Touchdown: 11 Books that Give Insight into the History of American Football

This book is the definitive guide to the history of American football. It tracks the game from its origins to the way it is played today and the way it is changing in the face of modern technologies. 

Evolution of the Game explains how the sport’s uniquely American design has propelled its growth to become America’s obsession. This book includes diagrams and annotations to give the reader an even fuller view of the sport. Francisco goes into detail about impactful strategies football teams have employed throughout history. This is a fun read chronicling the whole of American football. 

A Team for America tells the story of a unique moment in history and in collegiate football. This book is centered around the Army vs. Navy football game that took place on December 2, 1944, in the middle of World War II. Randy Roberts interviewed surviving players and coaches of the era to tell this story accurately and with heart. 

Roberts sets the scene by recapping the powerhouse season the number one ranked Army football team enjoyed in 1944, juxtaposed against the backdrop of bleak wartime realities. With food shortages throughout the country and many of their former classmates battling and dying at war, the Army football team served as a beacon of hope, a representation of American valor that fans across America could rally behind. 

Hall of fame receiver and bestselling author Jerry Rice recounts the highs and lows, and everything in between, of the first 100 years of the National Football League. With the help of journalist Randy O. Williams, Rice lays bare the history of the league that facilitates this all-American game. America’s Game includes the biggest moments in NFL history, supplemented by insider stories and personal memories from those who were really there. The NFL has regulated and promoted American football for over a century, and readers will gain a thorough look into its history and legacy.

This book is at once a biography of one of the great football players of history and also an insightful look into the heart and tension at the core of the game. As a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Bart Starr led the team to victory in five NFL championships, three of which were consecutive. Starr helped to cement the legend of coach Vince Lombardi and the dynasty of the Packers. 

This is a story of the American dream, as author Kieth Dunnavant traces Starr’s life from his childhood in Alabama, through his college foibles, all the way to his fame on the field. Starr’s rise to the top of the NFL is set in the context of the 1950s and ‘60s, when both the sport of American football and the country of America were undergoing sweeping changes.

Joe Namath, nicknamed Broadway Joe, is widely understood to be one of the most influential quarterbacks in the history of American football. Talented and charming, he took the New York Jets to places no one thought they could go, including Jets fans. Embarking on the 1968 football season, Joe Namath led a team of talented underdogs. The team gained great success, earning themselves a spot in the Super Bowl III at the end of the season. 

Their opponents, the Baltimore Colts, were largely favored and the Jets had almost no chance of winning. Namath, however, confidently declared that he could guarantee the Jets would win. And then, in one of the biggest upsets in sports history, he led them to victory. This book includes humorous and powerful testimony from the men who played alongside Namath, speaking about his promise, the strategy used by the team, and the impact the win had on the Jets franchise and the NFL as a whole. 

In this exposé, award-winning journalist and sports commentator Skip Bayless uncovers the dirty secrets of the coach and culture of “America’s Team,” the Dallas Cowboys. Tom Landry was the coach of the Cowboys for a whopping 29 seasons, an NFL record for longest continuous tenure. Landry was a devout and outspoken Christian, known for his charity. However, his religiosity did not extend to the team that played under him. 

God’s Coach reveals the cruelties and corruption that took place in the Cowboys franchise under the reign of Landry. Landry’s innovations to defensive formations and general strategy has had a large and lasting impact on football. He led the Cowboys in 20 winning seasons. He is a hero to many, though he might not be after this read. 

The child of Eastern European immigrants, Bronko Nagurski was discovered while simply plowing a field of his parents’ farm in International Falls, Minnesota. Noticed for his strength and fortitude, he played three winning seasons at the University of Minnesota before joining the Chicago Bears. 

Jim Dent recounts Nagurski’s impressive career playing for the Bears between 1930 and 1937. Monster of the Midway zeroes in on the Bears’ 1943 season, when powerhouse Nagurski came out of retirement to lead the Bears to a championship after many players had been sent to fight in World War II. This book draws a colorful image of a great man, a legendary team, and the lively and unique city of Chicago. 

Lauded as one of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time by Sports Illustrated, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load is a love letter to the way football was in the 1970s. In 1973, author Roy Blount Jr. spent a season traveling with the Pittsburgh Steelers. This book captures that moment in time, right before the Steelers would embark on a reign of domination, winning four of the following six Super Bowls. This book contains unique stories and insights into the men who made up the 1970s Steelers team and their strategies, attitudes, and convictions. 

This is the powerful biography of the first African American quarterback, George Taliaferro. Taliaferro led the Indiana Hoosiers in an undefeated season and their first Big Ten Championship win in 1945, while many other universities didn’t have any Black players. Taliaferro went on to have a successful professional career, playing for multiple NFL teams. 

Despite his talent and success, Taliaferro faced many instances of racism on and off the field. Unstoppable, he used his platform as a professional athlete to fight against the oppression he and so many others were facing. Dawn Knight uses Taliaferro’s story to shed light on the experiences of discrimination faced by other athletes of color as they fought, and fight, for equality in America.

When football first started being played in America, it was a dangerous and wild game. In the late 19th century, there were many protestations against the sport being played and American football was almost thwarted. But the sport was saved by an unlikely hero: none other than Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. 

Roosevelt’s love for football facilitated the evolution of the sport. Without Roosevelt, American football probably wouldn’t exist today. Miller entertainingly tells the tale of how the president helped to bring the sport to the center of American culture.

Kevin Cook expands on the growth that the sport of American football underwent over the course of the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade, teams were underfunded and under regulated. Players weren’t earning huge fortunes from their work on the field and there weren’t fancy sponsorships. Cook uses interviews with some of the biggest football stars of that time to show how football went from a game of rage and brotherhood to the polished, corporate, multi-billion dollar sport we know today. The Last Headbangers celebrates a bygone and dangerous era that was transformed over the course of a decade into the most popular sport in America.