Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com/ ... -time.html

Top 100 Pro Football Books of All-Time
Chris Willis, NFL Films
Part 1 of 5
Numbers 100-81

I clicked on the link and was immediately greeted by what I'm in the process of reading right now. Rockin the Rockpile by our own Jeffrey Miller at #100.

If we get to the top three & it's "Old Leather", "Dutch Clark", & "A Nearly Perfect Season"...someone's got some splainin' to do.

Who's taking bets that INSTANT REPLAY will be #1?

I'd say the Thinking Man's Guide should be a the top -- or the top two spots, one for each edition, since they're quite different. And I'd put the Pro Football Chronicle way up there too.

Then there's Lee Grosscup's book Fourth and One, The Forgettables, and both of Bill Ryczek's football books (Crash of the Titans and the other one about Connecticut teams in the 1960s).

There are popular books and there are critics' darlings, books for other writers. The best book is when the two meet.

Will be interesting to watch how this plays out.

I would think Total Football would have to be in the top five.

David Maraniss' book on Lombardi will also be up there. A personal favorite I'd like to see is Lance Rentzel's ghosted autobiography, "When All the Laughter Died in Sorrow"

I read a book called Sid Gillman : Father Of The Passing Game. I went out to Amazon to read the reviews, and what I assume is our own TJ Troup gave it a one-star review! Apparently he didn't think the book had enough about how Sid Gillman changed football strategy.

I would agree that there's not a lot about his strategy in the book. I liked the book for other reasons. The book did a good job, I thought, of explaining his career and how he was viewed by others. But each of us may look for different things in books. I'm not as big on the strategy angle. No right or wrong answer there, I think.

Will any of those Super Bowl books sold at grade school book fairs in the 80s when I was a lad be on the list? I, for one, hope so.