Vagabond Halfback


Book Description

He was a poet, a vagrant, a philosopher, a lady's man and a drunk. He was also one of the greatest Green Bay Packers who ever lived. This is the story of the conflicts and triumphs of Johnny Blood, the outstanding athlete whose legendary exploits off the field often eclipsed his gridiron glory.




Green Bay's Greatest


Book Description

Highlighting each of the 27 Green Bay Packers enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame--including such luminaries as Earl "Curly" Lambeau, Bart Starr, Vince Lombardi, Brett Favre and Charles Woodson--this book takes a comprehensive look at each player. Biographical information, key facts and figures, anecdotes and little-known facts are provided, along with their own recollections of their biggest games. Appendices cover Packers of honorable mention (who should be or perhaps will be HOF inductees), and player stats.




Football


Book Description

"...provides a detailed look at America's pastime through the lens of pop culture, [an] A-to-Z inventory of how certain aspects of the game affect and reflect broader society."--from publisher description.




The NFL's 60-Minute Men


Book Description

In 2019 the NFL celebrated its 100th season. During that historic year the league selected an All-Time Team of 100 former star players. Among them were seven from before football's free substitution rule (1920-1945), two-way players who were skilled at both offense and defense. They were: Sammy Baugh (Quarterback), Dutch Clark (Running Back), Dan Fortmann (Guard), Mel Hein (Center), Cal Hubbard (Tackle), Don Hutson (Wide Receiver) and Bill Hewitt (Defensive End). There were more than just seven great players from those years, when men in leather helmets played multiple positions on dirt fields for modest salaries. This book ranks the NFL's top two-way players, with detailed biographies and analysis by their contemporaries.




Football: Great Writing About the National Sport


Book Description

Men’s Journal’s “Ultimate Football Reading List” “First-rate” sports writing on American football from an all-star line-up that includes Red Smith, Jimmy Breslin, Michael Lewis, and more (Wall Street Journal) Since football’s meteoric rise in the mid-twentieth century, the standout writers on the sport have gone behind and beyond the spectacle to reveal the complexity, the contradictions, and the deeper humanity at the heart of the game. In a landmark collection, The Library of America brings together the very best of their work: gems of deadline reportage, incisive longform profiles of football’s storied figures, and autobiographical accounts by players and others close to the game. Celebrating the sport without shying away from its sometimes devastating personal and social costs, the forty-four pieces gathered here testify to football’s boundless capacity to generate outsized characters and memorable tales.




Hell with the Lid Off


Book Description

Hell with the Lid Off looks at the ferocious five-year war waged by Pittsburgh and Oakland for NFL supremacy during the turbulent seventies. The roots of their rivalry dated back to the 1972 playoff game in Pittsburgh that ended with the “Immaculate Reception,” Franco Harris’s stunning touchdown that led the Steelers to a win over the Raiders in their first postseason meeting. That famous game ignited a fiery rivalry for NFL supremacy. Between 1972 and 1977, the Steelers and the Raiders—between them boasting an incredible twenty-six Pro Football Hall of Famers—collided in the playoffs five straight seasons and in the AFC title game three consecutive years. Both teams favored force over finesse and had players whose forte was intimidation. Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain defense featured Mean Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, and Mel Blount, the latter’s heavy hits forcing an NFL rule in his name. The Raiders countered with “The Assassin,” Jack Tatum, Skip Thomas (aka “Dr. Death”), George Atkinson, and Willie Brown in their memorable secondary. Each of their championships crowned the eventual Super Bowl winner, and their bloodcurdling encounters became so violent and vicious that they transcended the NFL and had to be settled in a U.S. district court. With its account of classic games, legendary owners, coaches, and players with larger-than-life personalities, Hell with the Lid Off is a story of turbulent football and one of the game’s best-known rivalries.




Mudbaths and Bloodbaths


Book Description

Covering 152 Bears-Packers games since the series began in 1921, this book unfolds the history of the teams and their competition with intensity. This is the definitive book on one of NFL's fiercest rivalries.




The Green Bay Packers All-Time All-Stars


Book Description

Let’s say you’re the coach of the Green Bay Packers, deciding which players should start in a Super Bowl matchup against the toughest team in the AFC. But instead of choosing from the current roster, you have every player in the team’s 100-year history in your locker room. Who starts at quarterback: the steady field general Bart Starr, gunslinger Brett Favre, or cannon-armed Aaron Rodgers? At outside linebacker, do you play Hall of Famer Dave Robinson, Lombardi-favorite Dan Currie, current All Pro Clay Matthews, or another player from the team’s deep roster? Which players get the start at wide receiver? Donald Driver, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, Max McGee, Jordy Nelson, or Antonio Freeman? Combining career stats, common sense, and a host of intangibles, veteran sportswriter Chuck Carlson imagines an embarrassment of riches and sets the all-time All-Pro Packer lineup for the ages.




Caught by Don Hutson!


Book Description

Revered pass catcher Don Hutson played for three Green Bay Packers championship squads between 1935 and 1945 and was a charter-class member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. An All-American wide receiver for the University of Alabama, the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, native was a pioneer of the position, mastering the passing game just as it was reaching maturation. Hutson invented many of the pass routes still in use today and retired from the game with 19 NFL records, some of which stood for decades. This first book-length biography chronicles Hutson's life and career during football's leather helmet era of the Great Depression and World War II.




Pass Receiving in Early Pro Football


Book Description

Big television contracts in the 1960s created the Super Bowl, as well as the 1970 merger of the National Football League with the pass-oriented American Football League. Since then, professional football has been America's most popular televised team sport, developing into a wide-open passing game by the 21st century. Handling the completion side of the aerial game, receivers are not often as celebrated as quarterbacks or coaches, even in the era of San Francisco 49er Jerry Rice's supremacy. This book provides a history of pro pass receiving and its influence on the game prior to the televised era. The author studies pro football's formative and mid-20th century years, highlighting the players who pulled pigskins from flight, like the legendary Don Hutson, Gibby Welch, Johnny Blood, Ray Flaherty, Crazy Legs Hirsch, Mac Speedie, Choo Choo Roberts and many others.