This book is a classic, and it’s a shame that it hasn’t been reprinted. Dr Z, Paul Zimmerman, was the original video wonk, the guy who charted football games, who got his head into the trenches and tried to give the fans the deeper view of the game. A college football player and minor leaguer, it was when he was a sports writer for the New York Post that he wrote the first version of this book. Revised in the 1980s, just before the heydey of the Chicago Bears, you get plenty of quotes from people like Don Shula, but also quite a bit of text from Bill Walsh.
Anyway, his chapter on running backs is an etch-onto-your-body all time must read. His two page diagram on the progression of defenses through history a total delight (one page of that is shown below).
Now, one thing I’ll warn you is that Dr Z has a tendency to really love his older football. His hope that somehow the single wing would reemerge in football was second to none. There is some serious irony in the fact his stroke happened before he could really talk about things like the modern Wildcat. He wasn’t all that fond of modern spread football and all this passing that was happening in the 1980s.
Back to the running back chapter. These two paragraphs set the framework for a great great read.
They come into pro football all instinct and nerve, without the surgical scars on the knees or the knowledge of what it’s like to get hit by a 230-pound linebacker. They burn brightly, and by the time they’re 30 or so they might still be around, but they’re different players. They know how to pass-block, and they can run their pass routes without making any mistakes; they can block in front of a ballcarrier, and they run just well enough to be considered runners. They dive – and survive.
Running back is a position governed by instinct, and many of the great ballcarriers were never better than they were as freshman pros. It’s the most instinctive position in football, the only one in which a rookie can step in with a total lack of knowledge of everything except running the football, and be a success.
This guy was a great sports writer. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Peter King wrote this homage on the SI site, which, once again, I’d consider a must read.
Before I get too sentimental – his stroke was a crying shame – let’s just say the paperback can be purchased through third parties on Amazon and it’s a beg borrow or steal kind of book for the hard core fan.
March 11, 2011 at 8:03 am
[...] books, his Holy Trinity of really good and important football reads, of which Dr Z’s book, “A Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Football” was one, Brian Billick’s “More than a Game” was another, and John Madden’s [...]
May 17, 2011 at 10:38 am
[...] defense and Steve Owens’s umbrella defense, differing from the descriptions given by Dr Z in Thinking Man’s or Jean Bramel in the Fifth Down blog. And no, I don’t think the Eagle was a 6-2 or that [...]
May 26, 2011 at 10:40 am
[...] You are a Dr Z fan, aren’t you? Can’t you remember Dr Z, Paul Zimmerman, trying to convince Dan Reeves to [...]
October 10, 2011 at 3:08 am
You nailed it. This book was my grounding in the basics and culture of professional football. I read the original, in the little paperback edition, sometime in the early seventies and practically ran to the bookstore when the revised version came out in 1984(?). Many great jacket blurbs (first version, hardback) from Howard Cosell to Roone Arledge describing it as “the best book ever” on the subject of professional football. The only book that compares to it IMHO is Ron Jaworski’s recent book, The Games That Changed The Game.
March 1, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I loved this book as a football nerd growing up. It is full of great stories from some of the funniest characters in the game as well as a look inside of the minds of some of the game’s greatest coaches.
May 25, 2012 at 3:05 pm
[...] a windfall of good defensive backs (including one Tom Landry) when the AAFC collapsed (Dr Z, New Thinking Man’s, Chapter 6). This then evolved into the 4-3 defenses that dominated pro football from the middle [...]