Customer Reviews

The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia, Second Edition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are really into NFL football and its history, this encyclopedia should be sitting on your coffee table year round (at least Sept through Jan). ESPN has compiled a comprehensive volume giving you the answers to nearly every NFL trivia question imaginable. It nearly has it all! From player stats (every player), to the Super Bowls, Hall of Fame, ProBowl, the Draft, and Season and All-Time records. This 1500 page mecca of NFL info will meet and surpass your expectations. There is no better paper weight of knowledge on the planet. You cannot even find this type of info on the internet. It will be the best $25 you've ever spent!!

After my wife finished her bachelors degree she announced that she now wanted to study football. Realizing I probably have the best wife in the history of the world, (at least since football was invented), I set out to help her accomplish her goal. She's been pretty into football for a number of years, but wanted to learn all of the terminology (such as Post Route, Slant, etc...), the detailed rules, and general history of the game including important players throughout the history of the game. She and I got on Amazon and bought about a half dozen football books, including this one.

At a whopping 1520+ pages, it contains more information that virtually any human could take in. More of a reference than a book you would sit down and read, it will allow you to get all those call in radio show questions right, as well as prove who knows what they're talking about when debating player stats, game scores, etc... My wife likes the book, but obviously isn't going to read it cover-to-cover.

As a reference, the book is fantastic. Bear in mind that this version is now a couple years out of date (it was published in 2007) so if you want the most recent stats, get a newer edition.

The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia, Second Edition
It's everything I wanted as a history of the NFL, its players, and teams. If you can think of it, it's in there.

This massive book has everything that you would expect to find in a baseball or football encyclopedia. The leaders section is very thorough, but I'd prefer that the rankings be on a per-game basis rather than being ranked by "projected totals" (to place performances from 12-game and 14-game seasons on equal playing fields with today's 16-game seasons). Other than that, all football history nerds need to own this book.

any season. any game.any team.any player. any you want to read if you love football.

Has stats of every player from the conception of the game. Very cool. Even found stats on a doctor I worked with who was a giant in the 50's. For the price the best book I've found!

My title pretty much says it all--66 pages of new features, and all the errors I noted in the first edition, mostly attribution of stats to wrong players in the season and game summaries, appear to have been corrected.

So the book is virtually perfect now, for what it intends to do. For example, rushing, receiving, and passing statistics are given in full for all players, but, to save space, other stats are given only for players that meet certain minimum requirements. Similarly, starting lineups, a feature I've found nowhere else, are given for all teams from 1920 on, but complete yearly rosters for each team are not given. Thus you may want an encyclopedia that has complete rosters, to get full use out of this book.

As before, quarter by quarter scores are presented for all regular season NFL, AAFC, and AFL games ever played, with outstanding player performances noted--and attributed to the correct players now! Some of the new info included is kicker field goals by distance, starting from the late 60s, and a section on rival leagues.

I can't leave this review without mentioning a couple of minor errors I found in the new section on rival leagues. On p1511, Mark Harmon is mention as a player on the 1941 NY Americans of the 3rd AFL; this is corrected to Tom Harmon on p1515. As well, one of my pet grammatical peeves occurs in this same section on p1515: the writing of "desperate straights" when "desperate straits" is meant.

Great referrencing material of all who have played the game professionally. Wish they had listed ALL the officiating officials who help to keep the game running by making the right calls both before and after instant replay was initiated.

I gave this to my wife. She is comparing it to the Baseball Encyclopedia, also by ESPN. She is disappointed in the readability of the Football Encyclopedia. It is harder to follow and understand in comparison.