The Game's Not Over: In Defense of Football

by Gregg Easterbrook

Is there anything more universally American than NFL football?

Love of the NFL runs deep and broad. It is a primetime TV event on multiple national networks, subsidized by public funds and popular from Mount Rainier to Miami Beach. The 2015 Super Bowl, a thriller between the Patriots and Seahawks, was the most-watched program in the history of television, with more than a third of the country watching.

Yet football is in trouble. Public anxiety over football spiked in 2014 during the heat of the Ray Rice domestic violence scandal, the ongoing concussion crisis and the league's appropriations of tax money for its own ends. The mounting problems have led some to question the ethics of watching America's beloved game.

In this sharply argued, witty, observant book, Gregg Easterbrook makes a spirited case in defense of the NFL. As he shows, the league brings together Americans of all stripes, providing a rare space to talk about what matters. Indeed, the various issues we see in the league are often microcosms of the ones we see elsewhere, whether it's suspicion of the rich, or gender politics or even concern over bullying. The NFL's social, economic and legal problems are real, but they also produce some of our best and most valuable discussions of those issues. Football is a magnificent incarnation of our national character. It has many flaws, and they need fixing -- but the game's not over.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published December 8, 2015

About the author

I was born in Buffalo, New York and have lived there plus Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Colorado, Pakistan and Washington, D.C. My wife is a State Department official, which accounts for the globe-trotting. We have three children, boys born in 1989 and 1995 and a girl born in 1990.

I’ve published three literary novels, nine nonfiction books, with a tenth nonfiction book coming September 2021. The nonfiction is all over the map – economics, theology, psychological, environmental policy. If I had my writing career to do over again, I suppose I would have focused on a single genre, which makes commercial success more likely. Then again, I’ve always written about whatever was on my mind, and feel fortunate to have had that opportunity.

I am proud of my novels, which have gotten great reviews but not otherwise been noticed by the world. I hope someday that will change. Novel #4 is completed for 2022 publication.

I have been associated with The Atlantic Monthly as a staff writer, national correspondent or contributing editor. I have also written extensively for the Washington Monthly, the New Republic, the New York Times, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times.

My quirky football-and-society column Tuesday Morning Quarterback is on hiatus after an 18-year run. I may revive TMQ in the future. Right now the Internet environment is too toxic for any form of quality writing. I have retreated to books. Which is a good place to be!

Reviews

[Kifflie · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, first of all, the title of the actual book is The Game's Not Over: In Defense of Football. But I suppose both titles apply. Easterbrook spends some time defending the game and some time criticizing it (most of his criticisms are for the corporate behemoth that is the NFL).

For football geeks like me, there are some cool strategic suggestions (his chapter on why more teams should go for it on fourth down is a real eye-opener). Also, I really liked his recommendations on forbidding kids to play tackle football until they're at least in middle school.

For those wanting to end the era of big companies chowing down at the government trough, there's something here as well. Really, the privileges that the NFL has are obscene, especially when it means that joe and Jill Everyfan are consistently priced out of being able to see their favorite team in a stadium.

A breezy read, but I would have liked even more -- and the snarky footnotes got a bit tiring after a while.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to describe. Although the subtitle is "a defense of football," the book is more of an analysis of professional football's place in society than anything else. This includes the good aspects (primarily the excellent quality of the games themselves and the intricate strategy involved), as well as many criticisms, including head injuries, domestic violence committed by players, and the use of public funds to support billionaires through stadium initiatives.

Easterbrook provides many examples and suggested improvements or reforms, some of which make more sense than others. While many of the issues are familiar to even casual fans, Easterbrook makes a more thoughtful analysis of them than you get from the shouting matches on ESPN's various shows.

It's not a long read, and Easterbrook fills the book out substantially with long-running items from his excellent Tuesday Morning Quarterback column. If you've read many of these columns, as I have, there seems to be a lot of recycled material in the book, but if this is the first time you've read anything by Easterbrook about football, you'll probably be encouraged to check out TMQ for its balanced takes and insight into game strategy and tactics.

[Chalupa Batman · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting tidbits and observations. But, some observations I disagreed with, specifically when it comes to injuries. Focus is on CTE, but there are other injuries that need to be considered to show how dangerous is the sport, something that was not even mentioned. You don't have to be an NFL player to experience long term injuries or criticize Obama for not wanting his son (if he had one) to play the sport. Overall, his underlying thesis is that the NFL is a reflection of society, in some cases it does hold water. I did think the poems in the end were a little cheesy. However, the section on punting was dead on.

[Lance Cahill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard book to place as it is a collection of random observations of football (not a defense per se). The analysis and observations are interesting at times, but some of the points are somewhat threadbare and subject to what I'll call the Lucas Critique of football strategy (a given strategy will not be effective as initially thought due to the responses of other actors).

The latter half of the book prevented me from giving it a 2 star rating. The writing is excellent but a reference section would have nice for studies cited by the author, especially in reference to public subsidies for NFL stadiums and prevalence of harm in youth sports.