Rating

★★★★☆

Category

non-fiction

Read

2016-11-08

Pages

496

Read this on Nick’s recommendation. I know nothing about NFL. This follows around a team for a full season.

“Since, in the end, only one team won, the dominant culminating experience in the NFL was always disappointment. Probably a lot of disappointment. Disappointment struck me as the foundation stone of football. The emphasis out in the world was on touchdowns and victories, but my strong impression was that the visceral appeal of the game had to do with its relationship to losing”

“Ryan approached football as the blues of sports, something difficult and emotionally complex and ultimately uplifting, and the night before games, when he spoke to his team behind closed doors, he was inspiring; he lifted them, lifted even the rookie who was supposed to be busy keeping track, for the players’ weekly pool, of how many times in the speech Ryan said the word “fuck.””

“Football to them meant hitting, and without it there was no point”

I really enjoyed it even if I couldn’t visualize any of it.