The Sporting News Selects Football's 100 Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century's Best

by Ron Smith and Willie (Foreword By) Smith, Ron (Author) / Mays

Book Overview

Finally, the exclusive follow-up to the highly acclaimed Baseball's 100 Greatest Players. Argue with the experts at The Sporting News as they select the best professional football players of all time! This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892046244
• ISBN13: 9780892046249
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Sporting News Publishing Co.
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 2.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.3" x 11.6"

Customer Reviews

A great book for the coffee table during football season

Any attempt to create a list of the all-time greatest players in any sport is sure to spark controversy. Despite the myriad of statistics, to be considered one of the greatest often means there must be other factors in consideration. A player may not have superlative statistics, but could have been an innovator doing something that dramatically changed the game. In this book the people of "The Sporting News" have done a very good job in selecting what they view as the best 100 players. While nearly everyone may have some personal bias and believe that one or two selections should have been different, it is difficult to see how anyone could differ in more than a few of the choice. Each player profile contains a one-page photo of the player, a small inset photo and nearly a page of explanatory text. This is one of the best books in the "coffee table" category for placement during the football season. You can pick it up and casually leaf through it or you can sit and read about the players you have watched and admired, remembering some of their greatest deeds.

Refresh Yourself With NFL History

I really enjoyed this book because it made realize who were the greatest players, and who I wanted to collect football cards of. Some of the players who I've heard of, but never realized were Top 100 material, and it made me esteemed them more once I knew how great they were. Book was easy to read, since half of it were photos, great pictures. Also have opinions from players who they thought were the greatest, depicted on a list/ranking placed in box on the pages.

Baseball's 100 Greatest Players

Baseball is my favorite sport, and I love debating the greatest players of all time just like everyone else. And The Sporting News does a solid job of ranking the players, and offering why. The pictures are a wonderful addition to the text. And while they overvalue players like Rogers Hornsby and Pete Rose and undervalue players like Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, and Stan Musial, the idea of the book like this is to provoke arguments. Foolishy, they did not separate pitchers and position players, and I wish they would have written a little bit more about each player, but overall this is a great book. One final note: For the most part I believe that baseball's greatest players came from the bygone days, but Cal Ripken's 78 ranking in this book is an absolute travesty. He is a top 30 player. Overall, a great book.

Great Picks!

How do you go about picking the greatest 100 football players of all time? There are going to be agreements about who should be on it, and lots of disagreements about who should or shouldn't be on it. This book tackles an extremely difficult job and comes out a winner. Whether or not you agree with all the choices here, you have to admit they picked some damn good ones.Each page contains pics and a bio on the player. They list Jim Brown as number 1. Funny how just the other night I was in a local sports bar, and a man sitting next to me said "Jim Brown was the greatest player I ever saw." Obviously, this book agrees with my "friend." In fact, the book's forword is written by Brown.In addition to TSN's Top 100 players listed in numercial order, there's also a "timeline" of when these players were active. Also listed are TSN's all-decade teams. Leafing through the pages brought back memories of players I have watched and enjoyed, and of players whose exploits I only read about years after their careers ended.So do you agree with all the choices in this book? The only way to find out is to buy it and judge for yourself. I guarantee it's well worth the money.

Great Book

I Enjoyed this Book but Lists aren't Important.Cuz you can never say who would rule any given Time Period.I think all People Selected are Winners.of Course their are some who didn't make the list and therefor they should be acknowledged as well.