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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowForget what all those talking heads and self-proclaimed experts are telling you about pro football.
Instead, pick up “Super Bowl Blueprints,” the new book by Hall of Famer Bill Polian and renowned sports journalist Vic Carucci. It’s 370 pages of behind-the-scenes and educational reading that provides insight into how eight franchises built great teams.
Polian himself was involved with two of them: the Bills, who went to an unprecedented four consecutive Super Bowls in 1990-93, and the Colts, who won it in the 2006 season. In each chapter, he not only makes observations about those franchises, but Polian interviews key figures in the building of each team.
He and Carucci examine Al Davis’ Raiders; the Steel Curtain Steelers; the 49ers’ West Coast offense champions; Washington’s Hogs under Joe Gibbs; the Giants with coach Bill Parcells; Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys; and the two organizations Polian built in Buffalo and Indianapolis.
They save the best for last, with interviews of Tony Dungy, Peyton Manning, Dwight Freeney and Tom Moore bringing readers basically into the game-plan room.
One of hundreds of informative nuggets: Manning’s insistence on practicing with wet footballs even though the Colts played in an indoor stadium. It paid off big time in the 2007 Super Bowl in rainy Miami.
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