American Football

There is no profession in sports like the NFL tight end. None. You must mash 320-pound defensive ends in the run game. You must twist your torso at impossible angles to make acrobatic catches downfield in the pass game. You must have a certain element of crazy to you, too. The tight end is a blend of brain and brawn and bruises…so many bruises. BLOOD AND GUTS tracks the fascinating rise of this position one tight end at a time, from Mike Ditka and John Mackey in the '60s to Rob Gronkowski today.

Francis Benali is a Southampton Football Club legend and a celebrated charity endurance athlete, and he's ready to tell his story. Francis 'Franny' Benali played football for 20 years for Southampton FC in nearly 400 games, almost his entire career. His utter dedication to the club caused him to be a hero to Saints fans around the world.

12 is the propulsive story of this gritty comeback. It's a drama that unfolds in the locker room, the court room, and under the brightest lights in all of sports - the Super Bowl. Now for the first time, listeners will have an exclusive look into Tom Brady's experience and the NFL's shocking strangle-hold on their players. With unprecedented access to Brady himself, his teammates, and his lawyers, we will see just how a football legend went up against one of the largest corporations in the world to stage the greatest comeback in NFL history and emerge a god of the gridiron.

In this New York Times best seller, College football’s most colorful, endearing, and successful pioneer, Steve Spurrier, shares his story of a life in football - from growing up in Tennessee to winning the Heisman Trophy to playing and coaching in the pros to leading the Florida Gators to six SEC Championships and a National Championship to elevating the South Carolina program to new heights - and coaching like nobody else.

Football talk often feels like a foreign language, the rules might seem too complicated, and the game itself might seem overwhelming. There's good news! You can effortlessly switch from feeling lost to enjoying the game, talking tactics, and understanding every play. Welcome to a guide that breaks down the game of football in a fun, engaging, and above all, effective way, specifically crafted for women and beginners but accessible to all football novices.

Endzone tells the story of how college football's most successful and respected program nearly lost it all in less than a decade and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal, a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university.

Long before their first Super Bowl victory in 2003, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did something no NFL team had ever done before and that none will ever likely do again: They lost 26 games in a row. It started in 1976, in their first season as an expansion team, and it lasted until the penultimate game of the 1977 season, when they defeated Archie Manning and the New Orleans Saints on the road. It was the beginning of a new streak for a team that had come to be called "The Yucks".

This wide-ranging history synthesizes scholarship and media sources to give the listener an inside view of the television contracts, labor issues, and other off-the-field forces that shaped the National Football League. Historian Richard Crepeau shows how Commissioner Pete Rozelle's steady leadership guided the league's explosive growth during the era of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl's transformation into a mid-winter spectacle.

Al Davis was such a polarizing figure that people either admired or despised him. Most cared about what Davis thought on any issue, and he was captivating before an audience. Yet Davis rarely revealed much about himself, his philosophy and decision-making. Everyone knew of Davis and his catchy slogans, especially "Just Win, Baby". But no one knew much about the man. Everyone, it seemed, had a strong opinion about Davis, but precious few had enough information about Davis to proffer an informed description.

Coaching a football team is no child’s play–you need to have a burning passion, strong knowledge of the game, and a solid work ethic. Above all, you need to have the ability to bring out the best in every member of the team to win on and off the field.

Super Bowl-winning coach and number-one New York Times best-selling author Tony Dungy has had an unusual opportunity to reflect on what it takes to achieve significance. He is looked to by many as the epitome of the success and significance that is highly valued in our culture. He also works every day with young men who are trying to achieve significance through football and all that goes with a professional athletic career, such as money, power, and celebrity.

On the second oldest football pitch in the world, Jonathan Sayer stands atop a beer crate to address the assembled fans of Ashton United FC. As his initial optimism and disillusionment begin to slip through his fingers, the new co-chairman and co-owner (alongside his dad) starts to realise the scale of the challenge ahead.

During football season, when NFL coaches gear up for war on the gridiron, their wives are left to fend for themselves. NFL wife B.J. Almond has had enough. When she walks in to find her head-coach husband in bed with one of his assistant coaches' wives, she is livid. But what really sets her off is when she discovers the other wives knew about the affair all along. Now she's furious and hungry for revenge. And what better way to exact that revenge than to air everyone's dirty laundry in a juicy tell-all book!

In Mad Ducks and Bears, George Plimpton's engaging companion to Paper Lion, Plimpton focuses on two of the most entertaining and roguish linemen and former teammates: Alex Karras ("Mad Ducks") and John Gordy ("Bears"), both of whom went on to achieve brilliant post-football success. A more reflective, less madcap audiobook than Plimpton's other work, Mad Ducks and Bears is no less truthful and searching.

Both in football and life, the players need to define the goals, invent the playbook, and execute the plays. Move the Ball draws upon the football playbook to teach you how to do this and realize your dreams. Great players don’t settle for being ordinary. They have a strong belief in themselves and strive to be extraordinary. They have M.A.D. P.R.I.D.E. This book teaches you how you can use M.A.D. P.R.I.D.E. to overcome any obstacle and win.

Inshallah United is the story of the first British-born son of a Pakistani family living in England’s second city. And geography is important, because if it wasn't for his mum and dad settling in Manchester rather than anywhere else in the world, so much of what makes up Nooruddean's identity could have been so different. As it was, he grew up as a Muslim, Manchester United supporting, Morrissey-loving, Maggie-hating, working-class Manc.

The 1923 FA Cup final—aka the White Horse final—was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best-remembered for non-playing reasons that afternoon marked the historic opening chapter of the stadium’s long and eventful history, of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley. Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches—from the well known to the unusual—that have shaped Wembley's legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain.

He was one of pro football’s most beloved and respected stars, admired not only by NFL fans and his own teammates, but by his opponents as well. Super Bowl champion; six time Pro Bowler; NFL Comeback Player of the Year; NFL Man of the Year; fifth all-time leading rusher in the NFL; future Hall of Famer; now NBC Sports commentator. You may think you know Jerome Bettis, but you don’t.

In the 1960s, on the heels of the “Greatest Game Ever Played”, professional football began to flourish across the country - except in Texas, where college football was still the only game in town. But in an unlikely series of events, two young oil tycoons started their own professional football franchises in Dallas the very same year: the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and, as part of a new upstart league designed to thwart the NFL’s hold on the game, the Dallas Texans of the AFL. Almost overnight, a bitter feud was born.

As an All-American at Ohio State and All-Pro linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Shazier was living his best life while excelling at the game he loves, a game that has given him so much. But then Ryan was forced to redefine success. Suddenly, it was no longer measured by tackles or sacks, but by purpose and faith.