The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays, by Ron Jaworski, Greg Cosell and David Plaut, was not a bad book, but in no way was it a good one. Among the good things in the book: the subjects — the zone blitz, the Sid Gillman’s passing game, Bill Belichick’s methods — are all of interest to me; Jaworski, as a general matter, is a pretty knowledgeable guy when it comes to NFL concepts, and they obviously interviewed a number of relevant people (mostly other former coaches and players turned analysts, like Jon Gruden); and there are not many good books that really get into the depths of the game, so I will cut any good faith effort some slack.
But then there’s the bad. First, the format was extremely cumbersome and dull: each chapter, typically about a discrete topic or figure, begins with a brief introduction — the only redeeming part of the chapter (leaving aside such incorrect assertions like the idea that Don Coryell’s San Diego Chargers were the first team to move their tight-end, Kellen Winslow around the formation). But then the chapter launches into a text-only play-by-play description of a specific game that I found tiresome if not unreadable. Seriously, it’s 2011, even if the game is fifteen or twenty years old I’d rather watch the game than read what is effectively a transcript of someone describing it. Although Jaworski occasionally offers interesting tidbits — as I said, he is generally knowledgeable – it was clear how this book got written, and it was to its detriment: the writers (Plaut and Cosell) sat in and recorded a discussion with Jaworski while he watched these games, and then they went back to write up his stream-of-consciousness thoughts. This never should have been a book, it should have been released as DVD commentary.
But leave the format aside: Is there anything of value in the substance? Yes, with qualifications, as it took a lot of work to get to the few gems in here and there really aren’t that many, and the book’s exceptionally narrow focus gives a false picture of each idea’s place in football history (more on that in a moment). Among the interesting nuggets, Bill Belichick states that he watched every down of Navy from a few years ago (I think when Paul Johnson was still there) as he constantly looks for advantages and they led the nation in rushing “obviously without much talent”. Belichick goes on to say not much of it was useful as Tom Brady wouldn’t be running the option, so Jaworski cites this in his ending unnecessary excursus on Why The Spread Offense Is Bad (more on this shortly), but the lesson I took was that Belichick studies these kinds of advantages where ever they may be; what other NFL coach would watch every down of Navy?
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of these moments to salvage this book, and what other meat there is has been covered better elsewhere: the Dick LeBeau/zone blitz, Buddy Ryan/46 defense, and the Coryell/Zampese/Troy Aikman vertical passing game chapters were all covered with better interviews, background, and more color (and more substance!) in Tim Layden’s Blood, Sweat & Chalk, and the chapter on Bill Walsh’s pass protection scheme is — by the authors’ own admission, bizarrely, though at least honestly — a straight rip-off of Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side (and that’s saying something).
And that’s the stuff — covering modern-era pro football games — the book does well. The book’s real weakness is that its purview is entirely myopic. If you didn’t know any better, having read this book you’d think football was handed down, by God’s own hand, to pro football teams sometime in the late 1960s (i.e. when Ron Jaworski was in college and began thinking seriously about the game), where it has solely remained ever since. Indeed, the book goes out of its way to ignore contributions to pro strategy that sprang up elsewhere, like when Dick LeBeau, then with the Bengals, went to visit Bill Arnsparger, former Miami Dolphins coordinator, to learn the zone blitz. In this book, the book makes lots of oblique references to Arnsparger: he was “out west,” he had “left the Dolphins,” and LeBeau and he spoke a few times. For whatever reason, Jaworski simply cannot bring himself to say simply that LeBeau got the base ideas for the zone blitz — which revolutionized NFL defenses — from a guy who was then the head coach of the LSU Tigers. Of course nothing is said of the roots of the one-back offense, which too revolutionized an NFL that was predominantly a two-back league, and which go straight to the high school ranks.
And then there is the ridiculous and unnecessary final chapter. I’ve already said how silly it is to use a book that is supposed to be about the history of football ideas to propound an attack on the way colleges have chosen to deploy their players and on spread offenses and spread offense quarterbacks in particular. Indeed, Jaworski’s biggest concern seems to less be one about the logic or practicability of using the spread in the pros than it is about his preoccupation with his own version of Platonic Ideal Football and the very personal and selfish fear that quarterbacks like him — slow, non-mobile throws — might become endangered as they, of course, are what football is all about right? Now, I’m certainly not predicting that the Tom Bradys and Peyton Mannings will be replaced by Cam Newton, but it’s just a silly position to ex ante say that athletic quarterbacks will never be good enough. Last I checked the NFL lacked 32 legitimate signal callers and simply probability tells us that, one day, with the quality of youth coaching going up every year, there will be some future Hall of Famer that comes along that can throw and read defenses and prepare like Manning but also run like Barry Sanders or Chris Johnson. He may not be here yet, but one day he will arrive. Jaworski appears to find this both a frightening and offensive thought.
So this book isn’t worth your money. If someone gives you their free copy, skim it for the good ideas and quotes from Cosell and Plaut’s interviews, but buttress the substance by reading elsewhere, and ignore the prognostications. For a book called “The Games that Changed the Game,” nothing seems to scare the authors more than just that — change.
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