Won for All : The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to The Super Bowl [Hardcover]

Pepper Johnson (Author), Bill Gutman (Author), Carl Banks (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 2002

In a year when patriotic fervor swept across this country, another group of Patriots also staked a claim to a part of football history that will not soon be forgotten. A last place team in 2000, they won their division in 2001, then finished with three upset playoff victories, including the stirring last-second victory over the high-octane and heavily favored St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl. From training camp to Adam Vinatieri's dramatic game-winning field goal and its aftermath, Won for All is the inside story of how the team, maligned at the start of the season, overcame injuries and distractions to win it all - and the inside story from Pepper Johnson, the Patriots inside linebackers coach and a 13-year NFL veteran. Told in first-person narrative, Pepper will give the reader an intimate and unmatched perspective on the Patriots' amazing season. Observant and perceptive, he's willing not only to talk about what occurred on the field as the season progressed and began to crescendo toward its unlikely finale, but also address a number of other topics, many of which contibuted to their success, and some that will give fans an glimpse into everyday life in the NFL. Divided into 12 chapters, the narrative will reconstruct the season with intervening material on the inner workings of a team that remained largely invisible to Patriot followers. By showing what the team was like in all its dimensions and replaying all the defining moments of their magical season, Won for All has a chance to find a lasting place among football books.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After losing three of the first four games in the 2001-2002 season, the New England Patriots roared back to finish the year with an 11-5 record and completed the surprising turnaround by beating the St. Louis Rams in one of the most exciting Super Bowls in NFL history. Johnson, who played linebacker for 13 years, joined New England as an unpaid liaison in 2000 and was the inside linebackers' coach during the championship season. Although Johnson does reminisce about his playing days (particularly his years with the New York Giants), he gives a first-rate account of the Patriots' transformation from a 5-11 team in 2000 to Super Bowl champs the following season. Johnson, writing with Gutman (Parcells: A Biography), picks up the story at the end the 2001-2002 season, then backtracks readers from training camp through the Super Bowl. Along the way, he describes how head coach Bill Belichick created a winning team by weeding out players who did not fit his playing style. Johnson does a terrific job of bringing readers into the Patriots' locker room as he discusses strategy about each game while also providing an insider's perspective on various members of the team; an especially compelling chapter deals with a week in the life of an NFL coach, illustrating the pressures coaches face each week in the season. Patriot fans will no doubt enjoy this recap of the Super Bowl run, as will fans who want a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes in professional football.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

An inside look at the New England Patriots' amazing championship season

When Adam Vinatieri booted the ball through the uprights from forty-eight yards out in the final, stirring seconds of Super Bowl XXXVI, he had done much more than give the New England Patriots a heart-stopping 20-17 victory over the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. Vinatieri's last-second, clutch field goal not only enabled the Patriots to win their first-ever Super Bowl but also allowed this group of hard-working, never-say-die players to complete one of the most amazing turnarounds in NFL history. Won for All gives you the complete inside story of a team that went from last place to first in a single, incredible season.

Pepper Johnson, former All-Pro linebacker and thirteen-year NFL veteran, takes you behind the scenes of one of football's great Cinderella stories for a riveting look at the Patriots' rags-to-riches saga. As the team's inside linebackers coach, Johnson lived the entire story, beginning with the 5-11 season of 2000 (the first for head coach Bill Belichick), a season that ended with veteran safety Lawyer Milloy telling his teammates they were losers and promising it wouldn't happen again. Yet despite an upgrading of personnel through the draft and the signing of several key free agents prior to 2001, the fans, media, and even one of the team's top scouts didn't see the Patriots winning more than eight games. Given this scenario, no one predicted that the team would even make the playoffs, let alone contend for pro football's biggest prize.

In this fully illustrated chronicle of all of the 2001 season's memorable moments, Pepper Johnson takes you on a complete journey, beginning in training camp, continuing through the winter snows of Foxboro, and improbably ending at the Super Dome in New Orleans. He not only recounts the many exciting games and individual plays that ultimately brought the team its greatest victory but also relates how a hard-working coach and his dedicated staff went about molding and motivating a championship team, taking a group of diverse individual talents and bringing them together with a single goal--to win. With his insider's eye, Johnson explains the qualities that made players like Tom Brady, Troy Brown, Lawyer Milloy, Tedy Bruschi, Bryan Cox, and Adam Vinatieri take up the gauntlet thrown down by their coaches and shock the football world. In a year when patriotic fervor swept the country, the Patriots overcame a 1{-}3 start, a number of key injuries, and other distractions to eventually become the unlikely heroes of the Super Bowl.

"Paxton's snap was perfect. Walter set it down, spun the laces, and Adam stepped up and swung his leg through the ball. As soon as it left his foot, he began jumping up and down. He knew. We all watched, and in a few seconds, we all knew. . . . We had done it. We had beaten the Rams and, as Lawyer Milloy would say, we shocked the world. The New England Patriots had won the Super Bowl."

--Pepper Johnson

They began the season as losers in the eyes of the football world. When they started out at 1-3 and lost their starting quarterback to a devastating injury, the outlook for the New England Patriots was decidedly bleak. Not once since the team began as the Boston Patriots in the old American Football League in 1960 had they brought their fans a championship. It would take a miracle, but nobody expected one--not the fans, not the press, and perhaps not even the Patriots themselves--and certainly no one could have predicted the incredible saga that was about to unfold.

In this in-depth chronicle of the Patriots' mind-boggling Super Bowl season, Pepper Johnson, the Patriots' inside linebackers coach and thirteen-year NFL veteran, takes you from the meeting rooms to the locker room and out onto the field as he brings you the inside story: the disheartening early defeats, the gradual coming together of an entire team, and the final heart-stopping victories that led an often-maligned franchise to overcome adversity and eventually win it all.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies (September 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071408770
• ISBN-13: 978-0071408776
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,498,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Reliving the 2001 PATS, January 4, 2003

By 

C. Baker "cbaker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Won for All : The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to The Super Bowl (Hardcover)

Pepper Johnson's book about the New England Patriots' improbable run to championship glory in the 2001 NFL football season is a bit of a disappointment. Nevertheless, any Patriots fan will find the book interesting and essential to understanding the inside story of the 2001 New England Patriots.

This book does a good job of walking the reader through the entire 2001 season. Johnson divides the season into four game segments and provides great detail on the actual games, as well as the development and improvement of the team over the season. He provides even greater depth on the playoffs and Super Bowl, and the team's preparation leading up to the big games.

Probably the key theme to the book is it clearly demonstrates the importance of teamwork and the performance of less high profile players on the success of the entire team. Johnson stresses, time and again, the importance of each man on the team doing their job and doing it well for this particular squad to make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl.

Johnson also does a nice job of giving the reader a glimpse into the day-to-day life of NFL coaches, from the hours they work, the tape they study, their interaction with the players, and how the entire coaching staff is important to any team's overall success on the field.
The best thing about the book is allows Patriots fans to once again relive the 2001 season.

Unfortunately, the book has many drawbacks as well. First, there is very little attention paid to the most intriguing element of the 2001 season - the ultimate replacement of Drew Bledsoe with Tom Brady. Johnson gives very, very short shrift to this key controversy that could have torn the team apart. Maybe being a coach on the team he was afraid of going into the kind of detail that appears in journalists' accounts of the relationship between Bledsoe, Brady, Belichick, and the team.

Second, there is a little too much "I, I, I" in the book. I didn't want to hear about Johnson's coaching philosophy or incidences that occurred specifically to him. I wanted to hear about the team. There's a bit too much of Johnson in the book.

Third, the book does a poor job of building drama and excitement. It has a very bland and unadorned writing style. While the book is certainly very readable, it could have been better.

Finally, while not necessarily a shortcoming, there are very few X's and O's talking about plays, play calling, or in-depth game plan and football philosophies. It would have been nice to see more of this in the book as well.

Nevertheless, any Patriots fan, like me, will definitely enjoy the book and get a lot out of reading a coach's account of the 2001 New England Patriots.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre writing style sometimes gets in the way of story, August 29, 2003

By 

biz_buzz "biz_buzz" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Won for All : The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to The Super Bowl (Hardcover)

I am a dyed in the wool New England Patriots and NFL fan, and I really wanted to LOVE this book. But the writing style, paragraph structure and grammar in this book leave a lot to be desired. The writing (and I mean no offense in any way, shape or form to Mr. Pepper Johnson) is maybe junior high school level.

I know, I know, some will say "So Pepper Johnson isn't an English teacher. Get over it" - I reply that the poor writing style and paragraph structure is so much of a problem, it sometimes gets in Pepper Johnson's way of effectively telling the incredible success story of the New England Patriots, particularly in the early going of the book. Even if you are OK with his conversational style of writing, Johnson occassionally meanders, going off on a tangent back to his playing days on the Super Bowl champion NY Giants.

No one will question Pepper Johnson's love for football or his expertise in, and dedication to, the finer points of the game that many other coaches will never fully understand. But he is definitely not a writer. This is the type of problem that a seasoned "co-author" is supposed to take care of, but there is no evidence of any such meaningful editing work by Bill Gutman.

With a solid rewrite, Pepper Johnson's unique insight could be very effectively conveyed, and this book would earn a 5-star rating. Even in its current state, you will still enjoy Johnson's insider view and perspective for the most part.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic look inside the world of the NFL, December 8, 2003

By 

B. Larson (Palatine, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Won for All : The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to the Super Bowl (Paperback)

Even if you are not a fan of the New England Patriots, this book has a lot to offer. I am biased, being a season ticket holder and fan, but if you are looking to find out about being a coach in the NFL, this is the book for you. Pepper Johnson has been there as a player and as a coach, and he fills the pages of this book with stories from both his playing career and his time as a coach with the Patriots.

Obviously this book focuses on the incredible run to the Super Bowl that that Patriots made in 2001, but more than that it talks about the inner workings of a team, motivation, and the importance of teamwork. Teamwork was the key to the Super Bowl victory and by reading this book, you can see that it was much more important than some might have thought. This Patriots team had to overcome many obstacles during the season to win it all, and this book describes how the team came together and won as a unit.

Pepper Johnson also describes the rigors of being a coach in the NFL, the long hours (5am to midnight or longer) and hours of watching game tape. If you have ever wondered what NFL coaches do to game plan, you can find out right here. Pepper also talks about the importance of the scout team, something that I think many people over look.

All in all this is a great football book, not only for Patriot fans, but for all football fans.