Bringing The Heat

Rating:
Summary: A Gridiron Epic
Review: Bringing The Heat is a gridiron epic: a robust 500-page chronicle of the Philadelphia Eagles' tumultuous 1992 season that lifts the lid on the pressure cooker environment of an NFL team desperate for a final shot at the Super Bowl, even as its internal conflicts surpass those unfolding upon the field. Haunted by the death of talismanic defensive tackle Jerome Brown, the team struggles to heal the locker-room rift between its league-leading defense and a misfiring offense led by talented but erratic quarterback Randall Cunningham. It must also contend with the expectations of a team owner and a sports-mad metropolis desperate for a championship to dispel its citywide inferiority complex. Former Philadelphia Enquirer reporter Bowden compares gridiron football to a religion in the devotion it demands from coaches and players, and explores the disconcerting consequences such dedication brings. These include the unpredictable effects upon young black males as they are thrust - sometimes from abject poverty - into a world of wealth but also unrelenting media scrutiny. His attention as well to the saddening regularity of players' marital infidelities portray familial breakdown to be, for some, an inevitable feature of a pro football career. Panoramic in its perspective (the advent of free agency that threatens to dismantle the talented Eagles), intimately personal in its detail (the venomous rage of linebacker Seth Joyner: the extravagant idiosyncrasies of Cunningham), Bringing The Heat is both an absorbing and colorful character-driven tale and a serious and incisive social commentary upon the phenomenon of professional sports in America.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and (mostly) accurate
Review: I've been an Eagles fan since 1970, and I still think the 1992 team had the most potential, possibly surpassing the 1979-80 Vermeil teams. This book gave me the inside scoop on that (disappointing) season, and also detailed the seeds that led to this team's collapse in the second half of the season, where they started 7-2 and finished 7-9.

I rate it as "mostly" accurate because of little things like the Eagles playing the Phoenix Patriots. (I read the first edition, maybe that error was fixed in a later edition.)

Rating:
Summary: Game Day
Review: Mark Bowden provides his readers with a glimpse into the chess match that is played out on any given Sunday in the NFL. Bowden lets us into the lives of the very elite athletes who have the ability to reach the ultimate level of pro sports; their endless preparation from grade school through college and onto the pros. Weekly film study, practice, game planning and analysis of opponents tendencies is religiously embraced by those in the "pigskin temple" just to gain the extra step needed to obtain victory. After you read this book you will never watch a pro football game the same again. A must read for Eagles fans.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome - A must for diehard fans and causal fans alike
Review: Mark caputures a team I remember in my youth with remarkable detail. Awesome insights. Remarkable profiles of players and coaches. You grow up with them, go on the field with them, and go home with them. I highly recommend this book. Only critism is sometimes the in game detail is overbearing and detailed. This book made me realize one thing that is often overlooked: athletes are humans.