The Football 100

In this must-have follow-up to the bestselling The Baseball 100, the sports media powerhouse The Athletic now turns to the definitive ranking of the greatest football players of all time.

It is a question that has bedeviled football fans for generations: Who’s the best? Of the more than 25,000 men who have suited up during the NFL’s century of existence, which ones stood head and shoulders above all others?

At The Athletic, this question would become a labor of love for dozens of the best football writers on the planet, including Mike Sando and Dan Pompei. Over the course of 100 essays, spanning more than 600 pages, these writers reveal their findings—and uncover the history of the NFL in the process.

In the early days of the NFL, the game bore little resemblance to the product we see today. Points were scarce, the forward pass was an exotic strategic curiosity, and most players played all 60 minutes—both sides of the ball. It was on the shoulders of the many greats who starred in the League over the last century that the game of football blossomed. Each profile in The Football 100 uses the vivid narrative storytelling for which The Athletic is known to bring to life extraordinary athletic talents, tactical geniuses who changed the way the game is played, and legendary, outsized personalities. Based on many hundreds of interviews with players, coaches, broadcasters, and others, this is an intimate look at the greatest players to ever don cleats and pads, as well as a view from the trenches of the harsh realities of a brutal game. 100 photographs throughout the text offer testament to both the glory and the physical toll of football.

From #100 (Fran Tarkenton) to #1 (Tom Brady), from the Patriots in the east to the 49ers in the west, with names like Night Train (Lane, #51), Iron Mike (Webster, #58), Bulldog (Turner, #85), and Crazylegs (Hirsch, #93), The Football 100 is a joyful, deeply entertaining, maximalist ode to “America’s game.”