Gridiron Genius

Author: Michael Lombardi
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0525573836
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football. Why do some NFL franchises dominate year after year while others can never crack the code of success? For 30 years Michael Lombardi had a front-row seat and full access as three titans--Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick--reinvented the game, turning it into a national obsession while piling up Super Bowl trophies. Now, in Gridiron Genius, Lombardi provides the blueprint that makes a successful organization click and win--and the mistakes unsuccessful organizations make that keep them on the losing side time and again. In reality, very few coaches understand the philosophies, attention to detail, and massive commitment that defined NFL juggernauts like the 49ers and the Patriots. The best organizations are not just employing players, they are building something bigger. Gridiron Genius will explain how the best leaders evaluate, acquire, and utilize personnel in ways other professional minds, football and otherwise, won't even contemplate. How do you know when to trade a player? How do you create a positive atmosphere when everyone is out to maximize his own paycheck? And why is the tight end like the knight on a chessboard? To some, game planning consists only of designing an attack for the next opponent. But Lombardi explains how the smartest leaders script everything: from an afternoon's special-teams practice to a season's playoff run to a decade-long organizational blueprint. Readers will delight in the Lombardi tour of an NFL weekend, including what really goes on during the game on and off the field and inside the headset. First stop: Belichick's Saturday night staff meeting, where he announces how the game will go the next day. Spoiler alert: He always nails it. Football dynasties are built through massive attention to detail and unwavering commitment. From how to build a team, to how to watch a game, to understanding the essential qualities of great leaders, Gridiron Genius gives football fans the knowledge to be the smartest person in the room every Sunday.

The Perfect Pass

Author: S. C. Gwynne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501116215
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
An “excellent sports history” (Publishers Weekly) in the tradition of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, award-winning historian S.C. Gwynne tells the incredible story of how two unknown coaches revolutionized American football at every level, from high school to the NFL. Hal Mumme spent fourteen mostly losing seasons coaching football before inventing a potent passing offense that would soon shock players, delight fans, and terrify opposing coaches. It all began at a tiny, overlooked college called Iowa Wesleyan, where Mumme was head coach and Mike Leach, a lawyer who had never played college football, was hired as his offensive line coach. In the cornfields of Iowa these two mad inventors, drawn together by a shared disregard for conventionalism and a love for Jimmy Buffett, began to engineer the purest, most extreme passing game in the 145-year history of football. Implementing their “Air Raid” offense, their teams—at Iowa Wesleyan and later at Valdosta State and the University of Kentucky—played blazingly fast—faster than any team ever had before, and they routinely beat teams with far more talented athletes. And Mumme and Leach did it all without even a playbook. “A superb treat for all gridiron fans” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Perfect Pass S.C. Gwynne explores Mumme’s leading role in changing football from a run-dominated sport to a pass-dominated one, the game that tens of millions of Americans now watch every fall weekend. Whether you’re a casual or ravenous football fan, this is “a rousing tale of innovation” (Booklist), and “Gwynne’s book ably relates the story of that innovation and the successes of the man who devised it” (New York Journal of Books).

Gridiron Genius

Author: Michael Lombardi
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0525573828
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
NOW IN PAPERBACK: Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football. Why do some NFL franchises dominate year after year while others never crack the code of success? For 30 years Michael Lombardi had a front-row seat and full access as three titans--Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick-- reinvented the game, turning it into a national obsession while piling up Super Bowl trophies. Now, in Gridiron Genius, Lombardi provides the blueprint that makes a successful organization click and win--and the mistakes unsuccessful organizations make that keep them on the losing side time and again. In reality, very few coaches understand the philosophies, attention to detail, and massive commitment that defined NFL juggernauts like the 49ers and the Patriots. The best organizations are not just employing players, they are building something bigger. Gridiron Genius will explain how the best leaders evaluate, acquire, and utilize personnel in ways other professional minds, football and otherwise, won't even contemplate. How do you know when to trade a player? How do you create a positive atmosphere when everyone is out to maximize his own paycheck? And why is the tight end like the knight on a chessboard? To some, game planning consists only of designing an attack for the next opponent. But Lombardi explains how the smartest leaders script everything: from an afternoon's special teams practice to a season's playoff run to a decade-long organizational blueprint. Readers will delight in the Lombardi tour of an NFL weekend, including what really goes on during the game on and off the field and inside the headset. First stop: Belichick's Saturday-night staff meeting, where he announces how the game will go the next day. Spoiler alert: He always nails it. Football dynasties are built through massive attention to detail and unwavering commitment. From how to build a team to how to watch a game to how to understand the essential qualities of great leaders, Gridiron Genius gives football fans the knowledge needed to be the smartest person in the room every Sunday.

The Book of Football Wisdom

Author: Criswell Freeman
Publisher: Walnut Grove Press
ISBN: 9781887655187
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
The game's greatest football players and coaches have much to say about success--both on and off the gridiron. Enjoy a message of inspiration, humor, and common sense wisdom from: Vince LombardiKnute RockneBear BryantEddie RobinsonWoody HayesBud WilkinsonJohn HeismanJake GaitherAnd Many More.

Perfect Season

Author: Tim Green
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062208713
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
In this sixth book of New York Times bestselling author Tim Green’s gripping Football Genius series, Troy must fight hard to win big. Perfect for fans of Mike Lupica. Troy's dreams of the big time have backfired. Sure, he's moved to New Jersey to start his new job as "genius" for the New York Jets, but his dad has taken his entire salary, leaving Troy and his mom broke. Instead of going to the private school of his dreams and playing for a football powerhouse, he's going to be part of a team with an unbroken losing streak. But Troy isn’t giving up without a fight. As soon as he convinces Seth to coach his public school team, Troy feels ready for a perfect season. But when his knack for calling plays slips and his abilities as a quarterback are threatened, he has to dig deep to prove all the naysayers wrong. And it will take all of Troy's football genius to get this team to a perfect season.

Guts and Genius

Author: Bob Glauber
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538763885
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
How three football legends -- Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs, and Bill Parcells -- won eight Super Bowls during the 1980s and changed football forever. Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells dominated what may go down as the greatest decade in pro football history, leading their teams to a combined eight championships and developing some of the most gifted players of all time in the process. Walsh, Gibbs and Parcells developed such NFL stars as Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, Art Monk and Darrell Green. They resurrected the careers of players like John Riggins, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, Everson Walls and Hacksaw Reynolds. They did so with a combination of guts and genius, built championship teams in their own likeness, and revolutionized pro football like few others. Their influence is still evident in today's game, with coaches who either worked directly for them or are part of their coaching trees now winning Super Bowls and using strategy the three men devised and perfected. In interviews with more than 150 players, coaches, family members and friends, GUTS AND GENIUS digs into the careers of three men who overcame their own insecurities and doubts to build Hall of Fame legacies that transformed their generation and continue to impact today's NFL.

The Genius of Desperation

Author: Doug Farrar
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1641250828
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Book Description
If necessity has been the mother of invention throughout the history of professional football, it could also be said that desperation is the father. Rare are the football innovations that have occurred without an owner, general manager, coach, or player up against the wall and reaching for a way to succeed anyway. In this meticulously researched, lively book, Bleacher Report lead NFL scout Doug Farrar traces the schematic history of the pro game through these "if this/then that" moments—paradigm shifts in the game from 1920 through the present. More than just a book about schemes and strategies, The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL also tells the stories of the game's most prominent innovators, the adversities they endured, and the ways in which they learned to exceed their own expectations on the path to true greatness. Everyone from George Halas to Greasy Neale, Paul Brown to Sid Gillman, Bill Walsh to Chip Kelly is featured, as well as many more. The Genius of Desperation is a narrative arc through the history of the game as it's never been told before.

The Genius

Author: David Harris
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0345499123
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
The Genius is the gripping account of Bill Walsh’s career and how, through tactical and organizational skill, he transformed the San Francisco Forty Niners from a fallen franchise into a football dynasty. Along with his right-hand man John McVay, Walsh built the foundation for this success by drafting or trading for a durable core of stars, including Joe Montana, Fred Dean, and Hacksaw Reynolds. (Walsh would later restock the team with such players as Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and Charles Haley.) The key to Walsh’s genius perhaps lay in his keen understanding of his athletes’ psyches–he knew what brought out the best in each of them. With unmatched access to players, fellow coaches, executives, beat reporters, and Walsh himself, David Harris recounts the whole story–including Walsh’s pre-Niners odyssey, the demons that pushed him throughout his career, and the scope of his impact on the game beyond the field and locker room. In the end, Harris reveals the brilliant man behind the coaching legend.

Complete Quarterbacking

Author: Don Read
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 9780736039840
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
"Provides the clear practice instructions and game applications to develop a strong field general"--P. [4] of cover.

Building a Champion

Author: Bill Walsh
Publisher: St Martins Press
ISBN: 9780312925796
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
The celebrated coach shares his philosophy of football, profiles players he has coached, and recounts key moments in his career