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NFL Confidential

True Confessions from the Gutter of Football

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Meet Johnny Anonymous. No, that’s not his real name. But he is a real, honest-to-goodness pro football player. A member of the League. A slave, if you will, to the NFL. For the millions of you out there who wouldn’t know what to do on Sundays if there wasn’t football, who can’t imagine life without the crunch of helmets ringing in your ears, or who look forward to the Super Bowl more than your birthday, Johnny Anonymous decided to tell his story.

Written during the 2014–2015 season, this is a year in the life of the National Football League. This is a year in the life of a player—not a marquee name, but a guy on the roster—gutting it out through training camp up to the end of the season, wondering every minute if he’s going to get playing time or get cut. Do you want to know how players destroy their bodies and their colons to make weight? Do you wonder what kind of class and racial divides really exist in NFL locker rooms? Do you want to know what NFL players and teams really think about gay athletes or how the League is really dealing with crime and violence against women by its own players? Do you wonder about the psychological warfare between players and coaches on and off the field? About how much time players spend on Tinder or sexting when not on the field? About how star players degrade or humiliate second- and third-string players?

What players do about the headaches and memory loss that appear after every single game? This book will tell you all of this and so much more. Johnny Anonymous holds nothing back in this whip-smart commentary that only an insider, and a current player, could bring.

Part truth-telling personal narrative, part darkly funny exposé, NFL Confidential gives football fans a look into a world they’d give anything to see, and nonfans a wild ride through the strange, quirky, and sometimes disturbing realities of America’s favorite game. Here is a truly unaffiliated look at the business, guts, and glory of the game, all from the perspective of an underdog who surprises everyone—especially himself.

JOHNNY ANONYMOUS is a four-year offensive lineman for the NFL. Under another pseudonym, he’s also a contributor for the comedy powerhouse Funny Or Die.

You can pretty much break NFL players down into three categories.

Twenty percent do it because they’re true believers. They’re smart enough to do something else if they wanted, and the money is nice and all, but really they just love football. They love it, they live it, they believe in it, it’s their creed. They would be nothing without it. Hell, they’d probably pay the League to play if they had to! These guys are obviously psychotic.

Thirty percent of them do it just for the money. So they could do something else—sales, desk jockey, accountant, whatever—but they play football because the money is just so damn good. And it is good.

And last of all, 49.99 percent play football because, frankly, it’s the only thing they know how to do. Even if they wanted to do something “normal,” they couldn’t. All they’ve ever done in their lives is play football—it was their way out, either of the hood or the deep woods country. They need football. If football didn’t exist, they’d be homeless, in a gang, or maybe in prison.

Then there’s me.

I’m part of my own little weird minority, that final 0.01 percent. We’re such a minority, we don’t even count as a category. We’re the professional football players who flat-out hate professional football.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 25, 2016
      Unlike the glossy, self-promotional tell-all memoirs of former gridiron star players and coaches of the National Football League, this hard-hitting sports confessional by a current pro-baller, who has decided not to come out from the shadows, will stick in the craw of the NFL front office. Coming from a small town in Ohio, the author, speaking in bold terms about his desire to become "the Best Back-up of All Time," wants to remain a nameless player: not risking injury, doing just enough to remain on the payroll while standing on the sidelines. The anonymous player enjoys that status on his second team in three years, as a pitiful third-stringer, until the injury of a lineman puts him in as a starting center. He sees hobbled veteran linemen, the victims of the most physical abuse in football, feeling the fans don't think of the gladiators as humans, but "commodities, entertainment." Football fans will be stunned by his candor about the stiff resistance against gays in the league, the widespread use of painkillers, the racial slurs, the caste system of starters versus backups, the win-at-all cost team attitude, the illegal drugs, and the off-the-field criminal infractions. This wicked football expose, written by an active player who "hates" the sport, is a ticking time bomb.

    • Kirkus

      December 15, 2015
      An inside perspective on professional football from an anonymous NFL rank and filer. "Johnny Anonymous" is the pen name of a current offensive lineman in the National Football League, which he hates. He hates the pseudo-militarist mindset, the overinflated sense of self-importance of almost everyone in the NFL, and the hypocrisy of the league's personal conduct policies. He hates the injuries and the damage the sport does to almost all who play it. He likes the money but recognizes how absurd it is that he earns what he does--never mind the obscene amounts earned by star players. In this book, the author provides a look at a year in the life of a player in the country's most popular sport. His anonymity, which he tries to preserve by changing names and chronology, will likely draw a great deal of attention, and one suspects that savvy journalists and serious fans may be able to figure out who he is or at least draw the noose tighter. It frees him up to speak bluntly about the league without castigating specific individuals, but the anonymity may cut both ways: it makes verifying any of his assertions difficult, and it certainly diminishes the author's accountability. Nonetheless, most observers of the NFL and its occasional descents into folly will find that his account rings true. He writes in a chatty, oftentimes profane conversational style, and he comes across as something of a likable jerk. He states that his goal was to become the "Best NFL Backup Ever," but his plan almost failed when he had to step in as a starting center--a position he, normally a guard, has never played--for several games during the middle of the season. Nonetheless, before long, he was back to the second string. This readable book provides insight into the life of an NFL nonstar, though the author's anonymity proves to be a dual-edged sword.

      COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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