Customer Reviews

Bringing the Heat

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you've read the title of this review, you're probably wondering which of the Philadelphia Eagles' disappointing seasons I'm referring to, as there have been MANY since the teams' last championship in 1960. This book details the 1992 season, one of the most highly anticipated ever for this team. On offense, All-Pro QB Randall Cunningham was returning from injury, RB Herschel Walker had been signed to lead the rushing attack, and WR Fred Barnett was about to enter the finest season of his young career. On defense, the team was coping with the death of Jerome Brown, and the returning stars (Reggie White, Clyde Simmons, Seth Joyner, Eric Allen) were expected to repeat their tremendous performance from 1991. To the delight of ravenous Eagles fans, it started out beautifully, with a 4-0 record and a trashing of the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. The following week brought a loss at Kansas City, and from there on, the regular season did not play out as hoped. Still, the team made the playoffs and finally shook the monkey from its back, beating New Orleans on the road in the Wildcard game. After 3 playoff losses under Buddy Ryan in recent memory, this looked to be the turning point. The team had promised to win the Super Bowl in Jerome's memory, and was off to a good start. However, the following week brought a crushing loss to the hated Cowboys, where both the offense and defense were lifeless. The off-season brought many changes and spelled the end for Buddy's Boys, who clung to his attitudes even after his firing and replacement with Richie Kotite.

Author Mark Bowden followed the team for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1990-92, and had a front-row seat for all the theatrics. He does an excellent job diving into the specifics on players and coaches, devoting the first half of the book to character profiles and a great illustration of Jerome's final days. The narrative on the 1992 regular season kicks in thereafter, with excellent views on how attitudes and expectations swung wildly throughout. Hardcore fans of the team will recall the anguish they experienced as hopes faded.

Absolutely a must-read for Buddy or Kotite-era Eagles fans, and highly recommended for fans in other cities where the NFL is king.

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.

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.

As a diehard Eagles fan, I absolutely loved this book. The Eagles of this era may have had the most talent and personality of any recent team. Incredible insight into the players and coaches - their personalities, their infighting, everything. Definitely a gossipy work, but that's what makes it awesome. Any NFL fan would love this book. It definitely helps the reader appreciate the absolute zoo of playing in the National Football League.

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.

Well, if you're an Eagles fan, you're tortured enough already, the season being documented was blown back in the early nineties, so at least you can lay off the Peptobismol. But if you're a sports-writing fan of any description, then this is an essential book. The success of "Black Hawk Down" both as a book and a movie, had its precedent in Mark Bowden's earlier work. "Bringing the Heat" utilizes the same dramatic, combative writing style, and moves fluidly through every phase of football, from wives to girlfriends, the press, the fans, the fans booing Santa, offense, defense... every conceivable angle and personal quirk is analyzed. Mr. Bowden is a remarkable judge of character and manages to summate a lifetime in a few paragraphs, a trait of character in a line, and the entire conundrum that is the Philadelphia Eagles in a mere 500 pages.

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.)

Mark Bowden's account of the events leading up to and including the Philadelphia Eagles 1992 season provides a behind-the-scenes look at NFL football. Bowden details what the sports page does not--extramarital affairs, bitter feuds between teammates, and player resentment towards a seemingly "greedy" owner. It is not all gossip though. Bowden offers a detailed look at the (often challenging) childhood of players, the "sluice" which filters out players through the numerous levels of organized football, and the repercussions of the death of star defensive tackle Jerome Brown. Mixed in between the colorful stories is a detailed look at the 1992 season: a season that began with realistic Super Bowl predictions yet ended with another playoff defeat to the dreaded Cowboys. This is not just a book for Eagles fans. It is a book for fans that want to know what life in the NFL is "really" like.

Bowden follows the Philadelphia Eagles during the 1992 quest for the Super Bowl. Stories and histories of individual players, coaches and management are woven into a tapestry illustrating the world of the NFL from the perspective of the people who put the show on. While the book is a must-read for any Eagles fan; it is certainly a great book for any person interested in the NFL circus.

This is a great read. Mark Bowden does a great job of bringing you up close with the famed Philly Eagles team that was touted to win it all. It's one of those books that keeps you interested and is hard to put down. Sports fan or not, this is a worth the time to get the behind the scenes story on a team that should have been a NFL dynasty.