Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything (Hardcover)

by Charles P. Pierce (Author)
Key Phrases: goat photo, first playoff game, quarterback coach, New England, Tom Brady, Super Bowl (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Pierce offers a genial look at the unlikely rise of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady from embattled Michigan player through draft afterthought to multiple Super Bowl MVP. But while the book might seem late considering the Patriots won their third Super Bowl in four years in 2004, it actually benefits from Pierce using the team's trying 2005 season as a backdrop against which to highlight his main argument: that Brady's intangible abilities as a leader under any circumstances are worth far more than what can be measured with a stopwatch. In addition to stories from Brady's coaches and teammates that bear out this assessment, journalist Pierce serves up some entertaining prose. He describes the bombastic NFL as "less like family entertainment and more and more like the strategy... used to pry Manuel Noriega out of Panama," and skewers Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts as "so flighty that he made Mayor McCheese look like Benjamin Disraeli." In all, it's a buoyant if blindly reverential account that's sure to appeal to anyone with more than a passing interest in one of the game's most celebrated players. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
It's hard to believe that Tom Brady, New England Patriots quarterback and three-time Super Bowl winner, only entered the NFL in 2000. In fact, he was a sixth-round draft choice, selected by the then-lowly Patriots, who were unable to draw enough fans to finance a new stadium. Cut to 2005 and the emergence of a new dynasty: Brady is a superstar, appearing on magazine covers and Saturday Night Live, and Gillette Stadium has been erected in the Boston burbs as home turf for the juggernaut Patriots. Pierce, on staff at the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and a frequent NPR commentator, is a true fan of Brady, both as a football player and as a man. On-the-field action peppers his account, but the real subject here is Brady himself--how did a young man who almost became a priest transform himself into the NFL quarterback who has achieved the most at the earliest age? Pierce converts what might have been just another sports bio into an engaging character study. For all sports collections. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299234
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299231
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #525,254 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No "I" in Team, November 20, 2006

By	GHT - See all my reviews

And Charles Pierce says there is not much "I" in Tom Brady either.

In a professional sport with salary parity, logic says that it must be the Pats teamwork that sets them ahead. Bill Bellicheck, based on results, is the best coach in football, and Tom Brady is his team's QB. There are many great head coach - QB pairings in NFL history - Lombardi and Starr, Landry and Staubach, Walsh and Montana among them, and Bellicheck and Brady - despite their relatively brief history together - are now also inextricably linked, 3 championships in 4 years will do that.

Bellicheck figured out long ago that a football game is not about scoring touchdowns - it is about having more points on the board at the end of the game than the other team. He had the best kicker in football in Adam Vinateri, and in Brady has a QB that knows how to move the chains. When the Pats are playing their game, and they usually are, there is an efficiency to their execution, football the way it is meant to be played. Brady seems to stay within his limits of himself and his team while still pushing himself and them.

Sports as life metaphor books rarely work for me, but having read some of Pierce's magazine pieces previously, I was intrigued when I saw the book - and not at all disappointed. Not all sportswriters are writers, but Charles Pierce is. Instead of a fluff PR piece, we get a book about faith, character, family, team, and the human community - if all you want are the stats and the records, use the Google on the internets.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not an ordinary sports biography, November 13, 2006

By	L. Jackson (USA) - See all my reviews

What Pierce does in Moving the Chains is reveal the heart and soul of football by examining football's consummate team player, Tom Brady. Brady may not be the most talented current quarterback (Peyton Manning gets that honor), or the flashiest (Michael Vick gets that one), or most beloved (that might go to Brett Favre), but on any given Sunday in the post season he'd be the quarterback you'd want leading your team down the field. Pierce does an excellent job examining why this is the case: why on a Sunday in January you'd want Brady, the no-name quarterback from Michigan, leading your team down the field.

In the context of the ups and downs of the injury-plagued '05 season, Pierce dissects Tom Brady. Pierce examines the games and talks with teammates to highlight Brady's strengths and weakness. Pierce interviews old coaches, friends and family to understand how Brady's work ethic and style were formed. Pierce shows us how these early foundations have grown to make Brady the team player --and more importantly, team leader --who can lead a struggling team to the playoffs.

Pierce looks at football through a broad lens, bringing up interesting cultural and philosophical points that make this more than just another sports book. He understands that football is played in a larger cultural context and that one bleeds into another. He also knows that leadership and greatness in one area can exemplify leadership and greatness in others. With Pierce's style and awareness it is easy to extrapolate his observations of leadership in this book to other areas. This book gave me both a better understanding of the game of football and a better understanding of what it takes to lead.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moving the Chains, January 9, 2007

By	Jeffrey D. Wright "jdw9270" (Plymouth, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Being a staunch Patriots fan, this book seemed like a must read. I was a bit disapointed at the start. I felt it was "over descriptive" and seemed to attempt to be a literary masterpiece, when all I really wanted was a biography of Tom Brady. Pierce's choice of words when setting up the book seemed like I was in AP english again.

I can say though once your past the setup chapter and the chapters on Tom's father's relgious influences, it gets into the guts of football, Patriots and Brady history, which is what I wanted all along.

Information is genuine, book is solid, I'd say B+ due to the tough start.