
Why We Love Football
A History in 100 Moments
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Narrated by:
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Joe Posnanski
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By:
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Joe Posnanski
About this listen
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A Kirkus Reviews Most Anticipated Book of the Fall
A moving celebration of the history of American football from the New York Times bestselling author of Why We Love Baseball
After his bestselling home run books Why We Love Baseball and The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski turns from the national pastime to the number one sport in America. Why We Love Football is Posnanski’s newest must-have deep dive into the archives and legends of the sport, and the result is a rousing tale of the 100 greatest moments in football lore.
This is the best kind of sports writing. Entertaining, enlightening, heartbreaking, hilarious, and always fascinating, these stories of the sport offer a panoramic look across its history. From hidden gems and classic tales to famous moments told from previously unheard perspectives, this book is the football book for even its most ardent fans.
From Patrick Mahomes's magic to the Ice Bowl, from Doug Flutie's Hail Mary pass to a plethora of football "miracles," Why We Love Football is an unforgettable, conversational masterpiece you won’t ever want to end, and a can't-miss take on football from one of the greatest sportswriters of our time.
©2024 Joe Posnanski (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"An engaging and accessible trip down memory lane for anyone who possesses even a passing interest in the game. . . . Posnanski’s list undoubtedly provides football fans with an opportunity to do what we love best—relive the glory days while trash-talking each other’s teams. . . . Why We Love Football is rife with statistics and play-by-play action any die-hard enthusiast will relish.”–Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A thoroughly enjoyable look back at the players and plays that have come to define America’s most popular sport . . . . For football fans like this reviewer, the book is an absolute must-read. But it should be accessible to the football-averse, too, with its brilliant writing and research that unearths gems and perspectives that bring the game and its characters to life. Readers will find themselves laughing out loud at times.”–Associated Press
“Posnanski is a practiced sportswriter, but here, following his top-50 treatment of baseball, he’s an enthusiast with an uncommonly broad grasp of football history. . . . [Posnanski] . . . connects to the game at a fan’s level. . . . Gives us 100 reasons to look forward to football season.”—Kirkus
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learning behind the scenes details about NFL coaches
- By Anonymous User on 03-30-25
By: Michael Silver
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Boys Will Be Boys
- The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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They were America's Team - the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.
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This is a football book right?
- By Aaron on 12-07-09
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The New York Game
- Baseball and the Rise of a New City
- By: Kevin Baker
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.
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Sure.. Baseball… but so much more!
- By RAY MONTECALVO on 08-25-24
By: Kevin Baker
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Football Done Right
- Setting the Record Straight on the Coaches, Players, and History of the NFL
- By: Michael Lombardi
- Narrated by: Dan Woren, Michael Lombardi, Jim Nantz
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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From Monday Night Football to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we known and love today? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture? Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all—from scout to executive to coach—and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more.
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Great overview on history. Not the best top 100 list.
- By Rajiv on 09-05-23
By: Michael Lombardi
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NFL Century
- The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League
- By: Joe Horrigan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the 100 years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL.
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C+
- By Eryn S. McGary on 09-02-23
By: Joe Horrigan
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told
- Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond
- By: Jeff Silverman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain, Hillary Huber
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition game in Tennessee, a 17-year-old pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Her name was Jackie Mitchell - "organized baseball's first girl pitcher." In July 1970, a stripper rushed onto the field at Riverfront Stadium to kiss Johnny Bench, temporarily disrupting a game attended by President Nixon and his family. These are just some of the great, quirky, and comic moments in the annals of baseball recorded in The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told.
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Not what I was expecting... at all
- By keith on 04-16-17
By: Jeff Silverman
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Swagger
- Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Footballs - A Memoir
- By: Jimmy Johnson, Dave Hyde
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Hall of Fame football coach Jimmy Johnson’s house isn’t on the way to anything. Yet, his private sanctuary on the Florida Keys’ Islamorada islands is a popular destination to which college and professional coaches, general managers, and team owners regularly trek to seek advice—how to build a positive team culture, draft elite players, balance work and family life, and lead a team to win. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson has done it all. Now, written with sports journalist Dave Hyde, Johnson shares a candid account of his life experiences that have turned him into a legend in the coaching world.
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AMAZING AND NECESSARY READ FOR FOOTBALL FANS EVERYWHERE
- By elaine clancy on 01-24-23
By: Jimmy Johnson, and others
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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Rickey
- The Life and Legend of an American Original
- By: Howard Bryant
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him.
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An All Time Grewt
- By Anonymous User on 10-09-23
By: Howard Bryant
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The Secret of Golf
- The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning from that first match through the Duel in the Sun at Turnberry in 1977 to Watson's near-miraculous victory at Turnberry as he approached 60, and informed by interviews with both players over many years, The Secret of Golf is Joe Posnanski's intimate account of the most remarkable rivalry and (eventual) friendship in modern golf.
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like walking the course with a storyteller
- By Andy on 09-10-15
By: Joe Posnanski
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The Soul of Baseball
- A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The Soul of Baseball is as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. Driven by a relentless optimism and his two great passions - for America's pastime and for jazz, America's music - O'Neil played solely for love. In an era when greedy, steroid-enhanced athletes have come to characterize professional ball, Posnanski offers a salve for the damaged spirit: the uplifting life lessons of a truly extraordinary man who never missed an opportunity to enjoy and love life.
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Buck O’Neil fan!!
- By scott on 04-24-20
By: Joe Posnanski
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The System
- The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
- By: Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.
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Gripping Inside Look at an Industry to Itself
- By W Perry Hall on 01-23-14
By: Jeff Benedict, and others
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Out of the Pocket
- Football, Fatherhood, and College GameDay Saturdays
- By: Kirk Herbstreit, Gene Wojciechowski - contributor
- Narrated by: Kirk Herbstreit
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Kirk Herbstreit is a reflection of the sport he loves, a reflection of his football-crazed home state of Ohio, where he was a high school star and Ohio State captain, and a reflection of another Ohio State football captain thirty-two years earlier: his dad Jim, who battled Alzheimer’s disease until his death in 2016.
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Great read for true college FB fans
- By Bbmc on 08-30-21
By: Kirk Herbstreit, and others
I love football
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Great listen
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Pos is a great writer.
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I was a football coach and so is my son. The stories are told so well and bring back such wonderful memories.
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