Inducted in 2006, Warren Moon is the only African-American quarterback in the NFL Hall of Fame. His path to success was neither easy nor assured. As a seven-year-old growing up in Los Angeles, he lost his father to alcoholism and helped his single mom raise six sisters. Playing football as a kid, coaches questioned whether, because he was black, he had the smarts to play quarterback. Repeatedly asked to switch to another position, Moon refused, knowing that he had both the ability...

In today’s NFL, every team has a “win now” mentality. There’s no time for rebuilding or down years. You need to compete each and every day, or else you’re out; and that goes for the players, coaches, and front office. You either win today or you’re gone tomorrow.Because of this trend, struggling teams have forgone the training of old and slowly building from the ground up for the immediate payoff. And when it comes to gaining the interest of the fans and media, there’s one go-to de...

The real-life "Jerry Maguire" shares stories of his game-changing career in the high-stakes world of professional sports in this New York Times bestseller.Leigh Steinberg is renowned as one of the greatest sports agents in history, representing such All-Pro clients as Troy Aikman, Bruce Smith, and Ben Roethlisberger. Over one particular seven-year stretch, Steinberg represented the top NFL Draft pick an unheard of six tim...

Bill Belichick is one of the titans of today’s game of football. Now, sports commentator and bestselling author Michael Holley follows three NFL teams—the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons—from training camp 2010 through the Super Bowl and into the April draft, opening a new window into Belichick’s influence on the game. This one-of-a-kind exploration takes football fans behind the scenes of the most popular sport in America, with unprecedented insider access to...

Bill Parcells may be the most iconic football coach of our time. During his decades-long tenure as an NFL coach, he turned failing franchises into contenders. He led the ailing New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories, turned the New England Patriots into an NFL powerhouse, reinvigorated the New York Jets, brought the Dallas Cowboys back to life, and was most recently enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Taking readers behind the scenes with one of the most influential and fascin...

The New York Times bestselling author of Sweetness delivers the first all-encompassing account of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of professional sports’ most-revered—and dominant—dynasties.The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s personified the flamboyance and excess of the decade over which they reigned. Beginning with the arrival of Earvin “Magic” Johnson as the number-one overall pick of the 1979 draft, the Lake...

A behind-the-scenes tour of the ups and downs of an NFL season focuses on the Baltimore Ravens and reveals the lesser-known aspects of the professional league, from the dangerous conditions under which athletes are expected to train to the unrelenting pressures faced by coaches and players.In the NFL there is only one certainty: that every day, someone will have to be the Next Man Up. Football is an unrelentingly punishing sport, played and practiced at undiminishe...

A New York Times –bestselling author presents the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football.The 1970s Oakland Raiders were the NFL's badasses, black-clad iconoclasts whose machismo, brotherhood, and blue-collar values mocked pro football corporatism. In this entertaining biography, Peter Richmond tells the rollicking story of this motley crew of castoffs, psychos, and geniuses...

No football fan will want to be without the book that delivers pure, unfiltered Rex Ryan—head coach of the New York Jets and one of the most popular, outspoken, well-liked, and widely respected personalities in the National Football League.Rex Ryan is known for his exuberance . . . and Play Like You Mean It explores every aspect of Ryan’s amazing passion for the game of football, plus the lessons he has learned in leadership and motivation during his years...

In Scorecasting, University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports, and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost.Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economists such as bestselling author Richard Thaler, the authors look at: the influence home-...

Professional football in the last half century has been a sport marked by relentless innovation. For fans determined to keep up with the changes that have transformed the game, close examination of the coachingfootage is a must. In The Games That Changed the Game, Ron Jaworski—pro football’s #1 game-tape guru—breaks down the film from seven of the most momentous contests of the last fifty years, giving readers a drive-by-drive, play-by-play guide to the evolutionary leaps that def...

"A rollicking oral history of ESPN" (Boston Globe)—an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the network that changed how we watch sports."A serious, impressive piece of work." — Entertainment WeeklyIt began, in 1979, as a modest idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spann...