Joe Namath Game By Game

This is a comprehensive reference work covering Joe Namath's entire professional football career, following it season by season and game by game. After a lengthy opening chapter discussing Namath's college career and his enormous impact on professional football after turning pro in 1965, the book proceeds to chronicle every game of his pro career. Chapter 6 documents Super Bowl III while the concluding chapter sizes up Namath's career and addresses the debate over his Hall of Fame status.

The 1960s were a tumultuous period in U.S. history and the sporting world was not immune to the decade's upturn of tradition. As war in Southeast Asia, civil unrest at home and political assassinations rocked the nation, professional football struggled to attract fans. While some players fought for civil rights and others fought overseas, the ideological divides behind the protests and riots in the streets spilled into the locker rooms, and athletes increasingly brought their political beliefs into the sports world. This history describes how a decade of social upheaval affected life on the gridiron, and the personalities and events that shaped the game. The debut of the Super Bowl, soon to become a fixture of American culture, marked a professional sport on the rise. Increasingly lucrative television contracts and innovations in the filming and broadcasting of games expanded pro football's audiences. An authoritarian old guard, best represented by the revered Vince Lombardi, began to give way as star players like Joe Namath commanded new levels of pay and power. And at last, all teams fielded African American players, belatedly beginning the correction of the sport's greatest wrong.

Are you searching for a book about American Football that has it all? R. D. Griffith will take you on a comprehensive drive through the history and highlights of American Football, its salient details, from its inception at the turn of the century to its centralized embodiment now in the modern era, the NFL. He will share with you the challenges the game faced through the Great Depression and two World Wars, including the spicy anecdotes of the people comprising the great game of American Football throughout the years.

It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. America’s Game traces pro football’s grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport’s present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America’s favorite sport.

Signal caller, gunslinger, field general--the quarterback goes by many lofty nicknames. It's arguably the toughest, most high-pressure position to play among all sports. The quarterback touches the ball on every offensive snap, is responsible for reading the defense, adjusting the play, and executing complex schemes that require tremendous physical and mental prowess. He is expected to be the undisputed team leader, whether he's an established veteran or an untested rookie. If he succeeds, he's the most likely player on the field to be canonized by fans and broadcasters. If he fails, he'll be vilified in the press and his home field fans will start cheering for the backup. This book traces the interesting history of the professional quarterback, from the early years when the quarterback was a blocker (and the appellations quarterback, halfback, and fullback were literal and geographically correct) to the modern-day player who must be the eyes, ears, brains, and, of course, the accurate, strong arm of the offense. The narrative history in Section I is rich with statistical analysis. The author employs realistic metrics for statistical comparison across multiple eras, and includes all-time rankings as well as specific rankings among different styles of quarterbacks. Section II compares quarterbacks within their respective eras, putting their accomplishments in context with those of their contemporaries. Section III breaks down the quarterback position, team-by-team, for current NFL franchises. Appendices provide detailed passing records; additional statistics on everything from relative passer ratings to fourth quarter comebacks; and listings of first round draft picks, trades involving quarterbacks, awards, and uniform numbers.

For serious football fans wanting to relive the most unforgettable, extraordinary, and gut-wrenching moments in Alabama's history, this account explores the team's greatest plays, providing context, back story, relevant circumstances, and comments from those directly involved in each play. Photos help reanimate memories, including offensive lineman Jerry Duncan's unlikely catch to help beat Nebraska in the 1966 Orange Bowl, the goal-line stand against Penn State that preserved the 1978 National Championship, George Teague ripping the ball away from Miami's Lamar Thomas in the 1993 Sugar Bowl, and Tyrone Prothro's miraculous 2005 catch in a come-from-behind victory against Southern Mississippi.

In between Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan there was Joe Namath, one of the few sports heroes to transcend the game he played. Novelist and former sports-columnist Mark Kriegel’s bestselling biography of the iconic quarterback details his journey from steel-town pool halls to the upper reaches of American celebrity—and beyond. The first of his kind, Namath enabled a nation to see sports as show biz. For an entire generation he became a spectacle of booze and broads, a guy who made bachelorhood seem an almost sacred calling, but it was his audacious “guarantee” of victory in Super Bowl III that ensured his legend. This unforgettable portrait brings readers from the gridiron to the go-go nightclubs as Kriegel uncovers the truth behind Broadway Joe and why his legend has meant so much to so many.