
The Football 100
Sports Series, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Jaime Lincoln Smith
About this listen
From The Athletic, powerhouse of sports reporting, comes the definitive story of the greatest football players of all time.
It is a question that has bedeviled football fans for generations: Who’s the best? Of the more than 25,000 men who have suited up during the NFL’s century of existence, which ones stood head and shoulders above all others?
At The Athletic, home to the best newsroom in sports, this question would become a labor of love for dozens of the best football writers on the planet, including Mike Sando and Dan Pompei. Over the course of 100 riveting profiles—each drawing upon unparalleled access and superlative storytelling to offer intimate perspective on what made the greatest players tick—these writers reveal their findings. In the process, they also uncover the history of football.
In the early days of the NFL, the game bore little resemblance to the product we see today. Points were scarce, the forward pass was an exotic strategic curiosity, and most players played all 60 minutes—both sides of the ball. It was on the shoulders of the many greats who starred in the League over the last century that the game of football blossomed. Each profile in The Football 100 uses the vivid narrative storytelling for which The Athletic is known to bring to life extraordinary athletic talents, tactical geniuses who changed the way the game is played, and legendary, outsized personalities. Based on many hundreds of interviews with players, coaches, broadcasters, and others, this is a penetrating look at the greatest players to ever don cleats and pads, as well as a view from the trenches of the harsh realities of a brutal game.
Deeply reported, beautifully written, and sure to spark heated debate among football fans of all stripes, The Football 100 sets a new standard for writing about the game.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Dan Kaufman (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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NFL Century
- The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League
- By: Joe Horrigan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the 100 years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL.
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C+
- By Eryn S. McGary on 09-02-23
By: Joe Horrigan
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The Price
- What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos
- By: Armen Keteyian, John Talty
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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We are living in the Wild West of college sports. Name, Image and Likeness endorsements, the transfer portal, collectives, conference realignment, the powerful influence of media companies have all rendered the notion of amateur athletics a quaint relic of the past, replaced by a Brave New World where money and self-interest rule. The Price is a sweeping, in-depth, thought-provoking look at an inflection point in big-time college football.
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In-Depth And Off The Rails
- By BrettSBaker on 10-06-24
By: Armen Keteyian, and others
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Saban
- The Making of a Coach
- By: Monte Burke
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As the head coach of the University of Alabama's football team, Nick Saban is perhaps the most influential - and controversial - man in the sport. Unpredictable in his professional loyalties, uncompromising in his vision, and unyielding in his pursuit of perfection, the highest-paid coach in college football has changed the face of the game. His program-building vision has delivered packed stadiums, rabid fans, legions of detractors, countless NFL draft picks, and a total of four championships.
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Narrator is awful.
- By kenneth on 08-12-15
By: Monte Burke
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Swagger
- Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Footballs - A Memoir
- By: Jimmy Johnson, Dave Hyde
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Hall of Fame football coach Jimmy Johnson’s house isn’t on the way to anything. Yet, his private sanctuary on the Florida Keys’ Islamorada islands is a popular destination to which college and professional coaches, general managers, and team owners regularly trek to seek advice—how to build a positive team culture, draft elite players, balance work and family life, and lead a team to win. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson has done it all. Now, written with sports journalist Dave Hyde, Johnson shares a candid account of his life experiences that have turned him into a legend in the coaching world.
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AMAZING AND NECESSARY READ FOR FOOTBALL FANS EVERYWHERE
- By elaine clancy on 01-24-23
By: Jimmy Johnson, and others
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Baseball
- By: Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
- Narrated by: Ken Burns
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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The authors of the acclaimed and best-selling The Civil War, Jazz, and The War turn to another uniquely American phenomenon: baseball. Geoffrey C. Ward's and Ken Burns’s moving and fascinating history of the game goes beyond stolen bases, double plays, and home runs to demonstrate how baseball has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced, American life.
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Abridged
- By David Munoz on 02-15-16
By: Geoffrey C. Ward, and others
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The System
- The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
- By: Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.
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Gripping Inside Look at an Industry to Itself
- By W Perry Hall on 01-23-14
By: Jeff Benedict, and others
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Path Lit by Lightning
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind.
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Authors can’t always narate
- By SH on 09-05-22
By: David Maraniss
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Chasing the Bear
- How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time
- By: Lars Anderson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Both Bear Bryant and Nick Saban are undeniable kings of college football, two coaches at Alabama who have each won more national championships - six apiece - than anyone else in the history of the game. Chasing the Bear examines how they did it, revealing along the way their similarities in style, background, football philosophy, and recruiting methods, while providing listeners a rare inside look at two of the greatest leaders in the history of sports.
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Half great half fair
- By jonathan meharg on 09-26-19
By: Lars Anderson
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America's Game
- The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation
- By: Michael MacCambridge
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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America's Game traces pro football's grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport's present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America's favorite sport.
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I wished for chronology…
- By Jason on 06-19-24
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Boys Will Be Boys
- The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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They were America's Team - the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.
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This is a football book right?
- By Aaron on 12-07-09
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Big Time
- How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America
- By: Michael MacCambridge
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in The Big Time, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators.
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Good Effort But Missed Part of the Story
- By Kevin on 11-04-23
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The Ancient Eight
- College Football's Ivy League and the Game They Play Today
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of the Ivy League dates back to 1869 when Princeton played the first college football game against Rutgers. The Ancient Eight explores Ivy League football today. To play in the NFL, one must maintain the highest academic standards and be a great football player. The rivalries are as intense, as are the strict rules–but there is also a genuine purity in the Ivy League.
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Not bad, but not as engrossing as most of Feinstein's books
- By Andrew Coverdale on 11-30-24
By: John Feinstein
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Kingdom on Fire
- Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty
- By: Scott Howard-Cooper
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles native and longtime sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Howard-Cooper draws on more than a hundred interviews and extensive access to many of the principal figures, including Wooden’s family, to deliver a rich narrative that reveals the turmoil at the heart of this storied college basketball program.
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Outstanding Biographical Work
- By Brian J. P. on 02-14-25
What listeners say about The Football 100
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anthony A.
- 02-05-24
Recommend for any football fan
I recommend this for any football fan that wants to learn about the past football, grades, and see how the game of football has evolved through the many years
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- Eric
- 05-24-24
Awesome 👏🏾
Only stickleresque viewpoint I have with audiobooks is pronunciations. Samaje Perine is pronounced flawlessly, while Lyle Al-ZAH-do and Gary KUE-bee-ak are not. Not sure how the pre-narration proofreading process goes. Perhaps a phonetic chart?🤷🏾♂️
Really enjoyed this book. Kudos to the narrator 👌🏾🫡
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- Pistol Pete
- 04-20-24
Great measuring tool
I appreciate the comprehensive analysis of renowned athletes in the Hall of Fame, along with the intriguing narratives surrounding their performance on the field.
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- Donald J. Bentley
- 02-16-25
Many interesting stories of football greats
I liked the inclusion of players from different eras. It’s fascinating how so many of the great players had humble beginnings and were unheralded before their pro careers.
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- American Southerner
- 02-07-25
A Balance
I think the book did well covering the top 100 athletes without going too deep into their careers or leaving out too much. Each chapter tells you what you need to know about the player, what made them great…and not so great in some cases. There are two big omissions here - Bo Jackson and Jim Thorpe - who really deserved a place on the list, but overall they nailed everybody who was anybody. Highly recommended.
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