Is There Life After Football: Surviving The NFL

A look at life as an American Football player by sociologists and former NFL player James Koonce, Is There Life After Football is a very interesting and evenhanded tale of how football players (and to a degree many other athletes) struggle culturally. While very few of its points are surprising or shocking, it’s well-written and handled.

The authors are eager to debunk some of the skewed and sensationalist claims of football players recklessly spending piles of money and then ending up as brain-damaged hobos. Careful to cite formal studies, they point out that there isn’t a disproportionately high amount of either financial or legal trouble amongst NFL veterans (a point others such as former player Merrill Hoge have made)-but that it still can and does often happen, with a look at the cultural dynamics to see why.

Indeed this manages to mostly avoid the twin sportswriting perils of what I call the “Johnny Manziel” and “Colin Kaepernick” paths, to use two quarterbacks who both got (in?)famous for things that had nothing to do with their play on the field. The Manziel route is classic media focusing on the freak show excesses, portraying the players as overpaid, under-mature babies, often with moral scolding. (Spoiler alert: Some players are just that). The Kaepernick route is the more modern “sensibility” in which every single player is an underpaid exploited victim of Evil Capitalist Society.

If I had to quibble, I’d say that they lump NFL players too closely together. The stats are skewed by short-career replacement level players, and the compartmenalization of different positions and paths is well-known. Their talk of the “conveyor belt” should have brought more attention to hyped prospects who flame out. The authors mention old-timers who had to work in the offseason and bubble fringe players who knew very well that they were living on the edge. But I’d be curious to see the end result of the worst of all worlds-a sheltered pampered college stardom followed by just legitimately not having the talent to match at the pro level.

But these are minor concerns for an excellent book.