John Madden's Heroes of Football: The Story of America's Game

We purchased this for our son-in-law for Christmas. It was passed around like candy among the men. Isn't it wonderful to give a gift that is so well received!

Over the years, John Madden covered mostly NFC games for CBS from 1979-94, and then again for FOX from 1994-2002. Then he went on to ABC and now NBC, on a more neutral path, again with Al Michaels. It all added up to what seemed to be too NFC biased. This probably comes from, as most fans know, the network that covers the game will be connected with the visiting team in a case of interconference games. If it's NFC vs. NFC, fine. Here's an interconference example from 1988: Minnesota Vikings at Buffalo Bills. CBS was the network since the NFC team was on the road. Years of this caught up with Madden, which is funny because he was a Raiders (AFC) guy in the 60s and 70s. For a while, he would certainly talk up the great teams of the 80s and 90s during a broadcast - Giants, Rams, Bears, Skins, Packers, 49ers, Eagles - all from the NFC. Too much bias towards the "home" conference in my opinion. It didn't seem like he was on board or had the respect for a lot of Hall of Famers from the AFC since he didn't cover those games as much. Even his "All-Madden" teams seemed to leave off some great AFC players from that era. Despite the fact that the NFC was on the super bowl winning streak, that shouldn't be the reason to talk up the NFC: Things have changed now with the AFC winning 8/10, and it seems like an even playing field throughout the entire league. The super bowls that John Madden covered in the past seemed like he was going for home network team!! In this book, he finally gets it right. He gives props to many great players no matter what conference they are/were from. Great photos are scattered throuout. A great source of info for the proper age group. The stories flow with ease and are very informative. The adults who may be reading this book to their kids will smile with a lot of football history and great memories.