Publishers Weekly
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Sportswriter King (Monday Morning Quarterback) delivers a captivating history of modern football, chronicling its rise to America’s most popular sport. He revisits stories from his 40-year career, beginning with his role covering the Cincinnati Bengals for the Cincinnati Enquirer and then Newsday, before football journalism became “overly scripted” and “press-conference-dominated.” (He recalls perusing the Bengals’ play binder before a game against Washington in 1988 and quizzing quarterback Boomer Esiason on formations and routes.) Drawing on his reporting for Sports Illustrated in the 1990s, King recounts how teams lined up to sign defensive star Reggie White under the NFL’s new free-agency rules, which allowed players like White to negotiate and sign with new teams. This “new era” in the sport, King explains, enabled teams to improve rosters outside of the draft. In a particularly emotional chapter, King reports on the lasting impact of repeated head trauma, with many players experiencing memory loss and mood changes later in life, calling it “the most important issue facing the sport of football.” Elsewhere, King looks at the rise of women in football leadership roles, as well as how flag football has become the fastest-growing high school girls sport in the U.S. Sweeping and insightful, this is an essential portrait of America’s game. (Oct.)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Four decades of football, as chronicled by a well-known sportswriter. LongtimeSports Illustrated gridiron reporter King takes a maximalist approach, devoting one chapter to each year from 1984, when he started writing about the NFL, to 2023, the last season he covered the league full-time. This lengthy professional memoir features anecdotes and commentary, an argument-starting list of names for his “Mount Rushmore of Pro Football,” a crossword puzzle, and informative tidbits on tactics and playcalling, as well as profiles of singular players and warranted criticism of league bosses’ handling of player health and sports gambling. King skillfully charts the NFL’s inexorable growth. When he started, snail-mail newsletters were must-reads. In today’s media landscape, streaming networks have spent $4.3 billion to broadcast 58 games. As the author illustrates, Paul Tagliabue, a relatively unheralded league commissioner, engineered the year-round fan experience, with “tentpole events like a draft with more fanfare, free agency, and a new TV channel.” Polls showed that baseball and football were equally popular in the ’80s, but, by 2024, football had four times as many fans. Yet King’s kitchen-sink approach results in some bloat. Nobody yearns for a minute-by-minute rehash of the Cowboys’ 1991 draft or a rundown of the “quotes of 2002.” But amid the overabundance, there’s ample charm. In his best chapters, King catches up with guys he wrote about years ago. An 80-something Hall of Fame coach sketches Xs and Os on a notepad. A retired player known for his creative trash-talking shares tricks of the trade. In a powerful chapter, King visits a lab and looks at the damaged brain of a player he voted for in Hall of Fame balloting. This dovetails with King’s number-crunching on per-game hits sustained by players, important analysis as the league considers expanding its schedule. An overstuffed, enjoyable jaunt through the NFL’s recent past. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.