Legends: The Best Players, Games, and Teams in Football

by Howard Bryant

From Lombardi's Packers through Brady and the Patriots, here is the ultimate look at the greatest sporting event in America -- the Super Bowl --  through its greatest quarterbacks, coaches, and highlight-reel plays.

In the second book of the LEGENDS series, ESPN's Howard Bryant delivers THE gridiron guide to the most exciting event in the Super Bowl!

In this day and age, the gridiron reigns supreme. Football is America's most popular sport and the NFL's star players are instant celebrities with die-hard fans who live and die with each win or loss. And our collective obsession with the game begins when we're just kids and culminates each year on what has become the equivalent of a national holiday—Super Bowl Sunday.

Recounting momentous stories of football's past and present, and accompanied by iconic photos, Top Ten Lists to chew on and debate, and a Top 40-style Timeline of Key Moments, this comprehensive collection details twenty of the greatest Super Bowls in NFL history—and expands on their relevance within the larger scope of dynasties, giants of the coaching world, and marquee players making history. From the upsets to the blowouts to the nail-biting finishes, this is the perfect book for young fans eager to kick off their football schooling. “With the LEGENDS series, Howard Bryant brings to life the best that sports has to offer—the heroes, the bitter rivalries, the moments that every sports-loving kid should know.” —Mike Lupica, #1 bestselling author of  Travel Team, Heat,  and  Fantasy League

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Ryan O · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was about some the best Super Bowls and NFL players of all time. I thought this book was really good for people who like football. The author had the New England Patriots v.s. the New York Giants featured a few times. The book also talked about some of the best players such as Emmit Smith, Joe Montana and some others. Some players were supposed to have some better and longer careers such as Walter Payton, and Sean Taylor. This book was really good and it is good for learning more about football.

[Ryan O · Rating 4 out of 5]

Legends: the Best Players, Games, and Teams in Football gave an in depth history on football and how it came to be the game that we love. Legends included many of the iconic, amazing, and historical Superbowls and players.
What I really like about Legends was that the author, Howard Bryant, used so much detail and focused in on the most intense scenes that you could almost see the field and play unfolding right in front of your eyes. After reading one chapter, I was hooked. I always wanted to know what was going to happen in the next Superbowl and what crazy play was next in line to change history. Another thing that I liked was that after every chapter about a Superbowl the author would mention a factor that helped the winning team win. For instance if the Superbowl winning team had had an amazing defense which allowed them to crush their opponent or a stellar running back that carried the team on their back. He then told about 10 other players, defenses, or etc. that also had the same affect on their team.
One thing that I disliked about the novel was that for most Superbowl chapters he repeated the format from other chapters over and over again. He never really did anything different and i would have like to see some changes in the way he wrote his chapters.
I love football and I felt that this book was well put together and really explained football in great detail. I think this is a good book that will spread the passion and love for the sport. I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Carter Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is called Legends: The Best Players, Games, and Teams in Football, by Howard Bryant. The book talks about numerous players and teams from each season in the history of the NFL. The book goes into detail about important players, games, and teams that change the way football is played. I found this book while looking in the school library for nonfiction books.
This book talks about many different things related to football and the NFL. It starts off at the beginning of the NFL, back before the Super Bowl even existed. Then, the book talks about the merging of the NFL, and the younger league, the AFL. From then on, the author talks about a lot of the most important seasons and teams starting from Super Bowl I. He goes to list many of the greatest players to play in the league, players like Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Randy Moss, Tom Brady, all more recent players. However, he goes in depth on each season, not just recently but the older teams as well.
The book ends around the 2000’s. The final chapter talks about a timeline of the key moments in football history, which is pretty helpful to sum everything up. The list has 40 different points in time on it, all of which affected the way football is played. My favorite part of the book, however, might have to be in the area around the 2000’s when players like Tom Brady and Marshawn Lynch played. It’s very entertaining to watch them play on TV and see their highlights on the internet, which it’s fun to learn about them and learn things I never knew before. It’s exciting to read about things that I remember watching and seeing them in the moment.
Overall, this book is a decently good book in general. It’s good for people who don’t just like reading statistics and facts because it explains things in a human way. I haven’t really come across many books like this before because this isn’t my usual type of genre, but I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sports and going deeper than just the game. This was a good book and it’s very enjoyable.

[Landen Schlageter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a 15-year-old student who is currently reading this book for class. My personal thoughts about this book are that I think the book is great for people just getting into the sport of football because it shows the best of the best and shows people who the best players in the world are. I would recommend this book for people my age because a lot of kids my age find football interesting and fun and that's all this book is about. The book is about football and the best players/teams in the world. The book is interesting because you can learn a lot from this book and it's very entertaining to learn about this type of stuff.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very quick, easy to read book that is sure to make the football fans at my high school happy. Each chapter is short and has a Top 10 list. It is full of interesting facts and recaps. There are a few color pictures in the back of the book. The downfall is that it was published in 2015, so most of the players mentioned are too old for the students to know.

[Brogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The way the stories were written and the detail involved in those stories. The content of the book was great and I loved the book and the author's craft and would recommend to any sports reader

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evan gives this 4.5 stars!!

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read!

[Ben Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think that there should be an expansion to all of the 16 super bowls that were not added

[Damarcus Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like football i recommend this book it is good.

[Ben]

The book was about the biggest football game of the year, the super bowl. It talks about the memorable super bowl including upsets, close games, and the best ones. The characters are football legends and coaches including Peyton manning, Tom Brady, Brett favre, Bill belichick, and Bill Walsh. The story shows how football has grown and changed over the years. “Today, a thirty-second television commercial cost nearly $2.5 million. In 1967, the cost was $42,000. The game was televised on both NBC and CBS. Today, cable and broadcast channels pay billions of dollars to take turns televising the event.”

I enjoyed the book because I like the NFL, football, and understanding the game. Someone who doesn't know much about football would not like the book. I learned about some of the older super bowl games, the players, and the couches in these games.

I would rate the book a four. It was interesting to learn about the older legends and comparing them to the players today. The book was easy to read and follow.

[Adrian Winterton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts with how everything began in football and continues to tell how everything changed. This book also tells about all the great moments in the leagues history.

[Ben Comey]

“Legends,The best players,games,and teams in Football" is a non-fiction book by Howard Bryant.This book interested me because I really love football since the football season has started.So,I read this book.I like how He put a little top 10 about something after every game.He also wrote about the Super Bowls from the first one (Green Bay Packers Vs Kansas City Chiefs) to Super Bowl 49 (Seattle Seahawks Vs New England Patriots).It’s cool to learn about them because i didn’t watch any of them before 2012.The most interesting super in the book in my opinion is Super XLII, New York Giants Vs New England Patriots.The Patriots were coming in the Super Bowl with a perfect season of 16-0 in the regular season and 2-0 in the playoffs.So,they were a full record of 18-0.The giants on the other hand were 10-6 and were a wild card team.Throughout the game it was mostly defense as the halftime score was 7-3 patriots.The Giants were doing extremely well on defense.The patriots were scoring 30 points 13 out of 18 games so people were shocked.The 3rd quarter was held to no scoring just as the Giants wanted.On the first drive of the 4th for the Giants they ended up scoring on a 5 yard touchdown pass to David Tyree.The Giants were leading 10-7 as the Patriots got the ball back on their own 20 yard line with 7:54 minutes left.Brady kept striking as he went to Welker,then Moss,then Welker again,Faulk,Welker,Moss,then Welker again.Then they were at the giants 6 yard line.Two plays later Tom Brady threw a touchdown pass to Randy Moss as the Patriots led 14-10.Now 2 minutes and 42 seconds left in the game Manning took the ball at the 17 yard line,83 yards away from a touchdown.After a 9 yard catch on 3rd and 10,it was 4th and 1.The Giants got the first down on a 2 yard run by Brandon Jacobs.On third and five Manning broke a tackle and threw a pass to the middle of the field.It looked like Rodney Harrison had him covered so he put the ball between his right hand and his helmet,he made a helmet catch! Forty-Five seconds left.1st down,Manning looked for Burres who was wide open in the end zone,Touchdown Giants! The Patriots chance of having a perfect season was ended as the Giants won the super bowl.That was my favorite game in the book.I had to adjust to the book because this is a non-fiction book.I have to adjust because non-fiction books are very different from fiction books.I read more fiction books but,I enjoy Non-fiction more.This book was great but,there was some things that the author could improve on.The first thing that Howard Bryant could’ve improved was putting the stats of players in the game I just read.That would be more interesting and make the book better.The other thing would be to show the scores of all the games in the regular season of both teams that made that Super Bowl.I recommend this book if you love football because it’s good facts about Super Bowls and isn’t boring.

[Jarrin]

Very good book if you like football.