I am indebted to the following authors: Michael Mac-Ambridge (America’s Game), Michael Oriard (Reading Football), Gregg Easterbrook (The King of Sports), Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru (League of Denial), Richard Slotkin (Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860), Robert Andrew Powell (We Own This Game), and Don DeLillo (End Zone). Please go and buy their books. My thanks, also, to numerous journalists, especially those at PBS Frontline and The New York Times Magazine, where Adam Sternbergh and Willy Staley provided astute and patient editing. Special thanks to William Giraldi, Sean Thomas, Richard and Barbara Almond, Pat Flood, Jane Roper, Karl Iagnemma, and Eve Bridburg for suffering through early drafts of this manuscript, and to Dennis Johnson and his team at Melville House. Last and most important, eternal gratitude to my wife, Erin, and our children, without whom I suspect I would still be curled in some dank corner of the Good Time Emporium waiting for the Oakland Raiders to break my heart. Again.