Review by Booklist Review
Cook doesn't seem to have any grand agenda here, other than laying out an entertaining narrative of the NFL's wildly colorful players, teams, rivalries, and games of the 1970s, from Don Shula's efficient Miami Dolphins to Al Davis' renegade Raiders to Chuck Noll's ferocious and talented Steelers to Tom Landry's intricately designed Cowboys. Which is perfect, since by just recalling the NFL's irresistible, grass-roots appeal (picture future Hall of Famer Franco Harris hitching rides to his Steeler games), along with the newfound visual power of TV (think Monday Night Football) during that decade, Cook almost seamlessly shows how football overtook baseball as America's pastime while pulling all the other major sports, for better and worse, into the modern era, too. Pair this with Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne's The Ones Who Hit the Hardest (2010), another lively account of the NFL in the 1970s.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Tied to the 40th anniversary of perhaps the most famous play in NFL history, the Immaculate Reception of Franco Harris that enabled Pittsburgh to beat Oakland in the closing seconds of a 1972 playoff game, this vibrant history of 1970s pro football focuses not only on the players but on how the game was played. The author's contention is that the decade was the end of an era in which the players ruled on the field and coaches played a much smaller role than today. In that freewheeling time, the game was played often with a savage brutality best exemplified in the period's prime hard-hitting rivalry of the Steelers and Raiders to determine the league's dominant team. While the successes of the 1970s Dolphins, Cowboys, and Vikings are noted, the emphasis here is on the two teams in black jerseys. The rise of Bill Walsh's scripted 49ers in 1981 is seen as the onset of the contemporary game played more as a coaches' chess match. The only problem with this book (at least in galleys) is that it is riddled with minor inaccuracies that are distracting to knowledgeable readers. -VERDICT A well-told tale of interest to all football fans. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Sports journalist Cook (Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything, 2010, etc.) recalls "pro football's raging, reckless, hormonal, hairy, druggy, drunken, immortal adolescence" of the 1970s and that era's role in making the NFL the predominant American sport. The nicknames of three Oakland Raiders defensive players give a quick idea of the nature of football in the '70s: Dr. Death, the Assassin and the Hit Man. Pro football was brutal and violent and played (by and large) by men who made little money, lived life precipitously on the edge, played the game for keeps and partied afterward. There was no such thing as being concussed, and the use of performance-enhancing (as well as recreational) drugs, from steroids to horse testosterone, was pretty much the norm. Later, many players would pay a high physical or mental price for their football lives, yet few seem to express regrets. Cook brings to life both the outsized personalities of the era--party animal Ken "the Snake" Stabler, chain smoking Fred Biletnikoff, the troubled Terry Bradshaw, Broadway Joe Namath, Mean Joe Greene and so many others--and also the great rivalries and games of the era, particularly among the Steelers, Raiders and Cowboys. Out of this era, Cook demonstrates, came the modern game. Rule changes had made the forward pass, rather than the plodding running game, dominant. Players were becoming bigger and faster. Add a little sexiness to the carnage via the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and the game was perfect for TV. A major contributor to this televisionization of football was the advent of Monday Night Football with the irascible Howard Cosell and sidekicks Frank Gifford and Don Meredith. Cook narrates the hilarious uncensored on- and off-air adventures of MNF. There may be a bit too much football lingo here--"flex defense," "stunt 4-3," "three-deep zone"--for the casual fan, but Cook does not go overboard. An enjoyable and insightful look at a wild and wooly era in American sports.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
