War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team

by Michael Holley

Overview

Bill Belichick is one of the titans of today’s game of football. Now, sports commentator and bestselling author Michael Holley follows three NFL teams—the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons—from training camp 2010 through the Super Bowl and into the April draft, opening a new window into Belichick’s influence on the game. This one-of-a-kind exploration takes football fans behind the scenes of the most popular sport in America, with unprecedented insider access to the head coaches, scouts, trainers, and players who make the game what it is—including new insights from Bill Parcells, Todd and Dick Haley, and Belichick himself. For true fans of the game, and for readers of Badasses, Patriot Reign, and Boys Will Be Boys, Holley’s War Room is not to be missed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062082404
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	389,854
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 7.82(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

MICHAEL HOLLEY is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Patriot Reign, Never Give Up (with Tedy Bruschi), and Red Sox Rule. He was a Boston Globe sportswriter for ten years, and he is the cohost of The Big Show on Boston sports radio station WEEI. Holley lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife and two sons.

Table of Contents

1 The Incubator 1

2 The Patriot Way 38

3 The Culture of Winners 78

4 Losing the Core 131

5 The Desert 149

6 The New Falcon Vernacular 220

7 New England Departure, Kansas City Arrival 260

8 A Tale of Three Cities 308

9 Let's Make a Deal 343

10 Shelf Life 380

11 Three and Out 400

12 The Mobile Dinner 429

13 Chief Assembly 454

14 Picking and Dealing 473

15 War Room 491

Epilogue 523

Acknowledgments 531

What People are Saying About This

Peter King

“WAR ROOM is going to take you into the inner world of pro football. I recommend it highly.”

Editorial Reviews

Crisply written, the story moves along like a two-minute drill. It also sparkles with interesting anecdotes and tidbits….WAR ROOM is a lively, fast-paced insider’s account that will please ardent and casual fans alike.

Boston Globe

Fans will want to read how Belichick transformed the once-lackluster Patriots into the most successful franchise of the past decade, which Holley explains in an engaging chronological narrative.

Booklist

Holley (Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston's Rise to Dominance) has written the ultimate book for pro football geeks. From the front office to the draft room, the author provides an intimate look at three NFL teams-the New England Patriots, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Atlanta Falcons-and the men who built them. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, with protégés Thomas Dimitroff and Scott Pioli, created a dynasty in New England that won three Super Bowls in four years. With fly-on-the-wall immediacy, Holley chronicles their unorthodox approach, even as Pioli and Dimitroff became general managers of, respectively, the Chiefs and the Falcons. War Room begins in 1991 with Belichick head coach of the Cleveland Browns (at 39, the league's youngest) and concludes following the 2011 NFL draft and player lockout. Holley objectively captures on- and off-field episodes, including 2007's infamous "Spygate" videotape scandal, and humanizes his subjects with reports of job interviews, dinner conversations, private meetings, and personal traumas.
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Publishers Weekly

A deeply reported, thoroughly engaging look at what it takes to succeed in the NFL.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Crisply written, the story moves along like a two-minute drill. It also sparkles with interesting anecdotes and tidbits….WAR ROOM is a lively, fast-paced insider’s account that will please ardent and casual fans alike.” — Boston Globe

“WAR ROOM is going to take you into the inner world of pro football. I recommend it highly.” — Peter King, Sports Illustrated

“The ultimate book for pro football geeks.” — Publishers Weekly

“Fans will want to read how Belichick transformed the once-lackluster Patriots into the most successful franchise of the past decade, which Holley explains in an engaging chronological narrative.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

Fans will want to read how Belichick transformed the once-lackluster Patriots into the most successful franchise of the past decade, which Holley explains in an engaging chronological narrative.

Booklist

WAR ROOM is going to take you into the inner world of pro football. I recommend it highly.

Peter King

A longtime Patriots chronicler goes inside the brain trust of the NFL's most successful team. In the NFL, team building--drafting, trading and signing fee agents--is a multimillion-dollar business with many livelihoods and professional reputations at stake. The widely acknowledged virtuoso of this peculiar blend of art and science is Bill Belichick, GM and head coach of the New England Patriots. Holley (Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston's Rise to Dominance, 2008, etc.) traces the genesis of Belichick's "Big Idea" back 20 years when, as the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns, he began piecing together notions--particularly, the idea of a uniform player-evaluation system--about how best to construct a consistent winner. Working for him then were scouting assistant Scott Pioli and young groundskeeper Thomas Dimitroff, both of whom, after extended apprenticeships under Belichick in New England, would go on to helm NFL franchises elsewhere, spreading the gospel of The Patriot Way. With Belichick as the principal and Pioli and Dimitroff in supporting roles, Holley dives deep into the complexities of the draft and the subtleties of an appraisal system sufficiently exact to rely upon, flexible enough to allow for exceptions. There's plenty of inside-football, but the narrative soars when the author's in storytelling mode, drawing sharp portraits of the three very different franchise architects and other prominent NFL figures, supplying behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the Patriots' glorious run (three Super Bowl championships, one perfect regular season), the team's infrequent failures (e.g., the notorious Spygate episode), the contributions and departures of key assistants and pivotal players, the abiding brilliance of quarterback Tom Brady and the emerging efforts by Pioli in Kansas City and Dimitroff in Atlanta to reshape the football culture--to replicate, albeit with their personal stamps, Belichick's master plan. A deeply reported, thoroughly engaging look at what it takes to succeed in the NFL--and a perfect complement to the NFL Network's compelling miniseries Bill Belichick: A Football Life.

Kirkus Reviews