The Cut: A NFL Novel

10 Football Books You Must Read

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So is his salary. Finding the Winning Edge, Bill Walsh, Walk into the office of an NFL coach or front-office executive, and there is a good chance you will spot a well-worn copy with more highlights than white space. Of the 36, copies sold in , a hefty percentage have found their way to the desks of grade school, high school and college coaches throughout the country. Walsh set out to create a comprehensive organizational guide, functioning as a playbook, coaching manual, leadership compendium and roster blueprint under one cover.

But it ultimately succeeds as a legacy piece that has advanced the art of NFL coaching and team building. If I were an owner, first of all, I would read that book. Then I would make that book required reading for my head coach, general manager or any other key executive in my football operation. As renowned organization theorist Abraham Kaplan has noted, "As knowledge of a particular subject matter grows, our conception of that subject matter changes. This paradox is resolved by a process of approximation: It is only through this succession that we can hope ultimately to achieve success.

An excellent example of Kaplan's progression is the interaction of ideas and theories I have exchanged with the many fine coaches with whom I have had the pleasure of working over the years. As a result, my attempts to be more knowledgeable about the game and to continually expand my offensive concepts eventually led to the next step in the evolution of, for lack of a better term, the "West Coast Offense.

Whatever label, genuine or otherwise, others want to give to it, the "West Coast Offense" still amounts to nothing more than a total attention to detail and an appreciation for every facet of offensive football and refinement of those things that are needed to prove an environment that allows people to perform at their maximum levels of self-actualization.

The offensive coordinator on the New York Giants dynasty of the s, Lombardi was hired in to resurrect a moribund Packers franchise reeling from a campaign.

The Cut by Anthony Cartwright review – the big divide in Brexit Britain | Books | The Guardian

Standing in the spotlight as the last of the small industry towns still boasting a professional sports team, Green Bay was soon atop the football world, winning five titles in nine years. Lombardi's rise mirrored that of the modern NFL, which was born out of the Championship Game that marked Lombardi's final game with the Giants. Maraniss produced a masterful character study of a complicated human being, emphasizing the duality that drove Lombardi's obsession with winning. Along the way, Maraniss peppered in plenty of Lombardi's pigskin wisdom, such as the hard-earned admonition against sitting on the ball for an entire quarter no matter the score as well as the acknowledgment that football was the perfect team game "except for one glaring imbalance -- the quarterback was too important.

Memorable sports biographies are few and far between. This was West Point, garrison of traditional American values: And this was Coach Blaik, the Old Man, demanding and austere. It would be easy for someone nearly fifty years later, discouraged by the corrupted state of sports in America at the end of the twentieth century and unmindful of the cycles of history, to take a fleeting look at that combination and make a backward leap of faith: But history has a way of mocking attempts to make it retroactively pure.

The events of that episode are not immaterial to his larger story; they are central to understanding the mythology of Lombardi, the contradictory demands and expectations of football, and the fallacy of the innocent past. They raise larger questions that address the core mythology of football and of the man who went on to become its patron saint, Vince Lombardi. What is the value of competitive team sports? Where is the line drawn between a single-minded desire to excel and a debilitating obsession to win?

Are football teams essential to the well-being of institutions and communities? Do athletes deserve special consideration because of this? In a realm where the ultimate measurement is wins versus losses, do ends justify means? The contradictory ideals of unity and independence, conformity and rebellion, run deep in the American psyche, and along that divide football is the sport most clearly aligned with unity and conformity, for better and worse. When asserting that football builds character, coaches invariably speak of teamwork, discipline, perseverance and loyalty.

But even granting football those qualities, are they inherently positive? Or, as the Army honor code scandal suggests, can they also lead to group thinking, peer pressure, blind obedience and an emphasis on team solidarity over individual integrity? Those were the questions raised in , and in one way or another they would follow Lombardi and define him for the rest of his life. The Education of a Coach, David Halberstam, A decorated Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting on Vietnam in the s, Halberstam went on to pen 20 books, the last 14 of which became national bestsellers.

When he wasn't preoccupied with weighty matters such as the civil rights movement and the Kennedy White House, Halberstam dabbled in the "little entertainments" of professional athletics, producing some of the finest American sports writing of the past half-century. Why did Halberstam choose to chronicle the rise of Bill Belichick as the topic of his only football book? For starters, he was obsessed with greatness.

The Cut by Anthony Cartwright review – the big divide in Brexit Britain

His most highly regarded tome was the classic "The Best and the Brightest. By the time he finished interviewing Belichick, Halberstam regarded the New England Patriots legend as the hardest-working man he had ever seen. Whereas "When Pride Still Mattered" is a full-fledged biography, Halberstam's treatment of Belichick concentrates on the lessons learned from other coaches en route to the NFL's pinnacle. That education began with his father, Steve, regarded by many as pro football's first great scout.

By the age of 9, Steve had taught Bill how to analyze game film, "a ticket into a secret world, in which you could find so much more than what was on the surface. Nicknamed "Gloom" by the domineering Bill Parcells, Belichick makes up in knowledge and leadership what he lacks in outward personality.

He understood the Patriots ' system, one in which it was critically important to make good reads, and he knew how to operate in it. Comparing him to Phil Simms, who had been so valuable on those Giants teams, Belichick thought that Simms might have a little more arm strength and certainly came in as a more accurate passer, but he thought Brady might have at an earlier point in his career a better sense of clock management.

And he threw a very catchable ball, a ball that the receivers liked. About his ability to read what was happening on the field, that is, field intelligence, Belichick was pleased.

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The ability to make those reads on the defense was a hard thing to measure, as football intelligence was always hard to measure. There were some quarterbacks who were very smart, who knew the playbook cold, but who were not kinetic wonders, and could not make the instantaneous read. That was the rarest of abilities, the so-called Montana Factor: The NFL was filled with coaches with weak arms themselves, who could see things quickly on the field but who were doomed to work with quarterbacks who had great arms, but whose ability to read the defense was less impressive.

What Brady might have, they began to suspect, was that marvelous ability that sets the truly great athletes apart from the very good ones. Or as one of the assistants said, it was like having Belichick himself out there if only Belichick had a great arm. In the training camp Brady would come off the field after an offensive series, and Belichick would question him about each play, and it was quite remarkable: Brady would be able to tell his coach what every receiver was doing on each play, what the defensive backs were doing, and explain why he had chose to throw where he had.

It was as if there were a camera secreted away in his brain. Afterward, Belichick would go back and run the film on those same plays and would find that everything Brady had said was borne out by film. The League, David Harris, Forget all of that. Thirty years later, the NFL is stronger than ever. The 32 NFL owners comprise American sports' most exclusive club. The value of Harris' book is the focus on the inner circle of football's leadership, featuring mini-biographies on the NFL's power players from Rozelle's meteoric rise in the early s through the strife of the early s.

The league's menagerie of owners was filled with enough egomania, backstabbing and palace intrigue to keep pace with the primetime soap-opera hits of the era such as "Dallas," "Dynasty" and "Knots Landing. Less than a decade after incredibly swapping his Baltimore Colts franchise for the Los Angeles Rams , Carroll Rosenbloom drowned in suspicious circumstances while swimming at Golden Beach, Florida, thrusting his second wife, Georgia Frontiere, into the ownership role. Several years later, legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell announced at a luncheon filled with league dignitaries that he harbored a "naked lust" for Frontiere, the NFL's first female owner.

When asked how long Lamar could survive at that rate of loss, H. Hunt quipped, "at this rate, the boy has only years to go. The ongoing antics of that cast of characters provide enough color to salvage a failed premise. For the next year, the League would have to fight a trade war, a labor war, and a civil war all at the same time.

Rich or not, League Think was in deep trouble. One owner even had a parrot trained to squawk " Expletive you, Al Davis" stationed near the check-in counter when Davis arrived at the annual meeting. The bad news was finally delivered twenty-one days after the annual meeting adjourned. Because of the anti-trust violation, those damages would be automatically tripled. The title sells the work short. Sure, it's the definitive account of a colorful and compelling Super Bowl champion, the most dominant force ever to stalk quivering prey on the gridiron.

The Bears were football's version of Mike Tyson in his prime, intimidating opposing quarterbacks before knocking them out cold by the end of the first round. The scope of Cohen's treatment goes beyond Chicago, though, to encompass the relevant history of pro football. Steeped in NFL lore and strategical evolution, Cohen also has a clear understanding of the finest American sportswriting.

Acclaimed journalist George Plimpton, author of the seminal football book "Paper Lion," famously advanced the " small ball " theory of sportswriting. The smaller the ball, Plimpton mused in the early s, the "more formidable the literature. Three decades later, Plimpton's theory has been rendered obsolete by unheralded books such as Cohen's. It's fitting that football writing has hit its stride in the 21st century, in keeping with the NFL's dominion over the modern American sports landscape.

That certainly wasn't the case when Plimpton was cutting his teeth on baseball, golf and boxing in the s. Or as the competing coaches put it, "The 46 is unsound. Look at film from or , you see receivers wide open downfield. Buddy's gamble was that the quarterbacks would be first too hurried, then too terrified, and finally too beat up to find the open men. As with Danny White, they would have just one thought on their mind: Buddy changed football with that defense.

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It was impossible to prepare for. The 46 was the logic behind the modern T-formation come full circle: Halas had raised the quarterback to such a place of preeminence, turned him into such a finely calibrated piece of offensive machinery, that he became almost too valuable for the team's own good. Rather than cover everyone, Buddy would short-circuit the offense by taking out the QB.

As the boxers used to say: Kill the brain and the body will follow. Jim Bouton's classic "Ball Four" opened the flood gates for professional athletes to reveal the seamier side of sports. He details the personalities and complications that go into every draft decision, making for good reading and good drama. If you are a fan of this game, then The Draft is one book you absolutely must read.

Click here to read the prologue and first chapter of The Draft. This requires Adobe Acrobat 6. Chances are your machine already has this program.

If not, you can download it for free by clicking here. To order The Draft from Amazon. To order The Draft from Barnes and Noble. The Cut chronicles three players vying for the same roster spot during the ultracompetitve and often brutal ritual known as training camp—. Brookman has become the best tight end in professional football.

With one season remaining on his rookie contract, his agent, Barry Sturtz, wants to renegotiate and get a more lucrative deal—a common practice among players who have exceeded expectations. But the Giants refuse.

No one is more stunned by this development than offensive coordinator Dale Greenwood. What Gray really wants is for everything to stay just the way it is. Greenwood has no choice but to comply, and he assembles a trio of unsigned players from the bottomless pool of league wannabes.

What no one anticipates, however, is that these three recruits have more drive and talent than anyone expected. Delighted, Gray believes Sturtz will soon be at his mercy. Many variables are in play here, both on and off the field. Wil Mara has done a terrific and insightful job in The Cut of taking you inside what really happens in the seamy side of modern pro football. I often had the sense that I was hearing many of the conversations that go on between the sound bytes. Wil Mara does a great job of going inside an NFL issue, giving the reader the true-life experience of what happens on a team.

Wil Mara did his research making this novel as realistic as one might get short of experiencing training camp firsthand. It was a pleasure to read, making me think of my own days battling the summer heat and pound men.

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