Elyse Cheney graduated from “Agent” to “Super Agent” a long time ago, not to mention “Friend” to “Super Friend.” You are the best in the biz. Dinners owed through 2057, at least. Thanks, too, to the Super Team at Cheney Agency: Alex Jacobs, Claire Gillespie, and Peter Finnerty.
David Rosenthal is the spiritual father of this whole journey/ordeal. David understood and indulged me in all the right ways, which I’ll never not be thankful for. Special thanks to Aileen Boyle and Marian Brown, whose friendship endures even if Blue Rider does not.
Scott Moyers at Penguin Press proved not only to be a lights-out relief pitcher (hey, they can’t all be football clichés) but also a blast of an editor/publisher. I’m so lucky to have landed with Scott. Big thanks also to Ann Godoff, Mia Council, ace publicist Liz Calamari, Matt Boyd, and everyone at Penguin.
I will always cherish our Kibbutz with the Rosinplotzim: David, Hanna, Noa, Jacob, Giddy, Ma, Pa, Mumi, and Eli. It takes a village, and you are the village. Hugs to all—and good riddance to the minivan.
Never-ending love to my family in their assorted units: I’m especially grateful to my mom, Joan Leibovich, and sister, Lori Leibovich, for, well, everything—you are always with me, and me with you. Much love to bonus parents Ted Sutton, Betty Grossman, Jack and Barbara Kolbrener, the latter of whom I miss all the time. Hermano Larry Kanter (still of Resistor) and bonus kids Carlos and Clara Kanter; big love and appreciation for Michael Kolbrener and Bill Kolbrener and their great families.
This book is dedicated to my father, Miguel Leibovich, who died in February 2017, a few days after yet another Super Bowl that he didn’t care about. He encouraged me from the start, and I’ll carry him with me to fiesta’s end. Eternal love, also, to my late dear brother, Phil Leibovich, a blue-chip football fan and friend, who remains at my side (and, Phil, you’ll never believe what happened to that lousy football team we used to root for when we were kids).
Best for last: Such indescribable love to my daughters, Nell, Eliza, and Frances Leibovich, who astound and amaze me with the great people they’re becoming. You are forces of wonder, and I couldn’t adore you more. Likewise, to my Hall of Fame wife, Meri Kolbrener, who’s made me better and wiser in every way, and who has made this whole caravan possible, beautiful, and fun. So damn lucky!
Notes
INTRODUCTION: FOOTBALL, IN SPITE OF ITSELF
“America can survive”: “Football’s True Believers Circle the Wagons and Insist the Sport Is Just Fine,” New York Times, January 30, 2018, p. B8.
“In twenty-five years”: Chuck Klosterman, But What if We’re Wrong?: Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2016).
By Friday, the warring: “30 Surprising Facts About the Mall of America,” BuzzFeed, July 8, 2014.
“I will always live”: Steve Rushin, “Show and Nice,” Sports Illustrated, January 29, 2018.
“Much of its popularity”: Michael MacCambridge, America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation (New York: Random House, 2004).
PROLOGUE: RESPITE
“I can’t think of another”: Leigh Steinberg, The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2014), pp. 209, 210.
CHAPTER 1: THE SUPER BOWL WITHOUT JOCK STRAPS
“Hey, even the worst bartender”: Eric Winston interview with CSNNE, January 30, 2015.
the next month’s draft: Source of credentialed media numbers: NFL media relations department.
“He’s made the NFL relevant”: Pat McManamon, “Joe Thomas Rips Deflategate Probe, Roger Goodell’s ‘Ridiculous Witch Hunts,’” ABC News, August 23, 2015.
CHAPTER 2: THE MONKEY’S ASS
truck-stop operator: Tony Dejak, “Haslam-Owned Truck Stop Chain to Pay $92 Million Fine over Rebate Scam,” AP, February 11, 2014.
$84.5 million in compensatory damages: Ben Horowitz, “Judge Announces Damages of $84.5 Million Against Wilfs in Long-Running Lawsuit,” NJ.com, September 24, 2013.
“organized crime–type activities”: Ben Horowitz, “Real Estate Mogul and Family on Losing End of Epic Lawsuit Filed by Business Partners,” NJ.com, April 5, 2013.
an antigay initiative: Katherine Driessen, “Texans Owner Bob McNair Donates $10,000 to Anti-hero Effort,” Houston Chronicle, October 15, 2015.
to a Walmart heiress: “Ann Walton Kroenke Profile,” Forbes, March 6, 2018.
Johnson was hopeful that: Peter King, Monday Morning Quarterback, SI.com, January 23, 2017.
CHAPTER 3: NUGGETS
on Secretary’s Day: Greg Bishop, “Blocking for the Patriots Coach so He Can Do His Job,” New York Times, February 3, 2012, p. D1.
Goodell is apparently required: Monday Morning Quarterback, SI.com, August 8, 2016.
“sex scandal with his wife!”: Nicholas Dawidoff, Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football (New York: Little, Brown, 2013).
CHAPTER 5: “BEWARE THE PISSED OFF PRETTY BOY”
Al Davis used to wear padded suits: David Harris, The League: Inside the NFL (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), p. 58.
CHAPTER 6: GARISH FIST ORNAMENTS
“guilty of retiring early”: Brett Favre to Greta Van Susteren, On the Record, Fox News, July 14, 2008.
“God only knows”: Brett Favre, interview with WSPZ-AM, Washington, D.C., October 24, 2013.
“We get brainwashed to believe”: Tom Brady interview, WEEI, October 12, 2015.
“scheduled car crash”: Tom Brady, The TB12 Method: How to Attain a Lifetime of Peak Performance (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), p. 19.
CHAPTER 9: NO ONE BUYS TICKETS TO WATCH A MORALITY PLAY
“my candy store”: Frank Deford, “Welcome Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Wife Carrie,” Sports Illustrated, January 21, 1980.
“We can’t hopscotch franchises”: John F. Steadman, From Colts to Ravens: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Baltimore Professional Football (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1997).
“It was the worst feeling”: MacCambridge, America’s Game, p. 398.
CHAPTER 11: WHUPPINGS
It spent a fortune: Alan Schwarz, Walt Bogdanich, and Jacqueline Williams, “NFL’s Flawed Concussion Research and Ties to the Tobacco Industry,” New York Times, March 24, 2016, p. 1.
“You have no choice”: Pete Rozelle interview (unbylined), “Backtalk: From a Retired Pete Rozelle, Some Points After,” New York Times, September 18, 1994.
CHAPTER 12: “WE PAY HIM DAMN WELL TO BE NEUTRAL”
Even the head of the nation’s: Ken Belson, “Goodell’s Pay of $44.2 Million in 2012 Puts Him in the Big Leagues,” New York Times, February 14, 2014, p. D1.
He was known as cerebral: Bryan Curtis, “Mr. Goodell Goes to Washington,” Grantland, February 4, 2013.
“I no longer wanted”: Suzanne Pollak interview with Roger Goodell, “Remembering Mom,” AOL Build, May 8, 2015.
“The job is like attending 10 weddings”: Sam Farmer, “No Consensus Yet on a Replacement,” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2006, p. 2.
“I inherited a strong constitution”: Deford, “Welcome Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Wife Carrie.”
“Dammit, don’t be telling us”: MacCambridge, America’s Game, p. 317.
“He’s the face of the owners”: The MMQB, SI.com, July 19, 2016.
CHAPTER 14: ROGER AND ME
complaining in open settings: Gabriel Sherman, “The Season from Hell,” GQ, January 19, 2015.
He infamously patronized Peyton Manning: Jay Feely interview, The Michael Kay Show, ESPN Radio, February 14, 2014.
He also wondered: Ibid.
CHAPTER 15: THE BIG SPLAT
“The game lets you know”: Jermichael Finley, “They Basically Reset My Brain,” The Players’ Tribune, May 23, 2017.
“bullet in his ches
t”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 16: IMMORTALITY GETS OLD
CHAPTER 17: “START BLOW-DRYING TEDDY KOPPEL’S HAIR ’CAUSE THIS ONE’S DONE”
“you played some, man”: Ben Smith, “Travels with Joe,” Politico, September 18, 2008.
CHAPTER 18: AMERICAN CARNAGE
More than 83 percent: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/05/30/nfllast-sports-bastion-of-white-male-conservatives/.
Nearly 70 percent of the players: http://nebula.wsimg.com/1a7f83c14af6a516176740244d8afc46?AccessKeyId=DAC3A56D8FB782449D2A&disposition=0&alloworigin=1.
“This makes football akin”: Klosterman, But What if We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2016), p. 187.
“They just saw him as this scumbag”: Tim Marcin, “Trump’s NFL Fight Dates Back to His Failed USFL Experiment in the ’80s,” Newsweek, September 25, 2017.
CHAPTER 19: PATRIOTISM
“face to face with my gangsters”: William C. Rhoden, “Connections That Go Far Beyond Wins,” New York Times, January 29, 2008.
CHAPTER 20: CHEESEHEAD ELEGY
“We don’t talk about Fight Club”: Michael Eisen, “The McAdoo Report,” Giants.com, January 6, 2007.
CHAPTER 22: “I’M DRUNK, I’M STUPID, I’M A PATS FAN,” THE MAN TOLD POLICE
“I hope to Christ I never again”: Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl,” Rolling Stone, February 28, 1974.
CHAPTER 23: THE TV REPORTER IN THE BILL BELICHICK UNDERWEAR
They went as far as scrubbing: Benjamin Hoffman and Ken Belson, “No Trump or Goodell at Super Bowl, at Least According to NFL Transcripts,” New York Times, January 31, 2017.
“lower your own IQ”: Buck Harvey, “If Watt Is Earl: How Some Stories Last,” San Antonio Express-News, October 1, 2016.
“The hardest-hitting running back”: Frank Luska, “Campbell Leaves His Legend,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1986, p. 32.
CHAPTER 24: CLOCKS AND SITCOMS
“taking a great Chagall”: Mornings with Maria, Fox Business Channel, February 13, 2017.
CHAPTER 26: THIS MAN’S LIVER BELONGS IN CANTON
“surprises people if he can roll out of bed”: Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr., “Sin City or Bust,” ESPN The Magazine, April 24, 2017.
CHAPTER 27: “FAITH, FAMILY, AND FOOTBALL . . . PROBABLY NOT IN THAT ORDER”
“When pro football owners”: David Shribman, “Dan Rooney: Pittsburgh and N.F.L. Royalty, and an Ordinary Guy,” New York Times, April 14, 2017, sports section, p. 8.
Photograph Credits
1, 2, 3: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire
4: Eric Lars Bakke/ESPN Images
5, 6: Phil Ellsworth/ESPN Images
7: Debby Wong/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire
8: Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire
9: Don Juan Moore/ESPN Images
10: Ben Solomon/ESPN Images
11: Allen Kee/ESPN Images
12: Jeremy McKnight/Icon Sportswire
13: Frank DiBrango/Icon Sportswire
14: Rich Arden/ESPN Images
15: Icon Sportswire
16: Splash News/Alamy
17: WENN Ltd/Alamy
18: Allan Hamilton/Icon Sportswire
19: Heather Harvey/ESPN Images
20: Kevin Reece/Icon Sportswire
21: Everett Collection/Alamy
22: Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Aaron, Hank, 206
Abe, Shinzo, 296
Access Hollywood, 327
Acee, Kevin, 261
Adams, Davante, 254
Adams, Jamal, 120–21
AFC Championship Games
January 18, 2015 (Deflategate), 90–98
October 2015, 107–14
January 2016, 179, 183–84
AFC coaches breakfast 2016, 49–53
AFC Wild Card Game 2/2017, 253
Aiello, Greg, 3, 169, 175
Aikman, Troy, 44, 221
Aircraft (plane), 295
Allen, Paul, 156, 159
All or Nothing (Amazon), 225
ALS, 5
Amendola, Danny, 8, 123, 290, 291, 342
American Petroleum Institute, 144
American Professional Football Association, 205
see also NFL
America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation (MacCambridge), 4, 314
Anderson, Dave, 192
Anderson, Ray, 130
Andrews, David, 275
Anka, Paul, 209–10, 325
anthem protests, 100, 227, 299–230, 313, 318–20, 321, 323, 327–28, 334–36
Apprentice, The, 59
Arena Football League, 210
Arians, Bruce, 228
Arizona Cardinals, 8, 174
Aston Martin, 55
Atallah, George, 190–92
Atlanta Falcons, xxii, 5, 83, 288–91
AT&T Stadium (“Jerry’s World”), 24, 25, 152, 162
Auerbach, Red, 269
Austin, Miles, 138
Bacon, Perry, 215
Baker, David, xvii, 210, 294
Baltimore Ravens, 33, 115
Bank of America Stadium, 8, 174
Banner, Zach, 348
Beckham, Odell, Jr., 121, 254
Behind the Pom-Poms, 265
Belichick, Bill, 22, 35–36, 39, 52–53, 71, 72, 74, 83, 98, 223, 248, 275–76, 338, 342–43, 345
on Deflategate, 95–96
on Spygate, 103
Bell, Bert, 153
Bell, Le’Veon, 51, 270–71
Belson, Ken, 120, 141, 196, 203, 249, 320, 323
Bengals, 16
Bennett, Martellus, 6, 271, 291
Benson, Tom, 27
Bergen Record, 110
Berman, Chris, 209
Berman, Richard, 145
Bernabei, Thomas, 209
Berry, Raymond, 114
Biden, Joe, 215
Bird, Larry, 84
Bisciotti, Steve, 33, 157
Blank, Arthur, 148, 160, 201, 320, 327
on anthem protest, 319, 323
author’s interview with, 323
as chairman of NFL compensation committee, 142–43, 144, 313–14, 316–19, 329
founder of Home Depot, 142, 314
on Kraft and Trump, 296–97
Bleacher Report, 227
Bledsoe, Drew, 12, 77, 81, 88, 113
Blind Side, The (Lewis), xvi
Blount, LeGarrette, 272
Boca Raton Resort and Club, 13–16, 18, 22–26, 39, 45, 47–48, 50, 52, 244
Boies, David, 327
Bonds, Barry, 211
Bosa, Joey, 199
Boston Herald, 104
BostonMagazine.com, 73
“Bountygate,” 130
Bowman, NaVorro, 37
Bradshaw, Terry, 44
Brady, Benjamin, 62
Brady, Galynn, 65, 66, 67, 109, 283–84, 340
Brady, Julie, 340
Brady, Tom, 71–72, 73–74
AFC Championship Game January 2016, 183–84
author’s interviews with, 58–62, 84–89, 92–93, 344–48
&n
bsp; on concussions, 61, 87–88
declines White House visit, 6, 97
and Deflategate, 7, 11, 19–20, 29, 46, 91–94, 100–102, 103–4, 133–34, 136, 137, 145, 216
endorsements by, 55, 63, 85
family life, 54, 61–62, 65
first pro game, 223
fitness routine of, 60, 62–63, 64–65, 341
and Kraft, 28, 80–81, 85, 137
as MVP, 95
NFC Championship 2017, 271
partnership with Alex Guerrero, 60, 61, 62–64, 70, 88, 136
post-football career, 89, 281–82
relationship with father, 65–66, 282–84
on Robert Kraft, 28
spiritual beliefs of, 86
and Super Bowl XLIX, 94, 123, 124
and Super Bowl LII, xiii–xiv, xx, xxiii–xxiv, 290–92, 344
on Super Bowl rings, 83
and Trump, 232–34, 275
see also Belichick, Bill; New England Patriots
Brady, Tom Sr., 65–67, 81, 93, 108, 109, 113, 280, 282–85, 340, 342
Brady, Vivian, 62
Branch, Alan, 275
Branch, John, 118
Brandt, Andrew, 136
Breakers, the (resort), 15–16, 18
Brokaw, Tom, 54–55
Brooks, Albert, 119
Brown, Antonio, 16, 266
Brown, Jim, 115
Browne, Joe, 172, 210
Brunell, Mark, 94
Bruschi, Tedy, 40, 342
Buffalo Bills, 33, 231
Buffett, Warren, 324
Bündchen, Gisele, xiii–xiv, 6, 59, 61–62, 76, 85–86, 88, 94, 340–41, 343
Bush, George H. W., 34
Bush, Jeb, 33, 244
Bush, Kim, 118
Butler, Malcolm, 94
Campbell, Earl, 276–78, 324
Canton Bulldogs, 205
Canton Memorial Civic Center, 207, 325
Carolina Panthers, xvi, 8, 36, 43, 174, 226, 349
Carr, Lloyd, 66
Carr, Mike, 3–4
Carroll, Pete, 244–45
Carville, James, 26