starring Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw, and Wayne Knight.

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The Genius of Desperation - Doug Farrar Cover Art

The Genius of Desperation

The Genius of Desperation The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL by Doug Farrar

If necessity has been the mother of invention throughout the history of professional football, it could also be said that desperation is the father. Rare are the football innovations that have occurred without an owner, general manager, coach, or player up against the wall and reaching for a way to succeed anyway. In this meticulously researched, lively book, Bleacher Report lead NFL scout Doug Farrar traces the schematic history of the pro game through these "if this/then that" moments—paradigm shifts in the game from 1920 through the present. More than just a book about schemes and strategies, The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL also tells the stories of the game's most prominent innovators, the adversities they endured, and the ways in which they learned to exceed their own expectations on the path to true greatness. Everyone from George Halas to Greasy Neale, Paul Brown to Sid Gillman, Bill Walsh to Chip Kelly is featured, as well as many more. The Genius of Desperation is a narrative arc through the history of the game as it's never been told before.

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Why We Love Football - Joe Posnanski Cover Art

Why We Love Football

Why We Love Football A History in 100 Moments by Joe Posnanski

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A Kirkus Reviews Most Anticipated Book of the Fall A moving celebration of the history of American football from the New York Times bestselling author of Why We Love Baseball After his bestselling home run books Why We Love Baseball and The Baseball 100 , Joe Posnanski turns from the national pastime to the number one sport in America. Why We Love Football is Posnanski’s newest must-have deep dive into the archives and legends of the sport, and the result is a rousing tale of the 100 greatest moments in football lore. This is the best kind of sports writing. Entertaining, enlightening, heartbreaking, hilarious, and always fascinating, these stories of the sport offer a panoramic look across its history. From hidden gems and classic tales to famous moments told from previously unheard perspectives, this book is the football book for even its most ardent fans. From Patrick Mahomes's magic to the Ice Bowl, from Doug Flutie's Hail Mary pass to a plethora of football "miracles," Why We Love Football is an unforgettable, conversational masterpiece you won’t ever want to end, and a can't-miss take on football from one of the greatest sportswriters of our time.

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The TB12 Method - Tom Brady Cover Art

The TB12 Method

The TB12 Method How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance by Tom Brady

The #1 New York Times bestseller by the 7-time Super Bowl champion The first book by NFL legend Tom Brady, former quarterback with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who reached unimaginable heights of excellence into his forties—a gorgeously illustrated and deeply practical “athlete’s bible” that reveals Brady’s revolutionary approach to sustained peak performance for athletes of all kinds and all ages. In this new edition of The TB12 Method , Tom Brady further explains and details the revolutionary training, conditioning, and wellness system that has kept him atop the NFL at an age when most players are deep into retirement. Brady—along with the expert Body Coaches at TB12, the performance lifestyle brand he cofounded in 2013 with Alex Guerrero—explain the principles and philosophies of pliability, a paradigm-shifting fitness concept that focuses on a more natural, healthier way of exercising, training, and living. Filled with lessons from Brady’s own training regimen, The TB12 Method provides step-by-step guidance on how develop and maintain one’s own peak performance while dramatically decreasing injury risks. This illustrated, highly visual manual also offers more effective approaches to functional strength & conditioning, proper hydration, supplementation, cognitive fitness, restorative sleep, and nutritious, easy-to-execute recipes to help readers fuel-up and recover. Brady steadfastly believes that the TB12 approach has kept him competitive while extending his career, and that it can make any athlete, male or female, in any sport and at any level achieve his or her own peak performance and do what they love, better and for longer. With instructions, drills, photos, in-depth case studies that Brady himself has used, along with personal anecdotes and experiences from his legendary career, The TB12 Method gives you a better way to train and get results with Tom Brady himself as living proof.

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The System - Jeff Benedict & Armen Keteyian Cover Art

The System

The System The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football by Jeff Benedict & Armen Keteyian

A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year  NCAA football is big business. Every Saturday millions of people file into massive stadiums or tune in on television as "athlete-students" give everything they've got to make their team a success. Billions of dollars now flow into the game. But what is the true cost? The players have no share in the oceans of money. And once the lights go down, the glitter doesn't shine so brightly. Filled with mind-blowing details of major NCAA football scandals, with stops at Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Missouri, BYU, LSU, Texas A&M and many more, The System explores and exposes the complex, and perhaps broken, machine that churns behind the glamour of college football.  With a New Afterword

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Boys Will Be Boys - Jeff Pearlman Cover Art

Boys Will Be Boys

Boys Will Be Boys The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman

New York Times bestseller From celebrated sports writer Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won, a rollicking, completely unabashed account of the glory days of the legendary Dallas Cowboys They were called America's Team. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin—and lorded over by swashbuckling, power-hungry owner Jerry Jones and his two hard-living coaches, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer—the Cowboys seemed indomitable on the football field throughout the 1990s. Off the field the 'Boys were a dysfunctional circus, fueled by ego, sex, drugs, and jaw-dropping excess. What they achieved on game day was astonishing; what they did the rest of the week was unbelievable. Boys Will Be Boys is the story of the Dallas Cowboys in their prime—a team of wild-partying, out-of-control glory-hounds that won three Super Bowls in four years and earned their rightful place in sports lore as the most beloved and despised dynasty in NFL history.

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Take Your Eye off the Ball - Pat Kirwan Cover Art

Take Your Eye off the Ball

Take Your Eye off the Ball How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan

Take Your Eye Off the Ball is not a beginner's introduction to football, nor is it a technical manual for only the most studious of fans.  Instead, it clearly and simply explains the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game.

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How Good Do You Want to Be? - Nick Saban & Brian Curtis Cover Art

How Good Do You Want to Be?

How Good Do You Want to Be? A Champion's Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life by Nick Saban & Brian Curtis

The winning philosophy for creating and inspiring success that will help you triumph at work and in life from renowned football coach Nick Saban—with a foreword by Bill Belichick Excellence doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from hard work, consistency, the drive to be the best, and a passion for what you do. Few understand this better than Nick Saban. With more than three decades of experience as a player and coach, Saban has worked alongside some of the game’s legends and has seen firsthand how great leaders encourage greatness in others. In this candid and thoughtful guide, he shares his unique wisdom: • Organization, Organization, Organization: Create an environment where everybody knows his or her responsibilities—and each is responsible to the entire group. • Motivate to Dominate: Understand the psychology of teams and individuals, and use that knowledge to breed success. • No Other Way than Right: Practice ethics and values—and demand the same from your team. • Look in the Mirror: Maintain an understanding of who you are by knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. How Good Do You Want to Be? is more than the story of how Nick Saban motivates his staff and players to excel—it is also the memoir of one of America’s most successful coaches. Filled with instructive anecdotes and illuminated by never-before-told stories of his life and career, this is a book that challenges and inspires us all to be our best.

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League of Denial - Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru Cover Art

League of Denial

League of Denial The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “meticulously documented and endlessly chilling” ( The New York Times ) exploration of the NFL’s decades-long attempt to deny and cover up mounting evidence connecting football and brain damage. “A first-rate piece of reporting [that] adds crucial detail, texture, and news to the concussion story, which despite the NFL’s best efforts, isn’t going away.”— Time   ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR “Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis.” So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players—including some of the all-time greats—to madness.   Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football.   In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru expose the public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields and examine how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research—a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. They chronicle the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of a scientific battle between researchers and the NFL.    Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private e-mails, League of Denial is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it—questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens American football—and of the battle for the sport’s future.

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It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness - Seth Wickersham Cover Art

It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness by Seth Wickersham

NOW WITH A NEW EPILOGUE ON THE 2021 SEASON AND TOM BRADY’S BRIEF RETIREMENT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SPORTS ILLUSTRATED • NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR National Sports Media Association • Book of the Year Kirkus Reviews • Best Nonfiction of the Year “Seth Wickersham has managed to do the impossible: he has pulled off the definitive document of the Belichick/Brady dynasty.” —Bill Simmons, The Ringer The explosive, long-awaited account of the making of the greatest dynasty in football history—from the acclaimed ESPN reporter who has been there from the very beginning. Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL’s most dominant team, but also—and by far—the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness—and what were the costs? In It's Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the country’s finest long form and investigative sportswriters, tells the full, behind-the-scenes story of the Patriots, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and vanity that powered and ultimately unraveled them. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted since 2001, Wickersham’s chronicle is packed with revelations, taking us deep into Bill Belichick’s tactical ingenuity and Tom Brady’s unique mentality while also reporting on their divergent paths in 2020, including Brady’s run to the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Raucous, unvarnished, and definitive, It’s Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting in the tradition of Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, and David Halberstam.

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Home Team - Sean Payton & Ellis Henican Cover Art

Home Team

Home Team Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life by Sean Payton & Ellis Henican

The New York Times bestseller that's "heaven in hardcover" ( New Orleans Times-Picayune ) for Saints fans. In the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, no symbol of disaster was more potent than New Orleans' Superdome: it became a horrific shelter of last resort where the utterly desperate rode out the storm. Four years later, in that very stadium, the New Orleans Saints won the NFC championship and earned their first-ever trip to the Super Bowl, where they defeated the favored Indianapolis Colts 31-17. This is the inspirational true story of a city recovering from disaster and a team with a history of heartbreak, as seen through the eyes of the coach who would help elevate them both to long- forgotten greatness.

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Earn the Right to Win - Tom Coughlin & David Fisher Cover Art

Earn the Right to Win

Earn the Right to Win How Success in Any Field Starts with Superior Preparation by Tom Coughlin & David Fisher

A top NFL coach offers leadership advice that applies from the field to the office Tom Coughlin led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories with his unique system of relentless preparation and resilience. He teaches his players that you can never guarantee a win, but you can always earn the right to win-with focus, hard work, and anticipation of obstacles. Now Coughlin shows how his teachings apply beyond the gridiron, illustrating his points with previously untold stories about players like Eli Manning, Doug Flutie, and Michael Strahan. His wisdom can help leaders in any field rev up their own organizations. 'Tom Coughlin challenged us and prepared us to handle anything that was thrown at us ... The lessons I learned from him weren't limited to football. They were applicable to every aspect of my life' -Michael Strahan Tom Coughlin is one of the most successful coaches in NFL history. Before winning two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, he coached the Jacksonville Jaguars for nine seasons, leading them to two appearances in the AFC Championship Game. David Fisher is the co-author of seventeen New York Times bestsellers.

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Concussion - Jeanne Marie Laskas Cover Art

Concussion

Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas

NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered something he could not ignore. The NFL tried to silence him. His courage would change everything.   “A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks   Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for  GQ  that would go on to inspire the movie  Concussion . Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended.  Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue.  How did this happen?,  Omalu asked himself.  How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this?   The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore.   Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told,  Concussion  is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth.

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Gridiron Genius - Michael Lombardi Cover Art

Gridiron Genius

Gridiron Genius A Master Class in Building Teams and Winning at the Highest Level by Michael Lombardi

Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football. Why do some NFL franchises dominate year after year while others can never crack the code of success? For 30 years Michael Lombardi had a front-row seat and full access as three titans--Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick--reinvented the game, turning it into a national obsession while piling up Super Bowl trophies. Now, in Gridiron Genius , Lombardi provides the blueprint that makes a successful organization click and win --and the mistakes unsuccessful organizations make that keep them on the losing side time and again.      In reality, very few coaches understand the philosophies, attention to detail, and massive commitment that defined NFL juggernauts like the 49ers and the Patriots. The best organizations are not just employing players, they are building something bigger. Gridiron Genius will explain how the best leaders evaluate, acquire, and utilize personnel in ways other professional minds, football and otherwise, won't even contemplate. How do you know when to trade a player? How do you create a positive atmosphere when everyone is out to maximize his own paycheck? And why is the tight end like the knight on a chessboard?      To some, game planning consists only of designing an attack for the next opponent. But Lombardi explains how the smartest leaders script everything : from an afternoon's special-teams practice to a season's playoff run to a decade-long organizational blueprint. Readers will delight in the Lombardi tour of an NFL weekend, including what really goes on during the game on and off the field and inside the headset. First stop : Belichick's Saturday night staff meeting, where he announces how the game will go the next day. Spoiler alert : He always nails it.      Football dynasties are built through massive attention to detail and unwavering commitment. From how to build a team, to how to watch a game, to understanding the essential qualities of great leaders, Gridiron Genius gives football fans the knowledge to be the smartest person in the room every Sunday.

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Big Game - Mark Leibovich Cover Art

Big Game

Big Game The NFL in Dangerous Times by Mark Leibovich

“A raucous, smash-mouth, first-person takedown of the National Football League." —Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Town , an equally merciless probing of America's biggest cultural force, pro football, at a moment of peak success and high anxiety Like millions of Americans, Mark Leibovich has spent more of his life tuned into pro football than he'd care to admit. Being a lifelong New England Patriots fan meant growing up on a steady diet of lovable loserdom. That is, until the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era made the Pats the most ruthlessly efficient and polarizing sports dynasty of the modern NFL, and its fans the most irritating in all of Pigskin America. Leibovich kept his obsession quiet, making a nice career for himself covering that other playground for rich and overgrown children, American politics. Still, every now and then Leibovich would reach out to Tom Brady to gauge his willingness to subject himself to a profile. He figured that the chances of Brady agreeing were a Hail Mary at best, but Brady returned Mark's call in summer 2014 and kept on returning his calls through epic Patriots Super Bowl victory and defeat, and a scandal involving Brady--Deflategate--whose grip on sports media was as profound as its true significance was ridiculous. So began a four-year odyssey that took Mark Leibovich deeper inside the NFL than anyone has gone before. From the owners' meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, he takes in the show at the elbow of everyone from Brady to big-name owners to the cordially despised NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell. Ultimately, BIG GAME is a chronicle of "peak football"--the high point of the sport's economic success and cultural dominance, but also the time when the dark side began to show. It is an era of explosive revenue growth, but also one of creeping existential fear. Players have long joked that NFL stands for "not for long," but as the true impact of concussions becomes inescapable background noise, it's increasingly difficult to enjoy the simple glory of football without the buzz-kill of its obvious consequences. And that was before Donald Trump. In 2016, Mark's day job caught up with him, and the NFL slammed headlong into America's culture wars. Big Game is a journey through an epic storm. Through it all, Leibovich always keeps one eye on Tom Brady and his beloved Patriots, through to the 2018 Super Bowl. Pro football, this hilarious and enthralling book proves, may not be the sport America needs, but it is most definitely the sport we deserve.

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I Feel Like Going On - Ray Lewis Cover Art

I Feel Like Going On

I Feel Like Going On Life, Game, and Glory by Ray Lewis

In this New York Times bestselling memoir, Ray Lewis—legendary Baltimore Ravens linebacker and one of the greatest defensive players of his generation—holds nothing back on the state of football as well as his troubled childhood, his rise to athletic greatness, the storm that threatened to ruin his NFL career, and the devastating injury that nearly cost him a final moment of glory. Ray Lewis is undeniably one of the biggest names in football—not only for his seventeen years in the NFL, but also for the dramatic events that nearly brought his career to a halt in 2000. In his memoir, Lewis shares honest accounts of his difficult childhood and delves into the anguish and controversy that he found away from the game. But these heartbreaks gave him the courage to trust in God and continue his dream to play for the NFL and win the Super Bowl. From a rookie player to a football veteran, Lewis has experienced everything imaginable during his football career, and has become one of the best defensive players in the history of the NFL. I Feel Like Going On is the story of his incredible journey, and a sincere look at the most popular sport in America from one of football’s most revered players.

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Death to the BCS - Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter & Jeff Passan Cover Art

Death to the BCS

Death to the BCS The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter & Jeff Passan

A team of award-winning sports reporters takes down the Great Satan of college sports: the Bowl Championship Series. Every college sport picks its champion by a postseason tournament, except for one: Division I-A football. Instead of a tournament, fans are subjected to the Bowl Championship Series, an arcane mix of polling and mathematical rankings that results in just two teams playing for the championship. It is, without a doubt, the most hated institution in all of sports. A recent Sports Illustrated poll found that more than 90 percent of sports fans oppose the BCS, yet this system has remained in place for more than a decade. Built upon top-notch investigative reporting, Death to the BCS at last reveals the truth about this monstrous entity and offers a simple solution for fixing it. Death to the BCS includes findings from interviews with power players, as well as research into federal tax records, Congressional testimony, and private contracts, revealing: ?The truth behind the "Cartel"-the anonymous suits who run the BCS and who profit handsomely by protecting it ?The flawed math and corruption that determine which teams participate in the national championship ?How the system hurts competition by perpetuating "cupcake" schedules ?How "mid-major" teams are systematically denied a chance to play for the championship ?How a comprehensive sixteen-team playoff plan can solve the problem while enhancing profitability The first book to lay out the unseemly inner workings of the BCS in full detail, Death to the BCS is a rousing manifesto for bringing fairness back to one of our most beloved sports.

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The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports - Kevin Cook Cover Art

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports by Kevin Cook

The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history—pro football’s raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence. Between the Immaculate Reception in 1972 and The Catch in 1982, pro football grew up. In 1972, Steelers star Franco Harris hitchhiked to practice. NFL teams roomed in skanky motels. They played on guts, painkillers, legal steroids, fury, and camaraderie. A decade later, Joe Montana’s gleamingly efficient 49ers ushered in a new era: the corporate, scripted, multibillion-dollar NFL we watch today. Kevin Cook’s rollicking chronicle of this pivotal decade draws on interviews with legendary players—Harris, Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Ken “Snake” Stabler—to re-create their heroics and off-field carousing. He shows coaches John Madden and Bill Walsh outsmarting rivals as Monday Night Football redefined sports’ place in American life. Celebrating the game while lamenting the physical toll it took on football’s greatest generation, Cook diagrams the NFL’s transformation from second-tier sport into national obsession.

49

Belichick and Brady - Michael Holley Cover Art

Belichick and Brady

Belichick and Brady Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football by Michael Holley

New York Times bestselling sportswriter Michael Holley takes readers behind the scenes of the relationship that transformed the Patriots from a middling franchise to the envy of the NFL. No head coach-quarterback pair has been more successful in NFL history than Bill Belichick and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. They have won four Super Bowls, six AFC championships, and thirteen division titles. And now Holley takes us inside their relationship, dissecting how these men and their team came to dominate football. Belichick, a genius as a defensive coordinator, had been a five-year flop as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Upon his controversial arrival in Foxboro, though, he quickly began to remake the team at every level--scouts, coaches, and players. His bold, calculated approach had fans up in arms, sportswriters questioning his intelligence, and players wondering how long they would last on the team. Meanwhile, buried down in the 2000 NFL draft, the 199th overall pick was a skinny kid from the University of Michigan named Tom Brady who many scouts thought would never succeed at a professional level. The lowest of the four quarterbacks on the team's depth chart, he appeard to be just one of the guys. Like Belichick, though, he lived for football, and he knew the playbook as well as Drew Bledsoe, the franchise quarterback. And when Bledsoe was injured in 2001, Brady took the job and vowed to never give it back. The handsome Brady became a star, wearing hand-tailored suits, appearing in movies and on magazine covers, and marrying a supermodel. Belichick, with his trademark cut-off hoodies, was the opposite of a fashion plate. Together, the odd couple somehow rose above controversies and tragedies. Draft picks were lost, suspensions given, lawsuits filed. As their legends have grown, so have their critics, with some of those critics operating from NFL headquarters. Despite that, with Belichick's deft and brilliant strategy in the draft year in year out and Brady's exacting decision-making on the field, the Patriots cultivated an atmosphere of success and won a stunning 75 percent of their games together. Respected and reviled, Belichick and Brady have set the bar high for excellence in a league designed for parity. They have rarely been understood. Until now. Based on dozens of interviews with former and current players, coaches, and executives, Belichick and Brady is an eye-opening look at the minds, motives, and wild ambitions of two men who have left an indelible mark on the game of football.

50

Fourth and Long - John U. Bacon Cover Art

Fourth and Long

Fourth and Long The Fight for the Soul of College Football by John U. Bacon

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

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