Quarterback: Inside the Most Important Position in the National Football League

by John Feinstein

A major new book from #1 New York Times bestseller and sports-writing legend John Feinstein, QUARTERBACK dives deep into the most coveted and hallowed position in the NFL - exploring the stories of five top quarterbacks and taking readers inside their unique experiences of playing the position and holding the keys to their multi-billion-dollar teams.

In the mighty National Football League, one player becomes the face of a franchise, one player receives all the accolades and all the blame, and one player's hand will guide the rise or fall of an entire team's season - and the dreams of millions of fans. There are thirty-two starting quarterbacks in the NFL on any given Sunday, and their lives are built around pressure, stardom, and incredible talent. Legendary bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein, in his most insightful book yet, shows readers what it's really like to play the glory position and to live that life - mapping out a journey that runs from college stardom to the NFL draft to taking command of the huddle and marching a team down the field with a nation of fans cheering.

Feinstein builds his profile around five NFL starting quarterbacks - Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Doug Williams. With incredible inside access, we get the full quarterback experience...being drafted #1 overall, pushing through grueling injuries, winning Super Bowls, being named a starter on multiple teams, being the first African American QB to lead a franchise to a title. Feinstein shows us exactly what it's like in the locker room, huddle, heat of battle, and press conferences, through spectacular moments and embarrassing defeats. He explores the controversies of a league embroiled in questions of substance abuse and racism, TV revenue, corporate greed, and the value placed on player health. And in the end, Feinstein addresses the ways in which each quarterback - some just a year out of college -- is handed the keys to a franchise worth billions of dollars, and how each team's fortunes ride directly on the shoulders of its QB. This is Feinstein's most fascinating behind-the-scenes book.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Football, Audiobook, Biography

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 2018

About the author

John Feinstein was an American sportswriter, author, and sports commentator.

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in a house that loves football. Some of my favorite fall memories growing up were watching the Baltimore Colts on Sundays with my family. I wasn't lucky enough to see the great Johnny Unitas play, he was before my time, so I listened to my Grandfather, Dad and Mom relive the games of yesteryear. They told me of their favorite Unitas to Berry catches and of all the victory stories. It always started with "the greatest quarterback to have ever played" stole another victory for the Baltimore Colts.
In my house, Johnny Unitas, the quarterback, was revered. After that fateful night when the Mayflower moving fans took my team away, The Baltimore Colts, ceased to exist. Football games were different as we now watched the games and instead on one team, we watched players and found some favorites to cheer for. Now the stories revolved around great players like Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Steve Young, John Elway, and Peyton Manning.
The quarterback is one of those people that can single-handily change the game sometimes with just one play or the brilliant two minute drive down the field that the greats make look so effortless. Also, what football fan hasn't daydreamed of throwing that perfect spiral 50 yards into the end zone for that Superbowl winning touchdown catch like the famous Montana to Clark or getting to hoist the Lombardi trophy in a sea of confetti like Tom Brady has done 5 times now.
I was excited to read John Feinstein's new book, Quarterback, with a subject that I love and a chance to get an inside look of the men who have that job. He takes an in depth look into the hallowed position and what it means to be part of the exclusive club of 32.
Feinstein profiles five starting quarterbacks in the NFL; Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Ryan Fitzpatrick and retired great Doug Williams. He gives the reader insight into not only their day to day lives but their journey to the NFL. The author tackles the business side of the NFL and reminds us that ultimately the NFL is a business and life isn't always fair even to men at the top of their profession.
Spending time with each, we get to see the highs and lows of a quarterbacks life. We learn that just like in all of our lives, it's not always the big moments that mean the most because ultimately all 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL are human beings first.
If you love sports, especially football, then this book is a must read. If you aren't a lover of sports, "Quarterback", is an interesting look into the mindset of individuals that are at the top of their profession. "When it's all said and done, that-more than anything-is what quarterbacks have to do. They all go down. It's the ones who get up who achieve greatness."
I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley. #Netgalley #Quarterback

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been watching NFL football since I was 5 years old. I've been reading John Feinstein in the WashingtonPost and listening to his interviews on NPR since I was 20 or so. So ... in the interest of full disclosure, I am the ideal reader for Quarterback and I expect that any other long-time US pro football fan would find it a superb read.

Feinstein's purpose is to cover what it's like to be employed at the most high-profile position in the NFL, whether you're a journeyman quarterback or a number one draft pick out of college. To do so, he focuses on five NFL starting quarterbacks - Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, and Ryan Fitzpatrick - along with Doug Williams, currently Senior Vice President of Player Personnel for the NFL team based in Washington D.C., and Super Bowl XXII MVP as the starting quarterback for that same team, back in the day.

Feinstein skilfully weaves individual game stories - including at times extensive play-by-play details - with injuries, career trajectories, coaching changes, draft picks and rankings measured against career success, luck and he doesn't dodge race (the decades-long habit of execs to persuade talented black athletes playing quarterback successfully at the college level that they should shift to running back in the pros; Kaepernick's continued unemployment which makes no sports sense), either, although it's not a primary focus of Quarterback by any means. He's a fine story-teller and his skill in shifting from one player to another and one season to another is demonstrated time and again. In another author's hands, those same shifts could have been confusing and could also have lost readers devoted only to one or another of the five quarterbacks.

Quarterback is not a 5-star book, but 4 because it should have been trimmed by 50 - 75 pages. This is Feinstein's 40th book and the respect the publisher and his editor have for him and his consistent book sales show up in the slight bloat that emerges in the last third of the book. I wasn't once tempted to abandon it - it's far too good for that - but I did start checking how many pages were left as I crossed the 300 page threshhold, and I suspect that this one fact explains the unfairly low average ratings on GoodReads. This book is strong, but solely for those devoted to its topic, the NFL, and if the devoted start skimming some of the descriptions of individual plays and games late in its pages, they shouldn't feel any guilt.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for sharing a free e-copy.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really thought I was going to like this book, especially because it features stories about my favorite QB (Andrew Luck). However, the piece is basically just a play-by-play breakdown of the 2017 season with annoying and distracting political digressions and snide remarks about the NFL. I do not believe that the promise of the subtitle was fulfilled.

[Don Gorman · Rating 1 out of 5]

(1 1/2). I used to be entranced by John "Junior" Feinstein's books. I feel that he has dropped off the map and this book certainly helps me understand why. There is a little bit of interesting back story information here, but mostly it is almost a play by play of the 2017 season for the five quarterbacks he has featured. Boring barely describes it. Some of his earlier works were outstanding but Feinstein needs to find a little more interesting subject matter to deal with. For super serious NFL nuts only.

[Chris Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing read, really. It is basically a series of play-by-plays about regular season games from a few years ago. I’d really hoped for more off-field, behind-the-scenes insights into the life of an NFL quarterback. Really, though, anyone with a few media guides and access to Google could have written this. I seriously am not even sure if he interviewed the five QB’s featured (except Luck - seems to have clearly had an interview with him).

It almost seemed like he went to his publisher and wanted to write about Kaepernick but the publisher said no. So instead, he just starts stitching boxscores together.

If there were half stars, it’d get 2.5.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

No position or player in any sport is considered as responsible for his team’s success or failure as the quarterback for a National Football League (NFL) team. His every move and every action taken by a team regarding its quarterbacks is scrutinized, analyzed and debated in the media. These men, especially those who are the starting quarterbacks for each team, are heard in numerous interviews and press conferences every day. The lives lived by NFL quarterbacks, from stars to journeymen, are chronicled in this book by award-winning sportswriter John Feinstein.

Five quarterbacks – four currently playing and one retired quarterback who currently works in the front office of the Washington Redskins – are profiled and each of them has a different story. Alex Smith entered the league as the #1 pick in the draft by the San Francisco 49ers and has had both great moments and low points. He is currently starting for the Washington Redskins after enjoying his best seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs. He was signed by Doug Williams, the former Redskins quarterback who became the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, leading Washington to victory in Super Bowl XXII. Williams is included in the book not so much because of his current job with Washington, but to illustrate what it was like during his playing career to be a black quarterback. At that time, many black quarterbacks were considered to not possess every skill needed to excel at the position.

The other three quarterbacks all have other interesting stories of their own. Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has been primarily a back-up but because of the “Fitzpatrick jinx” that seems to affect the starter for every team that signs Fitzpatrick, he gets his chances to start and he performs well enough that he has enjoyed a sixteen year career in the NFL – not bad for a kid from Harvard. Joe Flacco tasted early success when he led the Baltimore Ravens to victory in Super Bowl XLVII and while he and the Ravens haven’t been able to match that season, they have been perennial playoff contenders and his story, more than any other, illustrates how the quarterback will get an inordinate amount of credit when the team does well and blame when the team doesn’t perform well. The last quarterback featured in the book, Andrew Luck, has had injury problems that has forced him to miss most of the last two seasons and his story is as much one of perseverance in order to get back into the game as well as that illustrated by Smith and Flacco of the ups and downs of actually playing the game.

There is plenty of discussion about the position as a whole in the league as well, with names from Aaron Rodgers to Johnny Manziel to Colin Kaepernick getting mentioned. The insight provided to the reader in the locker room, on the field, in the draft “war room” and the front office when it comes to the quarterback position is excellent, which is typical for a book by Feinstein. He also isn’t afraid to share his opinions on topics such as Kaepernick’s protests, the response by politicians and the plight of black quarterbacks yesterday and today. This may turn some readers off, but it does reflect the opinion of the author and is relevant to the subject of the book, so it doesn’t detract from the main topic. The book is not a quick read as it will require concentration to absorb all the information presented. This is a different style than other books by this author that I have read but this too is fine given this topic and the message presented.

Fans of Feinstein and the NFL will enjoy this book on quarterbacks who have had various amounts of success and stardom in their careers. It is recommended for these readers.

I wish to thank Doubleday Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a disaster of organization. Here's what the book's organization feels like: Imagine if you will an author writes down a bunch of ideas of things he wants to cover in a book. He takes a bunch of index cards and writes one idea on each card. Then he takes his stack of cards, and throws them up in the air - and the order they land in determines the book's organization.

OK, that isn't really fair. The book isn't that badly organized - there is a loose chronological focus of the book. But lordy - it is poorly organized.

Feinstein's goal is to look at the QB position, and to that end he interviews five QBs: young star Andrew Luck, veteran starters Joe Flacco and Alex Smith, journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick, and rather oddly the long retired Doug Williams. The Williams stuff doesn't flow that well with the rest. Feinstein says in the intro that he wanted to get six QBs and wanted at least one minority QB - I guess he had trouble getting enough people willing to sit down with him.

The book largely tells the story of these QBs during the 2017 season (as well as a lot on them prior to 2017). So it's loosely chronological, but it keeps jumping around. I'll give one example: At one point we're told that the Chiefs started out 4-0, and were the last undefeated team in the NFL. Then, a few chapters later, Feinstein discusses how the Chiefs are 3-0, and then gives a multi-page recap of their fourth game. In and of itself, it's not a big deal - but this sort of thing keeps happening. He'll bounce around from there to here, and there really isn't any clear sense why he's jumping around. (Why not put the Chiefs's 4th game earlier?) For that matter, the book often repeats information previously shared - but it's not a reference back to older info. It reads like Feinstein forgot he already told you this stuff.

I get what Feinstein's trying to do: A lot of books have a loosely chronological structure, where you focus on themes or people more than a straight timeline. OK, that's what Feinstein's trying to do. Well, he's doing a really bad job of it.

You see, also muddling up this book but good is how short the chapters are - and how those chapters themselves are organized. You get 28 chapters over 334 pages - 12 pages per chapter. Each is pretty short. OK, that's fine - it can help an author focus on one particular theme then move onto the next one. But that ain't how Feinstein does it. Each chapter itself has 3-4 different topics. You'll get 3 pages on Alex Smith, then 2 pages on Ryan Fitzpatrick, then a few pages on some completely different QB (Kirk Cousins comes up a lot) then a few pages about some other league issue. Feinstein never talks about any issue for longer than three pages in this book. He's just constantly jumping around. So there's no sense of momentum or building or narrative. It's a bunch of nibs and nubs. It's a bunch of parts, never forming a sum total. This is why it's so frustrating when one chapter goes back in time prior to where Feinstein had been 40 pages earlier. You don't feel like there was any reason for the chronology to skip because you're not getting any themes or ideas or ... anything. It's just a haphazard pile of index cards throw together in little order.

Aside from the organizational matters, the book has another big problem: it doesn't really tell you anything new. It's just some reheated stuff about QBs. OK, there are some interviews, but they are also pretty generic. Ultimately, Feinstein has some interviews and game recaps, but he doesn't have any insights or points to share.

I gave this review three stars - but writing this review, I've talked myself into changing it to two stars. I'll say this for the book: it reads easy. But it's all empty calories.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve read and enjoyed many Feinstein books and football is my favorite sport, so I was excited to jump in. I was beyond bored most of the time, with moments of irritation at his political snarking flaring up. I’m at the halfway point and giving up. There are too many good books out there waiting for my time. I agree with other reviewers that the whole book seems lazily put together. There are lots of game recaps with little actual insight into the QB position. I don’t know how he managed to make the most exciting game on earth boring, but he did.

[Paul Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a long-time reader of anything Feinstein, it’s sad to encounter the laziest work I’ve ever seen from him. The setup is compelling - an inside look at an NFL QB through the lens of 4 different current QBs (Luck, Flacco, Fitzpatrick, and Smith). The execution is pedestrian - the vast majority of the book is simply a recap of game action, week by week, in an NFL season. Could’ve been written by a computer algorithm mining the wire services. John, we still love you, but please put that old spark of creativity into the next one.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some interesting information about the lives of NFL QBs and how hard a job it is. As an Eagles fan it was also fun to relive their run a little bit. I gave it there stars because primarily it seemed to just recap the 2017 season. Since I closely followed that season as I do all seasons there wasn't a whole lot of new information.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really thought that I'd like to read about the inner workings of NFL quarterbacks: the high school successes, the rigid training routines, the college training and successes, and the other other intangibles that set some athletes apart. Unfortunately, this book was more a series of game recaps. (I did like reading more about Ryan Fitzpatrick's NFL career, though)

[Sharman Bingham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for any fan of football that wants an in-depth look at the most important position on an NFL team. For my money, there is no better sports journalist than John Feinstein. If you can, listen to the audiobook; he reads it, and lends a sly, insiders nuance to his narration.

[Ben Denison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a lot of information, but felt more like a kids book report. I expected more out of John Feinstein.

[Dan Cotter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book that takes a look at the QB position but also the NFL.

[John Detrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

I have read every book John Feinstein has written . Feinstein has a knack for picking very interesting topics for his books. Feinstein takes a deep dive into the lives of NFL quarterbacks. What I liked most about the book was how he humanized the players and got us into their heads. I have much more respect for these quarterbacks thanks to this book. Excellent read.

[Alva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Based on the title of this book, I though that I would learn about the mindset of an NFL quarterback. Feinstein wasted too many chapters recapping the 2017 season.

[Kyle McChesney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pure money grab by Feinstein. Don't waste your time with this...

[Allen Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.themaineedge.com/sports/d...

The NFL is America’s sport. Football is as close to monocultural as it gets these days; even in a world with nigh-unlimited options available for our entertainment, a lot of us choose football. It is shared culture and it is BIG business.

These teams, these billion-dollar entities – their on-field well-being is placed in the hands of a single man. What kind of person is capable of being all things to all (or at least most) people, in the pocket and in the studio? What kind of person is capable of being a quarterback?

That’s what author John Feinstein wants to tell us in his new book “Quarterback: Inside the Most Important Position in the National Football League.” He takes a deep dive into the realities of the position – what it means to play at an NFL level, of course, but also what goes into dealing with the pressures of being THE guy, the one who gets credit for the wins, yes, but also takes the blame for the losses.

To do that, he profiles five men who understand precisely what it means to be the QB; four still-active players – Andrew Luck, Alex Smith, Joe Flacco and Ryan Fitzpatrick – and the retired Doug Williams. Given tremendous access, Feinstein walks us through the world of the NFL starting quarterback, the journey that leads to being one of the chosen 32.

These are guys who run the gamut of the QB experience. You have a pair of number-one picks – Smith and Luck – whose careers took very different paths, and then you’ve got someone like Ryan Fitzpatrick, a late-round draftee out of Harvard who has survived and occasionally thrived in the league. You’ve got players like Flacco and Williams who can talk about what it means as a QB to take your team to the pinnacle, a Super Bowl victory. The highs of big wins, the lows of injury and ineffectiveness – it’s all there.

There’s an on-field perspective here that you don’t often get from the written word. Through these conversations, Feinstein has found a way to capture what it FEELS like – what it’s like to be standing in the huddle, to take the snap, to throw passes and take hits, to lead your team to a last-minute victory. It’s a view of the game from their perspective; engagingly capturing that perspective is one of Feinstein’s greatest talents.

But the life of the NFL starting quarterback is far more than what happens on the field. We’re also given the chance to follow these men through what happens after the game. We see the responsibilities they carry with regards to the media – the locker room interviews, the press conferences, all of it. They are the public face of success or failure; they’re the ones who must humbly acknowledge the wins and stoically accept blame for the losses.

And then there’s the even bleaker side. The assorted health crises caused by the game’s violence – substance abuse and CTE. The reality of racism and the NFL’s newly-acquired politically-charged nature. Reckoning with the very real long-term consequences of playing this game.

It’s tough to say who comes off as the star of the books – all five men have their moments. Each story is different, which is to say that there’s no one correct way to become an NFL quarterback. All you have to do is avoid all the wrong ones and there you’ll be. Whether we’re learning about Luck’s struggle with an injured shoulder or the ramifications of Fitzpatrick’s journeyman team-swapping, about Smith getting booted from the driver’s seat just as his 49ers were on the verge of a Super Bowl championship (the same one ultimately won by Flacco and his Ravens) or Williams becoming the first African-American QB to win it all, the journeys undertaken by each of these men are worth exploring. Particularly when they’re rendered with this degree of compelling clarity.

“Quarterback” is as good a behind-the-scenes sports book as you’re likely to find. Feinstein has always been a masterful sports storyteller; what he’s spun together here holds up alongside his best. It’s a captivating deep dive, with the participants choosing to be a good deal more forthcoming than you might expect. There’s a great deal of honesty throughout this book that is refreshing; the nature of the job is such that you have to remain guarded with what you say and to whom. It’s clear that some trust was earned, which in turn leads to genuine depth.

Any fan of the NFL and/or the intricacies of football really should check this book out; it’s smart without being pretentious and informative without being dry. If you have any interest in what it means to be a quarterback, then you need to read “Quarterback.”

[Nestor Rychtyckyj · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a life-long Lions fan I appreciate the fact that that the QB is the most important position in the NFL and hope that Matt Stafford is that guy. Everybody else outside of New England, Green Bay, New Orleans and a couple of other teams hopes that their QB will be the guy. John Feinstein has take on the NFL with this book by focusing on the lives and careers of 5 NFL quarterbacks (including the retired Doug Williams) through the 2017 season. Joe Flacco, Andrew Luck, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Alex Smith provide a glimpse of what it means to play QB in the NFL.

If you're a football fan, you know pretty much how the 2017 season went and are familiar with the careers of these players. You're not going to learn much here about their playoff successes or failures, but you will find out how they deal with the pressure and stress (mental and physical) of being the most important person for their NFL franchise. Luck, Smith and Flacco were high daft picks who succeeded, but Fitzpatrick is really the most intriguing of the group. He played at Harvard, was drafted 250th and managed to build a solid career while bouncing himself and his family around the league with seven different franchises and the creator of the "Fitzpatrick curse". If Ryan Fitzpatrick was your backup QB - it was virtually certain that your starting QB would get hurt.

Doug Williams was, of course, the QB of the Redskins that led them to a Super Bowl championship and was the first African-American QB to do so. He is now director of player personnel for Washington whose job it is to find a QB and has a much different perspective on today's NFL.

For me the book was mostly enjoyable, but Feinstein keeps jumping around between the different players which makes it hard to follow. Other teams and story lines also meander in and out with the main point being that you can't win consistently without a great QB and losing your QB to injury usually leads to disaster (Nick Foles being an exception). Of course, this is obvious to anybody who follows football or has even tried to play fantasy football.

Feinstein also has some strong personal beliefs that he cannot resist adding into the book. If he doesn't like the nickname of the Redskins - fine, but trying to write a book about a QB that played for that team and is now an executive without using the team name comes off as pretty convoluted to read. He champions Kaepernick quite a bit so maybe he should have been included. Feinstein is right in the fact that there is no job security in the NFL. Since the book was published a couple of months ago it's almost certain that Flacco will be traded away and Alex Smith has suffered a horrendous injury that may have ended his career.

Overall, a decent book, but I much prefer Feinstein's books about golf or basketball.

[Steve Chanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy good sportswriting, as I do, Feinstein is one of the best currently working. His nonfiction golf book from the ’90s, A Good Walk Spoiled is on my short list of favorite sports books.

These days, I mostly follow professional football and hockey, so I was thrilled that Feinstein had recently released a book about football covering the 2017 season. The book follows a number of different quarterbacks in the NFL—not necessarily megastars such as Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, or Drew Brees (though he touches on them when it suits the narrative)—but players with interesting stories to tell. Feinstein mostly focuses on the likes of Alex Smith, in a transition year and in the last year with his team; Colts’ face of the franchise Andrew Luck, out for the season and rehabbing a very serious arm injury; Joe Flacco, a former Super Bowl MVP and briefly the highest paid player in the league, facing a challenging year and criticism for his team’s inconsistent performance; 250th overall pick in the 2005 draft, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who’s exceeded his and others’ expectations by carving out a long career as a backup and more-than-occasional starter; and former player Doug Williams, the first starting African-American quarterback to lead his team to a Super Bowl victory.

The prose is breezy but doesn’t insult the intelligence. (Feinstein never, for example, like many sports prognosticators, uses the word “ball” as a verb, something only an old blues artist should have the license to do—and only in the bawdiest sense of the word.) The book doesn’t quite achieve momentous status, perhaps because his subjects, apart from Fitzpatrick, are not very colorful personalities and nothing truly earth shattering happens to them. But the writing is on par with most of Feinstein’s work in the past, and Quarterback is a quick read with more than a little heart and substance. Now if only he would take on a hockey book; there are so few of them out there that do justice to the sport. But I’d settle for another great football or golf book.

I should mention I was provided with a free copy of this book by the publisher as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

[Jerel · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Feinstein is my favorite sports writer, and "A Season on the Brink" and "A Good Walk Spoiled" are two of my favorite all-time sports reads. His latest book profiles five starting quarterbacks in the NFL: Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and retired Super Bowl champion with the Redskins, Doug Williams. Williams is currently Senior Vice President of Player Personnel for the Redskins, so he has a lot of insight in both the mindset of playing the position and how things operate behind the scenes in player acquisition.

We spend time with each quarterback, learning how they entered the NFL, their family lives, and much more. Each of these particular QB's offer a different aspect of what it's like to be the de facto leader of the team on offense, and we learn this through individual game stories, concentrated mostly on the 2017 season. It is somewhat odd that he picked Williams to focus on race in the NFL, as we now have so many Black QB's with Brisset, Jackson, Wilson, Winston, Bridgewater, and Mahomes. Nevertheless, there are some great revelations.

Feinstein is a great storyteller, but the style that he uses in this book is rather disjointed as he jumps around from player to player and various time periods. It is not chronological or linear, but the information dispensed and insight gained from these QB's perspectives is worth the read for me. I have always been amazed at Fitzpatrick, as he has always been a "back-up" QB in case the starter gets injured. But, the "Fitzpatrick jinx" has occurred so many times where as soon as he joins a team the starter goes down, and he becomes the starting QB for long periods. It is also rather telling in that so many unexpected things have happened to a few of these men since the book was written. Luck retired totally unexpectedly, Smith had a career-ending injury, and Flacco just had a herniated disc diagnosed.

Fans of Feinstein will certainly enjoy this book, and I recommend it to anyone who loves sports and getting inside the head of players who occupy the most prestigious and important positions in sports.

[David Longo · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Feinstein's "Quarterback" is a light and easy read, akin to a very long sports article in, say, ESPN Magazine. Feinstein's forte is golf. He's a reasonable facsimile of Peter King when it comes to football. That's not a bad thing. Yet Feinstein isn't going to win a Pulitzer for his gridiron commentary.

"Quarterback" chronicles five current or former NFL signal callers: Alex Smith, Joe Flacco, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andrew Luck and Doug Williams. Other QBs get a sniff as well, such as Kirk Cousins, Robert Griffin III, Colin Kaepernick, Case Keenum, Nick Foles and more. Feinstein explores their careers---highlights and lowlights---and takes the reader through some memorable games along the way.

"Quarterback" isn't particularly deep or insightful, even if the jacket cover claims to be. It doesn't much discuss defenses, audibles, split second decision making, offensive lineman, nerves, travel, etc. It's more about the draft, trades, impact upon the family and injuries. It's not bad. I thought I would learn a lot more about a quarterback's insight than I would. Instead I got a recap of last season's Super Bowl and some other playoff games that occurred over the past decade or so . In this sense there was some disappointment.

"A Good Walk Spoiled" was Feinstein's masterpiece. That book is about 25 years old. It's chronicles in terrific detail life on the PGA Tour. It seems the author tried to play on that formula. It worked better for golf, for whatever reason. Again, this isn't a bad book. It's so darn easy to read. But it's not ground breaking and it's not quite what was advertised. In short, if you like the NFL you're likely to enjoy it. I did, overall. Yet it's not all-pro caliber level either. Put another way, it's kind of like the Alex Smith of quarterback books.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

In today's NFL, there is little doubt that the quarterback is the most important position on the field for any team. If you don't have a solid QB, you probably aren't going all that far. The problem, of course, is that at any given time there are only a few great ones to go around. The rest? A sort of crazy carousel of youngsters, veterans, and everything in between. That QB craziness is exactly what John Feinstein taps into with "Quarterback".

This book mainly focuses on Alex Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Joe Flacco, Andrew Luck, Carson Wentz, & Kirk Cousins during their unique journeys through the 2017 football season. It flashes back to the key moments of their careers and shows readers the often improbable circumstances that such players are thrust into on a yearly basis. From injuries to taking responsibilities (often of things far beyond their control) and personal battles, Feinstein really provides some great context for how a QB operates on and off the field.

Over the first 50-70 pages of "Quarterback", I was unsure of where it was going, exactly, and struggled to pick it up on a regular or compelling basis. As I progressed further, though, I finally began grasping the overall narrative. What hurts the writing a bit is that it contains many statistics and brief game summaries. Enough numbers to sometimes make a reader (even an NFL fan) glaze over, in other words. I would have actually prefer less numbers and more editorializing, but that just wasn't Feinstein's approach here. Once I became accustomed to that style, it was a bit easier to stomach.

Overall, though, this is a solid book for NFL fans of any ilk. Great nostalgia for those who remember that season, with an underlying narrative of just how truly crazy a QB at the highest level of football's existence can be.

[John Deardurff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at the Quarterback position through games from the 2017 season and interviews of four active players The setup is compelling - an inside look at an NFL QB through the lens of 4 different current QBs (Luck, Flacco, Fitzpatrick, and Smith) and one retired (Doug Williams). I did enjoy the book and it did bring a lot of insight into the position. But there were two disconcerting aspects to the book, first the jumping back and forth through time and players. None of the chapters were really chronological and the author would jump back and forth between players. This made it difficult to keep track of what was actually going on. Additionally, reading this in the 2019 season makes this book and most of the author's opinions dated as Luck surprisingly retired, Flacco has been traded to Denver, Fitzpatrick is magic in Miami, and Smith has moved on to Washington.

Secondly, there has been an increase in books where politics have to be thrown in. This is true from both sides of the political spectrum. I agree with most of Feinstein's political viewpoints, but do not want to read them in a book about sports. And I found it odd that the only way that the author could bring up the long history of racism and the more recent issues surrounding Colin Kaepernick was to interview Doug Williams, a player that retired 30 years ago!

Especially since there are currently 10 black starting quarterbacks in the NFL (2019) that are in the same cohort as the other quarterbacks interviewed for this book. Including three (Jacoby Brissett, Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Mahomes) who replaced the quarterbacks discussed in the book.

[JAIDEN]

The book, Quarterback by John Feinstein is about a full experiences about five different quarterbacks. John Feinstein tells us about amazing moments as a National Football League (NFL) quarterback and some upsetting or even embarrassing moments as a quarterback.

By far, my favorite person in the book, Quarterback is Doug Williams because he has experienced more personal problems like discrimination and still showed he will still be at his best even with obstacles outside of the NFL. The characters are very real because the book is one-hundred percent a biography telling the NFL debuts of five different quarterbacks. The story story did not really make me keep guessing, but it definitely kept me thinking how they kept moving on even with problems. My favorite part of the book was when it talked about Doug Williams experience because he was the first african american NFL quarterback that recieved a lot of discrimination and a lot of hate, but still lead his team to a Super Bowl. There were plenty of scenes in the book that were written very well such as upsetting scenes such as injuries. The book did not make me laugh or cry because I don’t really get emotionally connected to books easily, but the book was still very interesting. The book very much made me grip the book and made me keep turning the pages because the author structured the book very well. I disliked nothing about the book.
The book, Quarterback by John Feinstein is an amazing non-fiction football story about what it’s like being an NFL quarterback. I would recommend this book to those who love sports books, football books, and for whom loves quarterbacks.

[Koen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tough one to rate, still not quite sure about it. I've been watching the superbowl for quite some years now and i do appreciate the sport, i think it's a great spectator sport to be honest. But that's about all i see and as a Dutchman i certainly didn't grow up with American Football nor am i an expert. I reckon the book would be a much easier read if you have and if you are. There's so much information in here, names, drafts, teams, cities, games, scores, stats, plays, if you're not that familiar with a lot of it some serious concentration is needed.

Despite all that Feinstein managed to keep me interested. The first part, where he talks about how the five quarterbacks who are the subjects of this book, arrived in the NFL was a bit boring. The second part was, which is basically a very detailed retelling of the 2017 season, was a bit more interesting. It seems American Football is an excellent game to read about as well, or Feinstein is just good at writing out a game play by play. It did get a bit tedious toward the end though.

I don't think the book deliver on it's promise though. There's a lot of football and facts but not enough real insight into the quarterbacks' personalities. I was hoping for more there.

I did learn quite a bit about the NFL, my interest in the sport got sparked again and watched a lot of clips on YouTube. I'd recommend the book only if you're a real Football fan.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author takes a look at the quarterback position for the NFL which is now starting its 100th season. He says it’s interesting how an organization will hand the reigns over of a billion-dollar franchise to one player. That part I really did not find as different as from the past. Halas wanted Luckman to run his offense when he saw him at Columbia. Marshall wanted Baugh, Brown wanted Graham. So now the author takes a look at Andrew Luck who just retired because of injuries and though it is not in the book we will see how it if any will affect their season. Joe Flacco and the change their in Baltimore even though he won a Super Bowl. Alex Smith leaving the Chiefs a year after they drafted Mahomes, and Fitzpatrick in Atlanta. For me what made this book was the part with Doug Williams, not just about him winning the Super Bowl which I remember watching, but also him describing his time with Tampa Bay when those teams were so bad. What he was going through and how he left the game for a while. His part and now having him as an executive with the Redskins talking about how they look at quarterbacks either in the draft or free agency I felt really added to this book. The rest of the items I pretty much knew being a fan and someone who likes history and the history of the game. Overall a good book. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Feinstein is a good writer who can get into the heart and background of whatever he covers. "Civil War," his book about the Army vs. Navy football game is a prime example of that. He gets into the emotions, the preparations, the history and the behind-the-scenes of whatever he covers. Of course, his book on Bobby Knight set the pace for all that.

I felt like he tanked it a few times. His book on the minor leagues, "Where Nobody Knows Your Name," and "Living on the Black" were both weak, in my opinion.

That said, "Quarterback" does offer some interesting insight into the position. There is some good back-story on drafting the players, the decisions that went into getting them and the shuffling of players and drafts. The sections on Doug Williams, the first Super Bowl-winning black quarterback for Washington, were great.

The downside, though, was much of the book was a replay of the 2017 season. Each game that the four current quarterbacks played was written heavily. And Feinstein compared the panic and stress in Washington over the Redskins to Trump's tweets and presidency too much. Never mind your political sidings, saying something akin to a Redskin injury drew more attention than a late-night Trump tweet over and over got weary.

But, overall, this is an insightful book on what most say is the most important position on the football field.

[Carianne Carleo-Evangelist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most books on NFL quarterbacks cover Brady, Mannings, Brees, Favre... this was an interesting look at "other" QBs, Luck, Fitzpatrick, Alex Smith, Doug Williams and Joe Flacco. Doug Williams was the first black QB to be taken in the first round of the NFL draft and the first to win a Super Bowl. While his story was a great lens through which to explore the NFL's ongoing issues with race - especially at the QB position and at the time of this book's writing, Kaepernick - I wish Feinstein had spent more time on his story.

The first part of this book was great, covering the non-traditional paths that each of the QBs had taken to the NFL, Luck's early years in Europe, Fitzpatrick & Smith's contrast in spots taken within the same draft and Flacco at FCS Delaware. The author also took a good look at some of the craziness around what makes a good QB - and why a QB might fall for small hands or stature when neither of those is crucial in success.

The second half was too tedious with sometimes going back to the same games he'd already discussed or in way too much detail for a book. Still, a good read

[Tom Gase · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was around the 28th book I've read by John Feinstein, who once again does a great job of granting the reader inside access to what the lives are like of an athlete. This time Feinstein focuses on five quarterbacks, although it's really four since he doesn't talk too much about Doug Williams, the former great qb with the Washington Redskins who won a Super Bowl in 1988. The other qb's profiled are Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Andrew Luck and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Other qbs are talked about, but Feinstein discusses these four the most, not just the 2017 season, but their entire lives. Great research and easy to read, my only problem is sometimes stories are repeated because Feinstein tends to not write in chronoligal order all the time. So sometimes you'll read the same inside story or game story twice in a 50-page period of the book. So maybe it could have been written a little tighter. But overall, good stuff. Fans of Feinstein's will enjoy and so will fans of the NFL or just football in general.