I was born to worship the pigskin. I got religion riding shotgun in my daddy's maroon-on-black fan-tailed Dodge sedan every Sunday afternoon listening to Al DeRogatis and Marty Glickman narrate the triumphs and travails of his New York Giants. He had been their water boy in 1927. His team remained precious to me until I started writing about all the ways football can break your heart—not to mention every other part of your body.
That is the conundrum Mark Leibovich faces in “Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times.” A raucous, smash-mouth, first-person takedown of the National Football League, it is also the story of an aging fanboy whose reportorial eye and ear are far too acute to ignore what's wrong with the game and the team he loves.
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