Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League - Hardcover

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9780062701749: Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062701746 ISBN 13: 9780062701749

Publisher: William Morrow, 1999

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Total Football II Offers in a Single Volume The Complete History of Professional Football.

Here are the most complete statistics for each of the nearly 18,000 players who’ve played in even a single NFL game. You'll find essays on the history of the game, its championship teams, most significant games, and greatest players--along with the legend, lore and mystique of football.

The official encyclopedia of the National Football League, Total Football II includes:

articles on the evolution of strategy through the years

histories of every team past and present

biographies of the NFL's 300 greatest players

football families

the most complete lists ever published of team rosters, awards, and the NFL draft

and more.

New to this completely revised and updated edition are a host of new articles, covering an eclectic range of football-related topics, from offensive formations to football at the movies.

This nearly inexhaustible wealth of gridiron material was provided by the NFL staff, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Pro Football Researchers Association, as well as by the game's foremost writers and historians.

The heart of Total Football is the Player Register with statistics provided by the Elias Sports Bureau, the NFL's official statistician since 1961, Bob Carroll and David Neft. For more than 30 years, Carroll and Neft have collected information on players, birthdates and places, high schools, and colleges attended. For Total Football they supplemented their research by contacting hundreds of former players and more than 400 colleges and universities.

If it's about football, you'll find it within these pages, the book that Pro Football Weekly and other experts have called "the best football book ever"

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Review:

At just over seven pounds, the updated Total Football II has the heft of a refrigerator (see William Perry, defensive tackle, p. 1173), and, at 1812 pages, it covers about as much ground as a scrambling quarterback (see John Elway, p. 774). It has all the requisite stats that make a sports reference necessary, but that's just the straight-ahead stuff good for three yards a carry. Where Total Football II breaks free is in the razzle-dazzle of its essays and opinions. Argue with its list of the 300 best players ever (good as he is, shouldn't Terrell Davis have a few more seasons under his belt before "all-time" is stamped on his helmet?). Study how the game's strategies evolved, and learn how to read their diagrams. Even discover how to decipher the mysteries of what the quarterback means when he calls "Red right. Eighteen. Bob odd oh. On three" in the huddle, gets up to the line of scrimmage, and barks, "Pro. Blue 32. Blue 32. Down. Hut! (Pause) Hut! Hut!"

Football's blitz on the culture is covered in a series of smart essays that range from the mystique attending Super Bowl commercials to why football movies usually come up short. In a nifty examination of the game's penetration of the language, a scenario presents itself: "The average Joe woke up this morning, got into his car, found a seam in the northbound lane of the freeway, and drove to work. At his desk, he huddled with his coworkers, went over his game plan ..." and, well, you get the point. These are just some of the volume's many extra points, and it's the ingenuity of the extras that earn Total Football the right to celebrate in the end zone. --Jeff Silverman

About the Author:

Bob Carroll is the founder and executive director of the Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) and edits the group&'s newsletter, The Coffin Corner. His many sports books include Pro Football: When the Grass Was Real and Baseball Between the Lies, and he was a contributor to Biographical Encyclopedia of American Sports: Football (1988).

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