Take Your Eye Off the Ball

"I think if I wasn't a football nerd, and this book had just been published this would have been a solid four stars from me. It did a lot of things well, although it was marketed as a book for both new fans and old alike. I think that the reality is it gives a good overview for primarily only the newer fans who want to learn the game. I've watched football almost all my life and through the education of that and just playing high school football myself, I already knew almost all of the concepts in the book. I will highlight how well I think Kirwan goes over concepts first explaining them and why they became popular and then using real examples to prove his points. But he never went over anything that shook me, which is what I was hoping to get. My largest critique of this book is a somewhat unfair one. I think that a book that looks at the NFL becomes dated quickly and this book was published way back in 2010 which is now basically 15 years ago. The NFL has changed IMMENSIVLY since this was written and it takes away from the book. I think this an unfixable problem as the sport is always evolving. But it has to be taken into account because the book will become more and more unreadable as time goes on for the target audience. The only people that care about how the NFL looked back then are the hardcore fans and as I said earlier, I don't think this book is for them anyway. Funnily enough, its largest problem led to my favorite section of the book. Which was Kirwan's prediction for what the NFL would look like today. It's set up futuristically and because it was published so long ago he was talking about what he thinks TODAY'S FOOTBALL would look like. I think he overestimated how technology would play a role in WATCHING the games and almost underestimated how it would be utilized in training and practices. But he nailed some things on the head too, like how the NFL would try to market the NFL more and more to international countries."

"A little too basic for what I was looking for."