Books

The Art of Smart Football

Deftly blending analysis and storytelling, The Art of Smart Football examines football’s most innovative and enduring strategies and ideas, through the lens of the sport’s best coaches and players. The Art of Smart Football is an eye-opening, fascinating and accessible contribution to our understanding of America’s favorite sport.

The Art of Smart Football
The Art of Smart Football

The Art of Smart Football features analysis of football’s top strategists and schemes, including:

  • Pete Carroll’s aggressive defense
  • Chip Kelly’s spread offense and new-school methods
  • The roots of Bill Belichick’s defensive genius
  • Gus Malzahn’s up-tempo offense
  • The strategies Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers use to shred defenses
  • Art Briles and Baylor’s wide open attack
  • Nick Saban’s defensive evolution

The book also includes explorations of the newest trends in football, including “packaged plays” that combine runs and passes into one play, “pattern match” defenses that blend man-to-man and zone pass coverages, how defenses are responding to the spread offense, and much more. The Art of Smart Football is available on:

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“The Art of Smart Football made me a smarter football writer . . . Football, as presented by these coaches and by Brown, is such an imaginative game. It’s a great read: Go buy it.”
— Peter King, The MMQB/Sports Illustrated

“A must read if you are a football junkie.”
— Trent Dilfer, ESPN/13-year Veteran NFL Quarterback

“The best analysis in the game today.”
— Rolling Stone

“Awesome stuff. I recommend The Art of Smart Football to any coach or fan.”
— Matt Bowen, ESPN Columnist/NFL Veteran

“When Chris B. Brown releases a book, you should buy it.”
— Bill Barnwell, Grantland/ESPN

“A deep dive into football. Highly recommended.”
— Field Yates, ESPN

“The Art of Smart Football is a perfect read for anyone looking to take their knowledge of the game up a notch.”
ElevenWarriors.com

 

The Essential Smart Football

The Essential Smart Football (available here for Kindle), a bestseller, is an examination of football’s most important strategies and ideas, through the lens of the game’s best coaches, players, and schemes. Brilliantly written and eschewing unnecessary jargon and technicality, it makes a major contribution to our understanding of football to help all of us — coaches, players, and fans — appreciate the game we love all the more.

The Essential Smart Football

The Essential Smart Football features analysis of football’s top strategists and their schemes, including:

  • Urban Meyer’s spread offense
  • Tom Brady’s no-huddle attack
  • Bill Belichick’s hybrid defense
  • Mike Leach’s pass-happy “Air Raid” offense
  • The most popular scheme for running the ball in the NFL
  • Nick Saban’s school of defense.

The book also includes explorations of modern approaches to the West Coast Offense, evolutions in defensive fronts and coverages, the changing role of the running game in spread and pro-style offenses, and much more.

Excerpt

Purchase The Essential Smart Football

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Amazing how much football knowledge Brown, a lawyer and sportswriter (you may know him from his smart takes on football at, fittingly, @smartfootball on Twitter), packs into 139 pages. He sets out to explain how football, which often looks to be a street fight, is actually more of a chess match. His premise: Football works because it teaches us that, as in life, you’ve often got to play as part of a team and you’ve got to get up after getting knocked down.

… Often, many of you ask me for a good, educational football book to read… Now I’ll tell you to buy The Essential Smart Football, for one simple reason: It’s going to make you and dads in this world a lot smarter about football.

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