Customer Reviews

Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything

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

 

 

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.

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.

I like Tom Brady. I like the Patriots. I like Charlie Pierce. I hated this book. Mr. Pierce is a good sportswriter and a delightful panelist on the NPR news quiz show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," yet he hits a very sour note with this book. The problem, as other reviewers have mentioned, is that the book reads like it was written on the fly with minimal editorial input. Mr. Pierce casts such a rosy glow on Tom Brady and his family, it quickly becomes cloying. I'm sure that they're all fine people, but we're talking about a football player, not the second coming of the Messiah.

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.

No nice way to put it . . . this book is a mess. It seems like either an early draft was sent to publishing by mistake or that no editor was used. This is absolutely the most poorly organized book I've ever read. There are unfinished thoughts, quotes, etc. It feels like the "writer" tripped walking down the hall on the way to the publisher and all the pages of the book flew into the air and the pages were shuffled back to together and printed as is.
Avoid this book at all costs.

Some parts are interesting but for the most part not good. Too much fluff. Loaded with irrelevant facts and connections. If you are a New England fan, then buy Halberstam's book on the coach.

I found this book to be very interesting and a must read for every No. 12 jersey wearing Patriots' fan! It tells about the rise of Tom Brady and how he came to become the legend that he is through his hard work and dedication. It went behind the scenes of just what he does on the playing field and went into his personal life which I thought was interesting. It's a must read for every Patriots fan. It goes quick and I'm sure it will be enjoyed.

Gerard Zemek
husband of author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"

this book is not the typical football book in which details of football startegy are dissected and analyzed.Instead it deals with how Tom Brady developed as an QB thru high school,the trials and tribulations of his days at Michigan and finally his arrival to the NFL and his eventual taking over the reins of the Patriots and the rest is history.Its not an book I would recommend for anyone looking for pure football strategy its more of an comprehensive look at an young qbs development thru several different areas

I am a Tom Brady fan most of all, and a Patriots fan in general, so that is why I bought this book. It was everything I thought it would be, and more. Not only did it give great information about Brady, but it also gave a lot of very interesting information about various Patriots team members and coaches. I feel like I know so much more about the team and different people on the team than I did before! I'd highly recomment this book to anyone who's a football fan in general, and even more to any Tom Brady fans out there.

Charlie Pierce certainly has fun with what he does. I have to admit that when I heard a biography of Tom Brady was coming out, I didn't think for one second, when considering all the Boston area sports writers who cover the Patriots, that Pierce would be the author.

I appreciated the story of Tom's maturation, and the in-depth look at his character. What I didn't expect was the focus on religion. I even got to the point where I felt I had been slightly cheated, like the title should somehow reflect that content. But if that's who Tom is, I guess the author did his job well.