Four-time New York Times bestselling sportswriter Ian O’Connor takes on four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, delivering the definitive biography of the legendary yet mysterious quarterback who has astonished, befuddled, yet always captivated fans of America’s #1 sport.
Aaron Rodgers is regarded by some as the most talented player to ever hold the most important job in American team sports—quarterback. He also stands among the most mysterious and polarizing figures in the modern-day national pastime that is pro football.
From his controversial Covid stance to his methods of spiritual awakening to his estrangement from his family to his high-profile romances to his devastating Achilles injury a mere four plays into his New York Jets career, Rodgers has long dominated the NFL’s news cycle.
At thirty-nine, in search of a challenge that would rejuvenate him, Rodgers divorced the iconic Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi fame for the Jets, who haven’t appeared in a Super Bowl since Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. The trade made Rodgers the biggest story in the biggest league in the biggest market. By far.
That story only got bigger when Rodgers shockingly went down on the night of 9/11, in front of a packed house that roared for him when he took the field carrying an American flag, and in front of the biggest Monday Night Football audience in ESPN history—peaking at more than 25 million viewers.
As Rodgers launches his comeback and his bid to lead the Jets to a championship, acclaimed sports biographer Ian O’Connor uses hundreds of original interviews to pull back the curtain and answer the most penetrating questions about perhaps the country’s most famous and most enigmatic athlete. Just like he did in his previous works on Bill Belichick, Mike Krzyzewski, Derek Jeter, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, O’Connor reveals all sides of an all-time great and delivers a portrait of a complex man and four-time NFL MVP that will forever shape the way football fans view him.
From a New York Times best-selling author, the definitive biography of the NFL's most enigmatic, controversial, and yet successful coach, Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick is perhaps the most fascinating figure in the NFL-the infamously dour face of one of the winningest franchises in sports. As head coach of the New England Patriots, he's led the team to five Super Bowl championship trophies. In this revelatory new and robust biography, readers will come to understand and see Belichick's full life in football, from watching Naval Academy games as a kid with his player-scout father, to masterminding two Super Bowl-winning game plans as defensive coordinator for the Giants, to his dramatic leap to the Patriots where he has made history. Veteran sports writer and award-winning author Ian O'Connor delves into the mind of the man who has earned a place among coaching legends like Lombardi, Halas, and Paul Brown, presenting sides of Belichick that have previously been unexplored. O'Connor discovers how this legendary coach shaped the people he met and worked with in ways perhaps even Belichick himself doesn't know. Those who follow and love pro football know Bill Belichick only as the hooded genius of the Patriots, a team shrouded in victory and controversy. But there is so much more-from the hidden tensions and deep layers to his relationship with Tom Brady to his sometimes frosty dealings with owner Robert Kraft to the surprising camaraderie he shares with the team. This is a man who has many facets and, ultimately, has created a notorious football dynasty. Based on exhaustive research and countless interviews, this book circles around Belichick to tell his full story for the first time, and presents an incisive portrait of a mastermind at work.
