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Overview
In Bloody Sundays he dissects the NFL, spotlighting the personalities and the politics that shape the game on and off the field, exploring how the game has influenced American life and culture, and identifying the issues and challenges facing the game today—from violence on the field to the maniacal coaching methods of Super Bowl winner Jon Gruden, to physical injury and longevity, to race and labor relations. Here, too, are the legends, heroes, and plays that make the game what it is, including a groundbreaking exclusive interview with an active gay player.
Part investigative journalism, part critical analysis, and part tribute, Bloody Sundays uniquely captures the entirety of the league in all its greatness and ugliness.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780060739317 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 10/26/2004 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Sales rank: | 1,142,254 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.76(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Bloody Sundays
Inside the Rough-and-Tumble World of the NFL
Chapter One
John Gruden
Coach Chucky
3:11 A.M.
When the alarm clock sounds, Cindy Gruden usually gives her husband, Jon, the turbulent and talented Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach, a shove out of bed, which serves as a sort of kick start to his 20-hour day. "Go win me some football games," she tells him.
Jon Gruden is the best coach in football, and to be him is to be part brain, part unrepentant workaholic, and part sleep-deprived maniac. Indeed, such a delicious description of Gruden might apply to all NFL head coaches. "You have to be certifiable to do what we do," New York Giants coach Jim Fassel once said. If that's so, then Gruden should have been committed a long time ago. To be him is to stumble into the office at 4:00 in the morning, or 4:30 on the days he sleeps in, which means Gruden has become so familiar with seeing a sunrise that he could paint one blindfolded. He has also become best friends with winning. Because, when it comes to Gruden, that is what you get. You get the best and the brightest. You get a blue-collar guy with the work ethic of a coal miner and Marine fighting grunt all wrapped up in one. You get a man who off the field possesses a strong sense of right and wrong, but also one who will cut your heart out to get a win once the games begin. And don't ask Gruden about war in Iraq. Don't ask him about the stock market. You'll be greeted by a stare and glance at his watch. Gotta go. Got players to coach. Don't care much about the outside world, man. He's got to go win some football games. Gruden thinks Eminem is a piece of candy. "Jon is dedicated, single-minded," Cindy says.
There is no coach in professional sports like the NFL coach. They are an obsessive lot, consumed by the job, and Gruden embodies the NFL leader -- relentless, hyper-analytical, and media-savvy, able to leap the press in a single bound. Media smarts is a skill becoming increasingly vital in modern football. Since head coaches are like CEOs, they must be able to grapple with the power of television and the saturated media coverage teams now receive. Handsome, distinguished mugs like those of Jets coach Herman Edwards or Jon Gruden are something owners are looking for almost as much as coaching ability. "If a guy's good-looking, that's a plus," says one owner. "The head coach's face is going to be on television or on the cover of newspapers almost every day."
The pressure to look good, to look young, to look fit, is palpable. It is the burden New England offensive coordinator Charlie Weis felt last year when he decided to have gastric bypass surgery in June to, in his words, lose significant weight because he did not think owners and general managers would hire a fat man -- at the time Weis weighed about 330 pounds. The surgery went so terribly wrong that Weis suffered from massive internal bleeding and almost lost his life. At one point his wife, Maura, had a priest read him his last rites. Weis recovered but now suffers nerve damage in his legs, and ironically, by having the operation, Weis admitted to the rest of the league that he had a weakness -- in his case, food -- and admitting flaws in the macho football world can ruin a coaching career. He told Sports Illustrated: "I think I'm ready to be a head coach. If what's happened to me is a deterrent to that, well, that'll be a shame. Owners should want to hire the best coaches, and whether you're fat, thin, black, or white shouldn't matter." But all of those things do matter to some.
The primary job of an NFL coach is to lead, and like many good generals, an NFL coach keeps a roster of often short-tempered and moody players with the attention spans of pimpled teens focused and inspired, pushing them through dreadful pain and frightening collisions, by using a variety of tactics, from gentle ego stroking to taking a player's soul and slicing it apart like a tomato. Coaches scream, cajole, trick, caress, and lie to get a player to function at his best. Some coaches do this while not only managing a frenetic, brutal game for three hours at least once a week but also while co-running the draft, making key free agent signings, and keeping the one eye that hasn't dozed off on the salary cap or a defensive lineman's girth. The responsibilities of a head coach in other sports pale in comparison to those of an NFL coach, especially beginning last decade, when football became a year-round sport. Ask an NFL coach what his job is, and to the man, he will give a good chuckle, like he was just told a great punch line. "No coach in this league has just one job," says Edwards. It's more like three. First, in this age of rabid football free agency, head coaches must transform teams that have seasonal, dramatic turnover into cohesive units. Second, a coach must devise winning schemes, while also countering the tactics of the coach on the opposite sideline, something Gruden excels at, as does New England's Belichick, Mike Shanahan of Denver, and Mike Martz of St. Louis, whose Rams playbook includes a mind-numbing 120 different offensive formations. Third, head coaches have to motivate players who have heard it all before and are playing in an age when one contract could set them up for life and thus lessen their motivation to heed the coach's words or play the game with the required ruthlessness.
Bloody SundaysInside the Rough-and-Tumble World of the NFL. Copyright © by Mike Freeman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.