the book of life (article critique 1)

Jason Enes
MC 299
January 31, 2008
Article Critique 1

The Book of Life
In the January 28th issue of ESPN the magazine David Fleming wrote an article about the NFL play book and why each team is so protective of them.
The article explains that most NFL playbooks are 500-700 pages long and color-coded by offense and defense. It also goes on to explain that each page in the book has 8 to 12 plays on it. It also mentions how each individual player has his own personal feelings about his play book and some of the veterans may not use it for it’s intended purpose. Jacksonville Jaguar linebacker Clint Ingram summed it up best when he said “If you master that book, you play, you get paid.”
The article then goes into describing where the playbook came from and how Coach Paul Brown made it popular in the 1940’s. It then leads into how Tony Dungy and Bill Belichick have evolved their playbooks and what they expect their players to know from those books.
The article caught my attention because I’m a football fan and I am also curious about the playbook. I was hoping to get a little more on the back-story of the book not just a one-paragraph intro. Unfortunately I did not find out anything that surprised me or that I did not already know. It did mention that the books are prized possessions and that coaches and organizations will let you take anything you want when you leave the team except for the playbook. A former NFL quarterback Karl Sweetan was even arrested for trying to sell a Rams playbook to the Saints.
The article I chose was intended to be read by football fans and the pictures that were used aimed it at Patriots fans. I don’t think that the article was balanced because most of the story mentioned two coaches’ playbooks Tony Dungy and Bill Belichick. I do think that the questions in the article were answered the best way they could be especially considering the little information that was given by the Patriots. All of the information collected about the playoff teams was collected from an outside source.
Finally I think that the story was written just as it should have been. It had perfect flow and if I were writing it the only thing I would change would be to find a couple of other coaches to interview and get their perspectives. I loved the quotes the writer used because it gave an outsider an idea of how important playbooks are to the teams and players and how the coaches use the books to install the gameplan every week.
If I were an editor the follow up would be to find out during the off season how many of the plays that were installed for a particular game actually were used. It would be interesting to see how much time they spent studying plays that were never used.