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Pigskin Books

@pigskinbooks.bsky.social

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A website dedicated to football books (link below). Join the discussion. 🏈📚 https://pigskinbooks.com

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Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · Apr 11

Bookmark this site if:

✅ You love football history
✅ You’re always looking for new sports reads
✅ You think Super Bowl stories > summer beach reads

🧠 Welcome to Pigskin Books.
🔗 pigskinbooks.com/
#FootballBooks #NFLBooks

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

There are plenty more books to read about on the site! Follow me @Pigskin_Books for more.

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Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

Plus: his favorite football novels (A Fan’s Notes, End Zone), a forgotten gem from 1911, and the books he’d take to a desert island.

Read the full interview 👇
🔗 pigskinbooks.com/2025/10/04/...

Michael Oriard: Football, violence and literature

Michael Oriard on football’s violence, artistry, and meaning - and why he still loves the game despite its unanswered concussion questions.

pigskinbooks.com

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

A former English professor, Oriard sees the game in narratives:

“Sports journalism and fiction both shape how people understand football.”
#SportsBooks #NFLBooks

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

He still watches, but with ambivalence:

“I suspend judgment in order to continue being a football fan.”

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

On why the game endures:

“At its heart is a tension between artistry and violence. The beauty of the catch and the hit that follows, that’s what makes football compelling.”

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

Football, Oriard says, has never meant one thing to everyone:

“For immigrant kids in the 1920s or for Black kids after integration, it was a way out and a way up. Now the stakes are higher.”
#FootballCulture

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

He worries most about the youngest players: “If I were a parent today with young boys who wanted to play, I’d be extremely anxious.”

The NFL, he notes, is now promoting flag football as a safer path into the game.

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

Oriard said his new book grew from unfinished business:

“I wrote Brand NFL before the concussion crisis began. The danger then was to players’ bodies, now it’s to their brains.”

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 4d

Michael Oriard, former Chiefs lineman and one of America’s leading scholars of football culture, spoke to Pigskin Books about violence, artistry, and why he still watches despite the concussion crisis.

🔗 pigskinbooks.com/2025/10/04/...
#NFLBooks #FootballHistory

Michael Oriard: Football, violence and literature

Michael Oriard on football’s violence, artistry, and meaning - and why he still loves the game despite its unanswered concussion questions.

pigskinbooks.com

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Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 14d

“Coach Shula was the leader, the boss, the screamer, while Coach Arnsparger was very calm. I always remember one day when Shula yelled at Arnsparger, and Bill just walked over, handed him the clipboard and said: ‘Here you are. You coach the defense.’”
(Any Given Sunday by Matthew Sherry)

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

There are plenty more books to read about on the site! Follow me @Pigskin_Books for more.

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Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

Steel Curtain. Doomsday Defense. Perfect Season. Purple People Eaters. The 1970s had it all.

Which book takes you back to that era best? Did I miss your favourite? Drop your pick 👇
#NFLHistory #1970sFootball #FootballBooks

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

📘 The NFL, Year One, Brad Schultz

Before dynasties came the merger. This book takes you week by week through 1970, the first season of the new NFL.

An overlooked gem that explains how the stage was set for the decade to follow.
#NFLMerger #FootballMilestones

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

📘 The Super 70s, Tom Danyluk

18+ players, coaches & broadcasters tell their own stories. It feels like stepping into a bar where legends swap war stories.

A time capsule from football’s wildest decade.
#RetroFootball #NFLLegends

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

📘 Their Life’s Work, Gary M. Pomerantz

The Steelers weren’t just a dynasty. They were a family forged in pain & glory. This book is their collective memoir that's moving, raw, unforgettable.

A must-read for #SteelersNation.
#NFLDynasty #FootballLife

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

📘 The Last Headbangers, Kevin Cook

What happens when Terry Bradshaw, “Hollywood” Henderson & Al Davis collide? Chaos. Color. Culture.

Cook brings the 70s alive, with Steelers-Raiders wars & the rise of NFL TV spectacle.

🔗 pigskinbooks.com/2018/08/08/...
#NFL70s #Steelers #Raiders

The Last Headbangers, Kevin Cook

The Seventies were an era of colourful character and brutal football, dominated by a handful of teams. Kevin Cook tells the story.

pigskinbooks.com

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

📘 The NFL in the 1970s, Joe Zagorski

Think of it as the “textbook” for the decade. Year by year, game by game, story by story. Plus: a bibliographic essay pointing you toward even more must-reads.

Deep, detailed: your best starting point.
#ProFootballHistory #NFLBooks

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 15d

No decade changed football like the 1970s. Hard hits. Larger-than-life characters. Dynasties that defined the modern NFL.

Here are 5 essential books that capture the chaos & greatness of the era.

📚🏈 Full guide 👉 pigskinbooks.com/2020/12/29/...
#NFLHistory #1970sNFL

Top five: the NFL in the 1970s

The 1970s was a decade in which the NFL’s status as America’s favourite sport was cemented. Here are five of the best books on the 1970s NFL.

pigskinbooks.com

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

There are plenty more books to read about on the site! Follow me @Pigskin_Books for more.

Like/Repost the quote below if you can:

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

What’s the best book on coaching you’ve read?

Drop your picks ⬇️
#FootballBooks #NFL #CoachingMatters

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

The Education of a Coach isn’t just a biography. It’s a masterclass in how football minds are built, through film, mentorship, teaching, and relentless attention to detail.

If you want to understand Belichick, start here.
#NFLHistory #CoachingPhilosophy

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

In 2001, Belichick tested a young Tom Brady by grilling him after each drive.

🧠 Brady recalled routes, coverages, and reads in perfect detail.

Belichick saw a QB who processed like a coach. That partnership reshaped the NFL.
#TomBrady #NFLDynasty

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

Belichick wasn’t a charismatic “rah-rah” coach.

Halberstam: “He was not a man of charisma, as one expected of coaches, but rather a quiet man of chalk.”

His principles:
🔹 Do Your Job
🔹 Adapt to your roster
🔹 Details win championships
#NFLCoaching #Patriots

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

Halberstam dives deep into the Parcells–Belichick relationship. Together they built Giants Super Bowl teams in ’86 & ’90. But their power struggle also set up Belichick’s brief Jets stint, and his leap to New England.
#NFLLegends

Pigskin Books @pigskinbooks.bsky.social · 16d

After Wesleyan College, Belichick started at the bottom: $25 a week with the 1975 Baltimore Colts.

From there he absorbed wisdom from coaches like Ted Marchibroda, Ray Perkins and Bill Parcells. Belichick evolved beyond them all.
#CoachingTree #FootballHistory