Customer Reviews:
 mixed feelings August 15, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Ultimately, whether you like this book will depend on if you accept the author's approach to analyzing football statistics. His approach does result in some, at first glance, strange results, such as Billy Cannon being the 25th best tight end of all time, and Gale Sayers barely getting into the top 75 running backs. But the author explains his reasoning in depth, one part of which I certainly agree with, namely, looking beyond received knowledge and oral legends.
However, in my fairly closely reading the text, I was struck with the number of misstatements, some of which may just be misprints. The most curious of these occurred at the top left of p32 wherein the author states there were 8 teams in the NFL in 1959. If that was all, it could just be a misprint, but then the author goes on to calculate that there were 288 player positions available in the league that year by multiplying 8 times 36, the player limit that year. The calculation is correct, but of course there were 432 player positions available in 1959 (12 teams times 36). I'm sure the author knows there were 12 teams in the NFL in 1959, so these errors are unaccountable.
Several times the author mentions that before free substitution, players taken out one quarter could not reenter until the next quarter. This became true in the 1930s, but for some time prior to that, players taken out in one half could not reenter until the next half (and in the original rules, no subs at all were allowed). On the other hand, the author correctly points out that Steve Owen of NY took advantage of the quarter substitution rule to play two separate teams half-quarters in the late 30s.
In another misstatement that is one of my pet peeves, the author states that the goalpost were on the end line prior to 1933. They were actually on the goal line thru 1926, but when the colleges moved then to the end line for 1927, the pros followed suit. The author does correctly note that, in 1933, the pros did stop following college rules and began to create their own. Moving the goal posts back to the goal line was one such case. (In the development of football, the posts began on the goal line as there was no need for an end zone, and hence no end line, until forward passing became legal.)
My favorite part of the book were the well written comments on the players. Though I may have disagreed at times with the author's player rankings, I did enjoy these comments. In (correctly) ranking Jim Brown as the top running back of all time, the author mentions he was born too late to see Brown actually play. Since I did see most of Jim Brown's games, I actually felt sorry for the author. With his obvious love of the game, and my joy in having seen Jim Brown play, I can say the author really missed something.
 Great Football Book August 8, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you like football and have a keen interest in the history of the game you need this book.
You're not going to agree with all of the rankings, but that's not the point. What's revolutionary about this book is the depth and breadth of information about the game's great players. This is one of those books that is more fun to read by skipping from place to place rather than reading from cover to cover.
The first part of the book is a decade-by-decade look at the game. It's not a boring recitation of names and dates. Lahman gives the reader a feel for what football was like in that decade - who the best players were, how they played, where they played. Who was the biggest player, the smallest player, the dominant teams and the worst ones. He delves into the things that shaped each generation, whether it was sociological issues like segregation, rules changes, military service, innovative new playing styles, or the advent (and demise) of astroturf.
The second part of the book rates and ranks the players by position... the top-100 quarterbacks, running backs, etc. Lahman even ranks kickers, punters, and return men. There's a whole chapter dedicated specifically to players from the two-way era, and another that focuses on head coaches. Unlike all of the other football books you've seen, Lahman is not content to simply declare his rankings and offer up a few platitudes to defend them. Instead, he describes their playing style, looking beyond the usual quotes about how "tough" a player was, or how he "changed the game" to offer real, concrete insight on hundreds of players... guys you know well and guys that you never got to see play.
You'll learn more about those players from this book than from all of the others combined. For example, Lahman studied the play-by-play data for every game that Barry Sanders played, figuring out that he got tackled in the backfield on about 20% of his carries. It's amazing to think of how many yards he might have gained if the Lions' run-and-shoot offense hadn't put him at such a disadvantage. The analysis of Dan Marino's playoff failures made me reconsider the way I think about him, and I think if Lahman had written his essay on Art Monk five years ago, the guy wouldn't have had to wait until 2008 to get in the Hall of Fame.
The third section has statistical charts that help to put each player's performance in context. You can't do that with the raw numbers. Lahman's charts help show how each player's season ranked in comparison to his contemporaries. Otto Graham threw for 2722 yards with 11 touchdowns and 9 interceptions in 1953. Was that a great season or a lousy one? Was it better or worse than Drew Bledsoe's 3639/23/17 in 2005? Lahman's methodology compares each player season to give you the context needed to evaluate each individual performance.
All of this comes with Lahman's wit, insight and love of the game. It's a must-read for any serious football fan.
 Disappointing. August 1, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I was expecting a lot more from this book.
First, only 290 pages are analysis. The second half of the book is page after page of charts, mainly on skill position players. The charts contain mostly information that can be found on pro-football-reference.com and a few extra statistics of questionable utility.
The author invented a statistic called Adjusted Yards which is half baked at best. He ascribes half the value of all yards to the quarterback and half to the receivers, but puts all the responsibility of sacks and interceptions on the quarterback. He then asserts that the dominance of runningbacks in the adjusted yards rankings is consistent with his belief that runningbacks are more important than quarterbacks in the short term.
His logic is doubtful--why do Quarterbacks split value for passing yards, but runningbacks don't split running yards with the offensive line. Likewise, why don't quarterbacks split sack responsibility with offensive lines? The author never really explains why he constructed his primary statistic in this way.
The rankings themselves are questionable, partly because they're based on this half-baked adjusted yards idea and partly because the author doesn't put enough emphasis on rate statistics (yards/attempt, sack rate, completion percentage, etc). I'm not sure in what universe Dan Fouts is the 54th best quarterback of all time, but it's not this one , regardless of his playoff woes. His efficiency statistics(including the much more useful adjusted net yards/pass attempt from pro-football-reference) and overall totals both rank among the best of all time and in his era.
Despite the weaknesses in the author's rudimentary statistical analysis, the historical aspects of the book are interesting and apparently well-researched and the analysis is mostly logical, if deeply flawed.
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