Football Book Recommendations

A collection of books that have helped me as I have studied to learn more about football

In this post, I wanted to write about football books. I’m often asked what books I’ve read that have helped me better understand football. There have been a lot over the years and I wanted to highlight some of those that have meant a lot to me and say a few words about each of them.

And here we find ourselves. So let’s talk about fun football books, shall we? Here are some books that have taught me a lot about football, both in terms of scheme and history.

So we’re not just throwing a million books at you in a single list, let’s break it up a bit. We’ve got 4 main categories: The Starter Pack, The History, The Nerd Stuff and The Bible.

The Starter Pack

These are books that should give you a good, solid base as you start to dig more into this beautiful game of football.

Take Your Eye Off the Ball - Pat Kirwan

This works as a really nice entry point to digging a little more into football. A good overview of the basics, then starting to scratch below the surface a bit. It gets into personnel groupings, a week in the life of a football team, the inner workings/job descriptions of the different position groups, and more.

Provides a good, solid base for further learning. It’s a pretty quick read, too.

The Essential Smart Football - Chris Brown

Chris Brown - aka, Smart Football - has been around forever and was one of the first people I started reading that led me down this path of wanting to learn more about what was happening on the field. Sadly he doesn’t really write anymore, but his Smart Football blog and his writing at Grantland was huge for me.

This book - along with The Art of Smart Football - is a collection of some of his articles from his Smart Football blog. Just going through and reading old articles at Smart Football is great as well, but this gives you a nice, curated selection of articles.

The paper copies are usually around $10, but, if you’re a Kindle reader, these are normally about $3 a piece. Well worth that small cost.

Brown is, dare I say, the most influential football scheme writer we have.

The History

These books will teach you about the history of the game, while also delving into the scheme.

New Thinking Man’s Guide to Professional Football - Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman

One of my favorite football books. It’s a great mix of scheme, history & stories, told through Dr. Z’s unique voice. We’re starting with this book in this section because it’s a quick, enjoyable read, but it also gives a view of an earlier version of the game. The original version of this came out in 1971 - with this updated version coming out in the late 80s - so you get some great stories about players from the 50s & 60s that you don’t really get in some of these other books.

Dr. Z was ahead of his time in the way he thought about the game, so even if the book itself is a little older, there’s still a lot of stuff to learn from this book. And reading prime Dr. Z is something I think all of us can enjoy.

Blood, Sweat & Chalk - Tim Layden

Rolls through the history of the big scheme ideas we’ve seen throughout the history of the league. This book starts talking about the Single Wing, then rolls through the history/thinking behind a lot of things you see every Sunday. Want to learn more about the history and creation behind the West Coast Offense? Zone Blocking? Zone blitzing? Cover 2? The double-A gap mug? It’s all here. I use this book as a reference a lot.

The Genius of Desperation - Doug Farrar

The same kind of idea as Blood, Sweat and Chalk, but written in a way where you really see the push/pull of these ideas against each other. The central conceit of the book is that the major innovations across the history of football were born out of necessity. “Genius” was not simply created by itself: it needed to be created to solve a major issue.

We open with a brief history of the game, then get into how these massive innovations were born. What problem were they solving? It’s a really interesting look at both schematic shifts throughout the league, while learning about the history of the league.

The Games That Changed the Game - Ron Jaworski

This was written much earlier than the Farrar book we just talked about, but it’s kind of the same idea, but on a somewhat smaller scale. Jaws tells the story of the league - and some major schematic shifts - by looking at 7 specific games throughout history. This is a really easy, fun read that teaches a lot about the history of the league - some of its central figures - and how the game came to be shaped. I absolutely love this book. This is up there with Dr. Z’s book as one of my favorite football books I’ve ever read.

The Perfect Pass - S.C. Gwynne

This tracks the path of the creation of the Air Raid system, starting with Hal Mumme and Mike Leach at Iowa Wesleyan. We see the simplicity behind the “why” of it all, then get into the installation of it, as well as the boundaries they pushed along the way.

We also get an in-depth look at a couple of the core passing principles the Air Raid is centered around: Four Verticals, Mesh and Y-Cross. In particular, I loved the section on Mesh and the conversations Mumme had with the BYU staff when he couldn’t quite crack it.

Not only is this a great history of a major innovative shift in football, it’s also a tremendous story of what it was like coaching at the lower levels and the drive from both Mumme and Leach to keep pushing in something they believed in, despite some pushback they were getting. Great read.

Run to Daylight - Vince Lombardi with WC Heinz

A week-in-the-life-of-a-coach book, from one of the greatest coaches to ever live. It’s told through Lombardi’s own words, but it’s actually the result of Heinz being attached at the hip to Lombardi throughout the week.

We go through his week as he preps for a game in the 1962 season. We pick up with film review on Monday (just reading about the tape exchange they had at this point is fascinating) and go all the way through the week, ending with the game itself. It’s interesting both as a chronicle of what Lombardi’s typical in-season week looked like, but also as a path to get some thoughts/philosophies from Lombardi, the man.

The Nerd Stuff

A collection of books that either dive deep into scheme, coaching or both.

Developing an Offensive Game Plan - Brian Billick

In terms of the “how and why” behind an offense, this taught me more than any other book on the list (which is kind of shocking, given its length of a scant 74 pages). Billick dives deep into all the stages of creating an offensive gameplan every week. From building a bank of plays to knowing how many plays you’ll need each week by down/distance/situation, Billick covers all the bases here. This book has informed a lot of how I think about football, both from a week-to-week and season perspective.

Attacking Coverages with the Passing Game - Steve Axman

This really got me familiar with the basics of coverage concepts, the best passing concepts to use to attack those and why. When I started digging more into the passing game, this was the book that helped me the most. Want to know the best route combos to beat Cover 3? Man Free? This is your starting point.

Not so much a book you read straight through, but this is a tremendous reference. I go back to this one a lot.

Football’s West Coast Offense - Frank Henderson & Mel Olson

So much of today's game is built off the concepts of the West Coast Offense, and this book really dives into some of those core ideas. Gives you a solid base into this world, which really helped me understand this current world of offensive football much better. It gives the fundamentals for each position, protections, pass concepts and more. Nothing too crazy here, but it’s a good look into a hugely influential offensive system.

Football Scouting Methods - Steve Belichick

A fascinating look into the mind of a legendary scout. Just kind of got me thinking a certain way when looking at individual players/plays.

Vince Lombardi on Football - Vince Lombardi

Culled from a series of videos Lombardi created on his system and philosophies that helped shape the league, in his own words. There’s some great stuff in here, including diagrams and specific coaching points on his plays. If you want to see the inner-workings of Lombardi’s offense, this is a great place to start.

Coaching Team Defense - Fritz Schurmur

Another book that is small - a shade over 100 pages - but packed with great information. It’s a look inside the mind of a great defensive coach, highlighting his overall approach and philosophy, along with specific things he looked for when scouting players by position. My copy of this is dog-eared and highlighted like crazy, and I go back to it often as a reference.

Hybrids: The Making of a Modern Defense - Cody Alexander

Like some other books I’ve listed above, this starts off with a trip through football history. This is a focus on the defensive side of the ball, through the lens of responding to what was happening offensively.

This all leads into the current age of football and the need for the defense to keep evolving. Part of that evolution is the need to be more flexible, which gives rise to the idea behind the hybrid defensive player.

Like all Alexander’s books, this is a fascinating read that dives deep into defensive scheme.

Inside the Pocket: An In-Depth Analysis of the Xs and Os - Bobby Petrino

If you want to dive deep into offensive football, this is your book. Petrino is a great offensive mind and that’s on display here. The play design is clearly important, but Petrino clearly gives the why behind it all. It’s a comprehensive look at Petrino’s offensive system, from the overall philosophy to the individual plays, right down to the reads in each progression.

If you want a detailed, in-depth look at an offensive system, this is your book.

The Pass Coverage Glossary - Cameron Soran

This is exactly what it sounds like: a glossary of popular pass coverages, grouped by Split Safety, Single High Safety or Special Coverages. It has the rules, specific assignments, etc. Not a book you sit down and read, but I use this one as a reference a lot.

Football Analytics with Python & R - Eric Eager and Richard Erickson

A different kind of football book, but perfect for me. Eric Eager is a legend in the football analytics world, making his name at PFF before moving over to SumerSports, and now working in the analytics department for the Carolina Panthers. This teaches statistical analysis and modelling with two popular programming languages - Python and R - using football data.

For someone like me who uses data analysis in my day-to-day job, being able to learn these languages through somethings I’m really interested in is a godsend. This is for a very specific group of people, but it proved extremely helpful and useful for me. The exact right book for me at the exact right time.

Trends in Offensive Football Volume 1 - Dan Casey

If you know Dan Casey, you likely know what to expect from this book. It’s short (108 pages), but packed with fun recent plays across the NFL and college. It gives a diagram, a breakdown from Casey and a QR code you can scan to see the clip itself.

The Bible

Finding the Winning Edge - Bill Walsh with Brian Billick

This book has a reputation is an all-time great football book and it absolutely deserves that reputation. This is Bill Walsh’s entire system in his own words. His philosophy and his approach to football. It’s less a book and more a manual for how to build a football program. This gives us practice schedules, job descriptions for each member of the staff, a guide for evaluating/developing players in each position group, dealing with the media, etc.

It is a detailed, in-the-weeds guide of what makes a successful head coach. Absolutely staggering in scope and detail, it’s incredible that this is exists in the form that it does (which is a massive credit to Brian Billick).

It’s a dense book - that, like so many others, works incredibly well as a reference - but it gives us a little treat at the end, in the form of some of the bigger plays Walsh had in his arsenal over the years (and the times he used them).

It’s not for everyone - and it’s hard to find at anything resembling a reasonable cost - but it has earned its spot at the top of the football book Hall of Fame.

---

There are books here that I have neglected to mention, and I apologize to those books. I’m also always trying to read and learn more, so maybe we’ll try to keep this updated with more books as we go. More likely, this will stay as a static post and I’ll add other books in separate posts as I finish. We’ll just have to see.

For now, I hope this works as a bit of a reference for those of you looking to learn more about this beautiful game.