Get Your Hands On Pain Gang: Pro Footballs Fifty Toughest Players By Neil Reynolds Available Through Document

have been following Neil Reynolds' work in the British Media for

a number of years and am very grateful for his contribution to the growth of the NFL in the UK.


I have mixed views on this book, It is clearly very well researched and compiled with quotes and stories from everyone relevant to the story, I also really enjoyed reading some sections about legends that I knew like Teddy Bruschi and Brett Farve, and learning more about legends who I knew very little about like Lawrence Taylor and Ronnie Lott.


I did feel that the number of quotes/contributions sometimes got in the way of learning about the man in question especially when it was a man who you did not know enough about.
It was almost as if Neil was deferring to the authority of the sources over his own opinion and description and I would have liked less quotes and more description.


I also wanted to know more about some of the players andplayers felt too many to do any one of them true justice, I will probably go and find out more about some of the players myself, which may have been the aim of the book, and if it was it succeeded.
No sport demands toughness more than professional football, and no sport celebrates it with as much joy, excitement, and pride, John Madden annually offers his picks of the top tough guys, and sick hits are shown repeatedly on jumbotrons nationwide and ESPNs Sportscenter, Anyone whos ever watched an NFL Films production can surely hear “the voice”that distinctive narratorlauding the warriors of the gridiron who lay it all out there, Imagine his voice as you say: “These tough men came to do battle today, and only the fiercest will win, ” Into this atmosphere comes Neil Reynolds, public relations manager for the NFL in Europe, and his new book Pain Gang: Pro Footballs Fifty Toughest Players, From early day heroes, such as Bronko Nagurski, Clark Hinkle, and Frank “Bruiser” Kinard, to Hall of Famers like Ronnie Lott, Walter Payton, and Dick Butkus, to such modernday iron men as Emmitt Smith, Brett Favre, and Rodney Harrison, Reynolds lauds some of the toughest, meanest, most inspirational, and hardestworking men in the roughest sport.
He includes interviews with teammates, coaches, opponents, and the players themselves on what it means to be tough, how they characterize toughness, and even who was the toughest of them all.
Some players fought through broken bones and tired bodies, Others laid out opponents with the hardest of hits, Still others proved themselves on the battlefields of World War II before joining this secondary field of battle, And some played hard and fastmostly within the rulesin order to intimidate their opponents through sheer fear, Whatever their means, these guys were tough and knew itand they made sure everyone else did as well, Meet the Pain Gang, and youll know it too, .