Dark Side of the Game Abridged

Rating:
Summary: The Lightweight Side of the Game
Review: Though it professes to be a frank tell-all expose of the NFL, Tim Green's "Dark Side of the Game" is nothing of the sort. Green is a third-tier broadcast analyst for NFL games on television and he is clearly still far too indebted to the league to be truly critical of it. Every time you thinks he's strating to get to the good stuff, he pulls his punch and lets the league off the hook. The result is a wishy-washy mish-mash of some gossipy dirty laundry being aired without any information truly damaging to the league's powers that be. And might I add this; as a writer, Green is a lightweight. Rarely in this book does his prose rise above the level of the barely compotent.

Rating:
Summary: The View from the Broadcasting Booth by an Ex-NFLer
Review: Tim Green was an unusual defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons. He read books in the locker room and during team meetings. He went to law school in his spare time. He had a hard time gaining weight and keeping it on. He left the game with his body and his brain relatively unscrambled (despite many concussions and stingers), and took up a new career as a broadcaster for Fox. His book is a series of mini-essays on everything you always wanted to know about pro football, but never wanted to experience. It is a gripping tale of pain, broken bodies, shattered lives, and electric moments that will remain with you for the rest of your life. I would have graded the book higher, but he did seem to skirt some of the obvious problems that professional football players experience such as groupies and deliberate attempt to maim. On the other hand, I found the book more revealing and better balanced than the "hero" biographies and the "broken life" tales that pro players usually produce. It is the most enjoyable book I have read by a retired NFLer. If Mr. Green had also been retired from broadcasting when he wrote this, he probably could have been more candid. Perhaps an updated version will appear in the future.

For those who are interested in Deion Sanders, the book has a very interesting portrait of the man which will add to your appreciation of his remarkable career and his character.

Many of the most valuable parts of the book describe all of the things that teams do that create failure. Correctly, Mr. Green pinpoints the ultimate cause of these problems as being the owner. You have to have a coach and a general manager who want to have the same style of play. Only the owner can ensure that will happen.

Two things were very new to me. First, the players find the game far more exciting than I would have ever imagined. Some of the descriptions are very vivid. Going into the stadium during the introductions is apparently way beyond an adrenaline rush. It is a feeling that most of us will never experience in our lives. Second, I was surprised by how much pain permeates the lives of the players. There's even a section encouraging you not to squeeze a player's or ex-player's hand hard in a handshake, because of the on-going pain they have from hand injuries. On television, the players all seem to unaffected by pain. That's apparently an act. In reality, they wallow in pain.

Because the book is broken up into different topics, you can skip to the subjects that interest you. But check out some that don't sound very interesting as well. Mr. Green has many valuable things to say. He is both intelligent and articulate. He also cares about improving the game.

If you have sons, read the section about whether or not you should encourage them to play football. I don't buy his argument, however, that soccer causes more injuries than football. My experience as a soccer coach was just the opposite with the children and teenagers I knew.

He obviously sympathizes with the players, which most fans do also. But he praises the praiseworthy wherever he finds them, and attacks many of the villains.

After you read this book, I suggest that you think about how you could change your work to make it more exciting and valuable.

If you don't like things as they are, change them!

Rating:
Summary: The View from the Broadcasting Booth by an Ex-NFLer
Review: Tim Green was an unusual defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons. He read books in the locker room and during team meetings. He went to law school in his spare time. He had a hard time gaining weight and keeping it on. He left the game with his body and his brain relatively unscrambled (despite many concussions and stingers), and took up a new career as a broadcaster for Fox. His book is a series of mini-essays on everything you always wanted to know about pro football, but never wanted to experience. It is a gripping tale of pain, broken bodies, shattered lives, and electric moments that will remain with you for the rest of your life. I would have graded the book higher, but he did seem to skirt some of the obvious problems that professional football players experience such as groupies and deliberate attempt to maim. On the other hand, I found the book more revealing and better balanced than the "hero" biographies and the "broken life" tales that pro players usually produce. It is the most enjoyable book I have read by a retired NFLer. If Mr. Green had also been retired from broadcasting when he wrote this, he probably could have been more candid. Perhaps an updated version will appear in the future.

For those who are interested in Deion Sanders, the book has a very interesting portrait of the man which will add to your appreciation of his remarkable career and his character.

Many of the most valuable parts of the book describe all of the things that teams do that create failure. Correctly, Mr. Green pinpoints the ultimate cause of these problems as being the owner. You have to have a coach and a general manager who want to have the same style of play. Only the owner can ensure that will happen.

Two things were very new to me. First, the players find the game far more exciting than I would have ever imagined. Some of the descriptions are very vivid. Going into the stadium during the introductions is apparently way beyond an adrenaline rush. It is a feeling that most of us will never experience in our lives. Second, I was surprised by how much pain permeates the lives of the players. There's even a section encouraging you not to squeeze a player's or ex-player's hand hard in a handshake, because of the on-going pain they have from hand injuries. On television, the players all seem to unaffected by pain. That's apparently an act. In reality, they wallow in pain.

Because the book is broken up into different topics, you can skip to the subjects that interest you. But check out some that don't sound very interesting as well. Mr. Green has many valuable things to say. He is both intelligent and articulate. He also cares about improving the game.

If you have sons, read the section about whether or not you should encourage them to play football. I don't buy his argument, however, that soccer causes more injuries than football. My experience as a soccer coach was just the opposite with the children and teenagers I knew.

He obviously sympathizes with the players, which most fans do also. But he praises the praiseworthy wherever he finds them, and attacks many of the villains.

After you read this book, I suggest that you think about how you could change your work to make it more exciting and valuable.

If you don't like things as they are, change them!

Rating:
Summary: I don't feel like I've "been there" vicariously
Review: When I bought "The Dark Side Of The Game" I expected to read a book about... (ready?) the dark side of the game. I expected to smell, taste, and feel what it's like to be a player in the NFL. I expected to hear all about the unrelenting schedules, the practices without pity, the meaness of coaches, and the ficklness of fans.

Instead, what What Tim Green supplies us is collection of unrelated short articles that seem to be saying, in summary, that football is hard and all season season the players are constantly sore. Thanks, Tim, for that blinding glimpse of the obvious.

Don't get me wrong: I didn't DISlike this book. It was a fast, easy, and relatively fun read. But after reading the book, I don't feel like I know what it feels like to play in the NFL. Heck, I don't even REALLY understand why the title says this book is about the DARK side...

So go ahead and buy the book. Read it in a couple or three nights. Just don't expect to feel like you've "been there" vicariously. At least I didn't.

Rating:
Summary: good for the wrong reasons
Review: When I picked up this book somewhere in the midst of football season, I figured it would be great to read about the "dark side of the game" from somebody who witnessed it all first hand. I wanted to hear about the vigorous schedules, grueling practices, and the infamous use of the needle. And honestly, after I finally put down the book (which I read from start to finish in one sitting), I got just that. There were even some things I didn't expect thrown in, such as hearing about an NFL player's opinion of different stadiums, and some interesting facts about zebras (refs).
My only problem is, I actually knew about everything I was expecting to hear.
Now, don't get me wrong. This is a great read. Its brief chapters each cover a separate aspect of the NFL, and Green does give many great opinions towards facets of the game which one would probably never have found out short of speaking to the player himself. Plus, the fact that this wasn't just a "my career timeline" like most football books are already made it a must-read for NFL fans.
All of that was great, except that I never really found out about the "dark side" of football. Granted for a Bears fans, any kind of praise towards Lambeau Field indicates that the world has reached a dark point in time, but aside from that, I didn't really feel this book as being very shocking. The few chapters that did refer to drug abuse, alcohol, eating problems (which usually included different methods of getting the largest possible amount of food) weren't very revealing or shocking. Instead, they were played off in the un-serious tone set throughout the rest of the book, saying something like "the guys did love to go out for some drinks after games, and would sometimes come to practice hung-over." Okay, I pretty much assumed that. Honestly though, that was about as revealing as it got throughout the majority of the book. Going back to my expectations of the book, I am still unsure whether nothing in this book came as a surprise to me due to me being beyond the "average" fan, or just because it really didn't say much about the "dark" aspects of the NFL.
All of that aside, I would still recommend this book to any football fan as long as they are not expecting the "dark side." Green's perspectives on the good side of the game were a lot of fun to read, and most of the time, actually more shocking. Reading about Green's relationship with Deion Sanders makes you wish you were a bigger Deion fan back when he was playing, and who does want to learn about the worst way to loose weight, the "see-food" diet. All of this made this book impossible to put down, and creates an awesome read for the football fan who knows about the rookie combine (although if that's you, you might want to skip the 4 page explanation of exactly what the combine is).