Re: Total Patriots: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the World-Class Franchise (800 pag
I got it for Christmas. It's alright; it could definitely use a lot of improvement. First of all, the writing itself is awkward. I don't know if the author is a trained writer or just a long time fan, but when you're reading it to yourself it's hard to get into a flow because it's somewhat poorly written.
The season summaries are lacking. I would've liked to see each season's schedule included, and maybe some more in depth statistics for each year. The long player bios have a few odd selections. All the author really goes into are the record, the playoff outcome (sometimes, and sometimes it's just completely left out for no reason), the play of the year, and the game of the year.
The author also seems to have a strange fixation on fumble recoveries when talking about stats. He talks about them when they're relatively unimportant (according to the author, Bruce Armstrong's career highlights are all fumble recoveries). Fumble recoveries and lackluster kick returns (like when a lineman or linebacker returns a short kickoff) seem to pop up all over the book as "interesting" stats when they really aren't.
Drew Bledsoe's broken-finger comeback games are also mentioned over and over, multiple times within one list actually (a Bledsoe career highlight list. I understand including it, but it doesn't have to be repeated 3 or 4 times on the same page). On a Tom Brady career highlight list, the fact that he won NFL MVP in 2007 isn't even mentioned. Similar things happen throughout the book which tends to be annoying.
If that stuff doesn't bother you, then the book is still pretty good. The Game of the year descriptions in each season summary are well done. There's a comprehensive list of every Patriot player that has ever played for the team with a few stats listed below their name which is definitely fun to go through. There are a lot of obscure stats & records listed in a large section of the book, a lot of which I haven't completely read through yet. There's a trivia section in the back as well.
