Pro Football Prospectus

Not since The Hidden Game of Football has there been a book that discussed football in such detail. This book provides analysis of each team and not that typical useless analysis either. The essays are always interesting and really make you think about this game we love. Of course, the statistical analysis is also present, though that is not my cup of tea. I prefer the commentary on every player and team to all the numbers. However, a friend of mine who plays fantasy football used my copy of the book to build his draft and was quite pleased with the results.If you like football and want to know more about it, this is the book for you. I can't wait until next year's edition!

The Football Prospectus and its website,offers a fresh break from the "insider report" analysis offered in the mainstream sports media. Some of the new methodology needs to be re-worked, and some of it, perhaps, tossed aside, but the authors have taken the very-important 1st step of developing new methods and beginning the process of serious analysis (which continues during the season on their website).

Some of the reviewers here rip the book for not living up to the standard of the Baseball Prospectus, but that's not really fair. The BP guys are building on a 20-year foundation of baseball analysis, and that book has been around for five or six years. There isn't a similar foundation of hardore football analysis to build on. I think these guys deserve some credit for what they did do in their first edition. Compare it to the first edition of BP, or the first Baseball Abstract by Bill James, and this book compares very favorably.There are some new analytical tools here that other reviwers are simply ignoring. I think the system for objectively rating defensive players is intersting -- the first effort to do this that I've ever seen. There are special team stats that you're not going to find in football magazines, and data on offensive and defensive coordinators. They analyze the offensive lines and the secondary, adn the defensive front seven. Say that this pales in comparison to BP if you must, but give them credit for covering topics that aren't generally covered in football books.Rather than blasting the book for what it didn't do, I'm excited about the things that they did do. Futuer editions will only get better, and I'm grateful that my favorite sport is finally getting some serious attention.