Leibovich can really fucking write. This is obvious, but can't be overstated, because the NFL is a league fuelled by marketing doublespeak and rah-rah platitudes, and even with the kind of access Leibovich gets to write the pages that became this book, a lesser writer would struggle to make it captivating.

For diehards, this book isn't filled with revelations that will surprise them, but the devil's in the details. You know Jerry Jones drinks like a fish, slamming 24oz. cups of straight Johnny Walker. But did you know about his former habit of ejaculating into shoes? You know that Roger Goodell is a brainless boob, a punching bag for the owners, players and President alike, but you'll still stay to read about him fumbling and fuming over the NFL's near-busted iPhone app.

At times, this book feels without aim. At disparate points, it could be about team relocation, Colin Kaepernick's protests, Tom Brady's TB12 Shyster-ism or the NFL's proclivity for playing off brain trauma. Narratives do weave throughout -- Leibovich's Patriots demand the most attention -- but in the end, much like the NFL's own ambiguous statements, it all boils down to the shield. And y'all? That shit is starting to crack, and Leibovich managed to get a lot of it on record. In fact, his unwillingness to let interviews go off the record is what makes this, in spite of its occasional aimlessness, a must-read for football fans trying to come to terms with their fandom of a brain-breaking game.

This book was short, written in an entertaining way, and fun to read. However, I feel like I didn't learn that much that I didn't already know. There were no bombshells of things I had never heard about. I guess that's what happens when you write about something that's already so heavily scrutinized. If anything, it just put everything I already knew about into a neat package in one spot.

I'm in the process of trying to wean myself off football, and I figured reading this book would do to football what "Eating animals" did to meat. However, they were not on the same scale.

This is an interesting, amusing read if you are a football fan but kind of hate it, otherwise, no deep truths are uncovered to make reading this book worth it.

Decent enough overview of a rough year in the second best sport in America (Baseball fan here!). Leiboch has a pithy, sarcastic and occasionally smarmy delivery and nothing here is particularly new but it is a quick read and entertaining enough. He mostly follows Tom Brady and the Patriots and if you did not like them before, you ain't gonna like 'em any better after reading this.

Mark Leibovich is just a pleasure. This book is basically a long, romping magazine story about the NFL. You learn little that did you didn't already know, but it's a pleasure to be reminded about things you read about in less entertaining forms elsewhere, and what you do learn (like what Jerry Jones talks about while piss drunk in his trailer, or what it sounds like to hear Tom Brady and Gisele bicker) is just the best. Leibovich refers to the time he spend obsessing over Deflategate as "a dark period in my annals of time management" and describes a rough press conference Tom Brady gave on the subject as the "GOAT-to-slaughter press conference."

Here's one enjoyable passage, pretty characteristic of what could be pulled from every other page in the book:
Network cameras focus on the bespoke Caligulas in their owner’s boxes at least once a game. This is a strange NFL custom. We as viewers must always be favored with reaction shots from the owner’s box — their awkward high fives and crestfallen stares. It is as if we could never fully appreciate what we’ve seen on the field unless we also witness its real-time impact upon the presiding plutocrats. The human toll! Do owners in any other sport receive this much TV time during games? Maybe horse racing. There is something distinctly Roman about this.

I'm giving this one just three stars because I didn't walk away with much better understanding of the NFL or the issues it faces, but instead just a really good illustration of the absurdity of the institution.

I listened to this on audiobook, and while it was propulsive, it covered a lot of ground I had already paid a lot of attention to. While it doesn't resists conclusions and I couldn't pick up on a clear thesis, it works well as a character sketch.

I was very interested in reading this book since I am a Brazilian American and I wanted to know more about the NFL. Reading this book I learnt a lot about the Shield and how tight the connections between people of big money (NFL billionaire owners who happen to be heirs of big companies as well) and the Republican Party are, as well as their vanities and efforts to cover up the current health issues players are facing with CTE.

My issue with the book is that it doesn't have a plot - it seems like Mark Leibovich put together a series of stories he gathered by talking to the owners and hanging around the people from the NFL and in the end, he tries to tie everything together to make sense of the title. I would like to have more of a cohesive story, even though I did find some of the gossips entertaining.

This book didn't quite work for me, despite how excited I was to read it after hearing Leibovich interviewed about it on the radio.... I follow football not particularly closely, probably really watch ten or so pro games a year and still, there was very little in this that I didn't know before. I regularly felt like Leibowich was reporting on what the headlines said in place of doing new reporting. Which is weird, because there is a lot of first person stuff here, as he goes to the draft, big owner meetings, has lots of interviews, etc. But none of it really amounts to much. I sort of understand, this book is meant to track a fan's journey through these difficult times for the league, even if that fan has unusual levels of access. But for me, it never came together into something larger or went deep enough to show me something I didn't know. I really wanted to like this book, but came away nonplussed.

Interesting look inside the messy world of the NFL, with a lot about Roger Goodell and Tom Brady.

If you would like to never look at football the same way again, here’s your chance. I heard Mark at an author Q&A with David Maraniss asking him great questions, a forum that piqued my interest about this book and Mark’s unprecedented look behind the curtain and into the NFL’s privileged places like Jerry Jones’ private bus replete with alcohol at the ready. Although the ga-billionaire owners were incensed at what Mark wrote after giving him access to their world, his journalism gives the public an important look at the machinery of the NFL. He goes big too, covering everything from the owners’ political donations to the industry’s inherent racism to the publicly-funded stadiums for billionaire team owners to the commissioner’s real job. I’m still a fan, but the blinders have been replaced by a lump in my throat.