Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL

John Feinstein cronicals a full NFL season with the Baltimore Ravens franchise, from the pre-draft meetings, through the ups and downs of the regular season, to the heartbreak of cleaning out your lockers the Monday after the final loss of the season. John does a great job detailing the professional and personal interactions of the whole orginization, from the owners (the Modell family, which happened to be in the last season of majority ownership of the Ravens during the book) to the front office of Ozzie Newsome, to coach Bilichk and the players. From this book, you can get a real feel as for what emotions players and coaches go through during their carrears, from draft day jitters, fighting for a roster spot, playing in a rivalary game, to getting the dreaded call of "bring your playbook to the office with you". I must read for any NFL fan.

Take the media out of the picture of your favorite NFL team. This book delves into the background of the Baltimore Ravens. Even if you're not a Raven fan, you'll gain insight into your own team.

Feinstein has made his mark as a "behind the scenes" writer/reporter and the result has been a number of noteable successes, but "Next Man Up" is certainly his most outstanding and revealing work. At first glance, I too, asked "The RAVENS?" but the fact is, with this kind of candid access any team would have been prime subject matter. Perhaps it would have been easy to chronicle the year of a team certain to go deep into the playoffs such as the Colts or Patriots, but in selecting the so-so Ravens, a team with as much hope as talent, Feinstein includes the reality of losing as well as winning. Each chapter reveals profiles of players and people that we would never learn of from a 'normal' sportswriter, but here we find ourselves understanding and identifying with a lengthy cast of characters... people who would have been nothing but a number on a uniform or another suit in the team's office. While maintaining a journalistic distance, Feinstein nevertheless has no fear in tweaking the spoiled and pompus such as the FCC's "boy commissioner" Michael Powell and the wanna-be-dicator that is Redskins owners Mister Daniel Snyder. All potshots are most deserving, by the way. "Next Man Up" is a crisp clean read but it disappoints at the end as the Ravens fail to live up to expectations and fall short of the playoffs. Feinstein's "straight journalist" approach seems content to simply record the facts and allow the conclusion to sit limply as the reader wonders, "Ah, so that's all, huh?"

Behind the scenes in every business there is more, far more than you see fron the outside. The backstage in a theater is bigger than the front. There are more people behind the scene at an airline, UPS, or WalMart than there are out front. In pro-football it is the same. In this book the author was allowed unprecedented access behind the scene at the Baltimore Ravens from draft day to the January Sunday when it became clear that their 9-7 record was going to leave them one game short of the playoffs. He was able to attend all the coaches meetings, all the planning meetings, he met, more than met, he spent a tremendous amount of time with all of them. The title comes from the danger of playing football. Any player in any position can be injured in any play of any game. And when one player is carried off the field, another has to be ready to take his place, the next man up. Just what does it take to have a full team of 'next men' ready go at amy moment? That's what the author found out.

...you'll love this book. Given an unbelievable amount of access by Raven's ownership, Feinstein delivers more insight (and more interesting stories) into the inner-workings of a National Football League franchise than anyone of us could have hoped for. And talk about a team of characters to focus on: Ray Lewis (THE leader of the team - when he wants to speak, EVERYONE listens); to Jamaal Lewis (not the dope-sucking felon I'd been led to believe him to be); to Deion Sanders (not the complete jerk I've ALWAYS beleived him to be). Especially funny are the side-bars on Dan Snyder (the most despicable man in pro-sports (and THAT's saying a lot). I also enjoyed the brief discussion of Jonathan Ogden's political leanings: When he gets a huge contract he decides to sit out the election of '04 because although he despises Bush, he can't bring himself to vote for someone who will raise his taxes. Funny, insightful stuff (which is what you would expect from Feinstein).