FanPost

Eagles/NFL Books I recommend and don't


Just came back from Punta Cana Dom Republic where i got Married and honeymooned for 12 days. I am a big reader so I took 6 books with me, 2 on football, 2 on golf, and 2 on American History.


The two football books (Im only going to review the football books here) were Bury Me in my Jersey by Tom McAllister and The Draft: A year inside the NFL's Search for Talent by Pete Williams.

Ill start with Bury Me in My Jersey. A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. It was the last i read and was downright bad. I thought it was gonna be about how a guy got his love of football from his family. Mostly it was about the author, and quite frankly what an ass he acted like all the time. I thought the book had no direction and jumped all over the place. The author made himself easy to dislike in the book. Maybe Im off base as I am no English major or creative writing expert and that was the intent, but quite frankly it wasn't very entertaining and i found myself wanting the book to end. The book was so bad i left it in a trash can in a hotel in Punta Cana after reading rather than subject another Eagles fan to it.

The second book I read The Draft: A year inside the NFL's Search for Talent by Pete Williams was awesome if you are the type who loves to know how everything works with the NFL. It covered how Agents get college players to sign, NFL scouts start looking at college players, how teams rate players. It had in depth coverage of the Atlanta falcons and Rich McKay and the way they run personnel during a season. This was a focus on the 2005 NFL Draft which meant the book was written the year they lost to the Eagles in the NFC Championship game and how they were trying to rate their team and prepare so it had a little bit of Eagles side to it.

It covers how some of the teams rate the players in the draft including for character. It has a chapter called workout warriors and I knew what was coming. It went in to detail about the first players to start going through Combine specific training (there were just a handfull) and how "it all changed in 1995 by an obscure Lineman from Boston College" (oh jeez...frickin Mamula). I also found another interesting piece that infuriated me. John Harris the Eagles #1 pick in 1997 was trained for the Combine by the same guru as Mamula. The book talks about how the Eagles biggest blunder wasn't Mamula but Jon Harris and how they fooled the Eagles again with the Combine results. I had to go for a walk on the beach after that chapter as I was so mad at that Idiot Ray Rhodes after that. I defintely recommend this book. I would even offer it up for anybody but it was a paperback and I ruined it with wet hands as i read it in the pool and hottub a lot. It was cheap too, I think retial was like $12 or something at Borders.