NFL Confidential by Johnny Anonymous intrigued me from the beginning. Not only was it touted as an anonymous tell-all book from the “gutters of football,” but it was quickly rumored to have been written by one David Molk. Michigan fans know Molk as a former Wolverines lineman who won the Rimington Trophy for the nation’s best center in 2011. Despite writing it anonymously, several people dug into some of the facts and determined a lot of the storylines matched the Philadelphia Eagles and their backup center.
I have to say that my enthusiasm for reading the book faded rather quickly. Johnny Anonymous comes off as a self-righteous, hypocritical meathead. He rails against the establishment repeatedly for treating players like dirt. He says he hates football. He insults other players’ behavior. And yet he buys into all of those things in one way or another. The stereotypes that he claims to hate actually describe him well in many ways. I won’t get into the specifics in case you want to read the book yourself. Is he the worst guy on the team? No. But maybe that’s not saying much.
There’s not a ton of juicy stuff here because the author keeps things anonymous, so he uses pseudonyms for all of his coaches, teammates, and family members. He also doesn’t talk much about X’s and O’s; though I didn’t expect that, it would have been a plus.
My biggest issue with the book is the overall sense of dislike for everything and everyone around him. He truly seems not to appreciate any of the people around him, except his mother (who died when he was young) and perhaps his father. Girlfriends, teammates, coaches, etc. all come in for embarrassment and insults. He seems like an unhappy person, which is understandable when your mother dies at a very young age. And while he’s not specifically asking readers to think how he thinks, that is sort of an underlying hope for any author: Maybe these people will agree with me. This theme is encapsulated toward the end of the book when a bunch of his teammates are griping, and he jumps in with a poorly conceived joke – but one that represents his attitude:
You know what I hate? Happy people.
What have you been reading lately?
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I finally sat down with Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. I have had the thing sitting on my much too small shelf in my office for years. I decided to get it over with and then move it to the public library.
I have to say that it is as advertised. If you want to achieve some glimmer of how it is that large groups of people go apeshit crazy all together and screw themselves over but good, this is absolutely the place to start. Tulip mania, alchemy, John Law, it’s all here and more. The only thing missing is Putin paranoia. Maybe vol. 2.
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Recently discovered Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn mysteries. Well done, lots of interesting tidbits about the SW Indian tribes. The Leaphorn series was recommended by a friend based on my Longmire fandom.
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If he hates the NFL so much, why not take his bright ideas and do something more fitting? Even if it’s not Molk, an NFL player likely has some sort of higher education, and should have a little more money to do something with himself… much more options than a HS graduate with a low-paying job
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That was my big question. He raises it himself at many points, but his response to himself is basically, “F*** the NFL. I can play their game and beat them at it.” I don’t really know what that meant.
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Maybe thats what he’s in the process of doing but one’s gotta start somewhere. So he’s started by writing a book on the only thing he can write a book about; get people to buy it and author his way to talk shows etc after nfl is over – which he knows can’t last that long.
Gotta start somewhere…………
just a maybe………..INTJohn
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