When the 1905 football season ended, nineteen players were dead and countless others were critically injured. The public was outraged. The game had reached a make-or-break moment—fourth down and inches. Coaches, players, fans, and even the president of the United States had one last chance: change football or leave the field. Football's defenders managed to move the chains. Rule changes and reforms after 1905 saved the game and cleared the way for it to become America's most popular sport. But they didn't fix everything. Today, football faces a new injury crisis as dire as 1905's. With increased awareness about brain injury, reported concussions are on the rise among football players. But experts fear concussions may only be the tip of the iceberg. The injuries are almost invisible, but the stakes couldn't be higher: the brains of millions of young football players across the country. Award-winning author Carla Killough McClafferty takes readers on a bone-crunching journey from football's origins to the latest research on concussion and traumatic brain injuries in the sport. Fourth Down and Inches features exclusive photography and interviews with scientists, players, and the families of athletes who have literally given everything to the game. It's fourth and inches. Can football save itself again?

When the 1905 football season ended, nineteen players were dead and countless others were critically injured. The public was outraged. The game had reached a make-or-break moment?fourth down and inches. Coaches, players, fans, and even the president of the United States had one last chance: change football or leave the field. Football's defenders managed to move the chains. Rule changes and reforms after 1905 saved the game and cleared the way for it to become America's most popular sport. But they didn't fix everything. Today, football faces a new injury crisis as dire as 1905's. With increased awareness about brain injury, reported concussions are on the rise among football players. But experts fear concussions may only be the tip of the iceberg. The injuries are almost invisible, but the stakes couldn't be higher: the brains of millions of young football players across the country. Award-winning author Carla Killough McClafferty takes readers on a bone-crunching journey from football's origins to the latest research on concussion and traumatic brain injuries in the sport. Fourth Down and Inches features exclusive photography and interviews with scientists, players, and the families of athletes who have literally given everything to the game. It's fourth and inches. Can football save itself again?

"Fourth Down in Dunbar tells the story of how one community, plagued by drugs and violence, where many children are fatherless, gives rise to an incredible number of stellar youth athletes. Using [Deion] Sanders as the centerpiece of the story, David Dorsey explores Dunbar's history to show how the same drug culture that ruined so many promising futures also serves as motivation for football success"--

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

Once Ed Buck, sports reporter, and Adam Benson, star quarterback for the Chicago Bears, played football on the same college team. Years later, they are still close friends. In New York for a game against the Giants, Benson hands Buck the biggest story of his career. Gambling on football is one of the country's leading "industries," and the mob's been forcing Benson to throw games. The quarterback has had enough. Sunday, he tells Buck, he's playing to win, and to hell with the mob. After the game, Buck can run with the story. Adam Benson never makes it off the field alive, and Ed Buck suspects his friend was murdered. Buck knows barely enough to convince a police detective to look into Benson's death--but more than enough to set the mob on his tail. As Lt. Gerry Keegan probes the tangled connections between the dead quarterback and the head of an organized crime family, uncovering drug dealing, murder, blackmail, prostitution, and double- and triple-crosses, Ed Buck and his fiancee run for their lives. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“Impressively researched and reported and powerfully written, Third Down and a War to Go will put you in the huddle, in the front lines, and in a state of profound gratitude--not only to the Badgers and the hundreds of thousands of veterans like them, but to Terry Frei.” --Neal Rubin, The Detroit News On December 11, 1941, All-American football player Dave Schreiner wrote to his parents, “I’m not going to sit here snug as a bug, playing football, when others are giving their lives for their country. . . . If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we’d have!” Schreiner didn’t stay out of it. Neither did his Wisconsin Badger teammates, including friend and cocaptain Mark “Had” Hoskins and standouts “Crazylegs” Hirsch and Pat Harder. After that legendary 1942 season, the Badgers scattered to serve, fight, and even die around the world. This fully revised edition of the popular hardcover includes follow-up research and updates about many of the ’42 Badgers, plus a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss. Readers and reviewers agree: Terry Frei’s heart-wrenching story of Schreiner and his band of brothers is much more than one team’s tale. It’s an All-American story. 2005 Honorable Mention in Recreation/Sports from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association

Renowned NFL analysts' tips to make football more accessible, colorful, and compelling than ever before More and more football fans are watching the NFL each week, but many of them don't know exactly what they should be watching. What does the offense's formation tell you about the play that's about to be run? When a quarterback throws a pass toward the sideline and the wide receiver cuts inside, which player is to blame? Why does a defensive end look like a Hall of Famer one week and a candidate for the practice squad the next? These questions and more are addressed in Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0, a book that takes readers deep inside the perpetual chess match between offense and defense. This book provides clear and simple explanations to the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game. This updated edition contains recent innovations from the 2015 NFL season.

Fix a Super Bowl? I never thought it possible, but 4th and Fixed is so chock-full of NFL skinny that it sweeps you along from the field to the front office and makes you believe. --Frank Deford

In 2011, he became starting linebacker for the New York Giants and triumphed in the Super Bowl—after being told his cancer diagnosis meant he would never play football again.... As a child, Herzlich found true meaning in football, eventually turning his passion into a first-team All-American spot at Boston College. But the budding star was sidelined by persistent, debilitating pain in his left leg. The shocking diagnosis: He had Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Doctors put his odds of survival as low as ten percent—and no one thought he would be able to run, much less play football, again. Then Herzlich learned of a radical treatment that would give him the best chance to regain his strength and maybe even play football again, but it could cost him his life. Relying on family, friends, faith, and deep wells of determination to help him through treatment, his plan worked. Not only could he run, but he was physically stronger than ever, and mentally ready to battle his way into the NFL. When he was passed over by all thirty-two teams in the draft, he dug deeper and continued his training, winning a spot in the Giants’ training camp and, eventually, on the team. Mark Herzlich fought a battle against cancer, against statistics, and some days against himself. Told with candor and raw emotion, What It Takes is a story for anyone who has ever fought to beat the odds, for anyone who has ever been told that what they are about to attempt is next to impossible. INCLUDES PHOTOS With a foreword by New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin