War Without Death

July 9, 2007
The four teams in the NFC East have won 10 Super Bowls, and Maske, a sports columnist for the Washington Post
, offers an up-close look at these storied franchises throughout 2006. Legendary Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs struggles in his second stint with the team; controversial receiver Terrell Owens tries to make nice with his new employer, the Dallas Cowboys; the New York Giants surge and then struggle under disciplinarian coach Tom Coughlin and young quarterback Eli Manning; and the Philadelphia Eagles adjust to a slow start and a season-ending injury of their star, quarterback Donovan McNabb. The book excels when Maske profiles key characters—such as Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells or Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. Too often, however, Maske offers breezy accounts of games and interviews. He looks at how running an NFL team has become a major endeavor, and while his extensive (if not overwhelming) coverage of the collective bargaining agreement shows how the league has become a big business, it takes away from the stories of a new generation of driven men with limited time, limited earning potentials and big dreams of winning a Super Bowl. That kind of personal touch is missing far too often in this ambitious but anticlimatic book. Photos not seen by PW
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Starred review from September 1, 2007
Late National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelles vision for the league was parity, defined as a razor-thin distance from success to failure among the franchises season to season. His vision has been realized, and the result is an extraordinarily competitive environment in which it has been very difficult for any team to achieve extended dominance. Maske, a sports columnist for the Washington Post, trains his perceptive eye on the often bitter rivalries among the four teams constituting the National Conferences Eastern Division: the Washington Redskins, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Dallas Cowboys, and the New York Giants. His year-long examination of the quartet begins in January 2006 in an environment in which the fans expect success and view anything less than a Super Bowl win failure. He bounces between teams and profiles the ownersfrom the Giants decades-long Mara family ownership to the aggressive meddling of Redskin owner and self-made billionaire Dan Snyder. He dissects the draft day strategies of each team, the cagey and delicate free-agent signings and the preseason training camps, which are brutal and Darwinian as physically gifted rookies push battle-scarred veterans into unwelcome retirement. Then, of course, theres the season, in which injuries are common and the teams that overcome them often have the most adaptable and fearless coaching staffs. Maske is a discerning and intuitive journalist who captures the broad-stroke machinations of the teams as well as the nuances of ego and personal relationships. A superb book that belongs in every serious football collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)