Press Releases
The QB
The Making of Modern Quarterbacks
The QB
Bruce Feldman
- Imprint: Crown Archetype
- On sale: October 28, 2014
- Price: $27.00
- Pages: 320
- ISBN: 9780553418453
212-782-8944
efolan@penguinrandomhouse.com
“Whether it’s your NFL team or your fantasy team, nothing will make or break the franchise like picking your quarterback. In The QB, Bruce Feldman offers unprecedented and, at times counterintuitive, insight into what to look for in the NFL QB of the future.” —Matthew Berry, ESPN Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Fantasy Life
“From Pop Warner all the way to the NFL, football has never been more ‘Quarterback-centric’ than it is today, and the player under center has never had more responsibility—or scrutiny. Bruce Feldman’s ingenious book delves deeper into all aspects of the position than has ever been explored before. It’s enlightening, illuminating, and shows how some outside-the-box thinking can change the game.” —Charles Davis, NFL Network Draft Analyst & FOX Sports College Football Commentator
“There are lots of sports reporters but very few great reporters who happen to cover sports. . . . Feldman has proven to be one of the latter. His deep dives on recruiting and the University of Miami broke new ground and gave deeper understand to fans of all stripes. His book examining the rising importance of the modern quarterback will do the same.” —Chuck Todd, NBC News
“Bruce Feldman has an uncanny ability to show in rich detail the guts of the real world of football. When this game consumes you it’s easy to notice the rare insider who finds the angles others can hardly see. That’s Bruce!”
—Joe Tessitore, ESPN play-by-play commentator, host of the SEC Network’s SEC Nation
“Bruce Feldman knows his way around football and locker rooms as well as anyone I know. His understanding of the intricacies of the sports and of reporting is why a book like this one is a wonderful read.”—John Feinstein, bestselling author of A Season on the Brink”
“One of the most brilliant writers in the business, Bruce Feldman offers a remarkable look at the making of a quarterback in The QB. This book also provides a fascinating glimpse into the human nature of some of the game’s biggest names, and it will inform and entertain both the hard-core and casual football fan. It’s Feldman’s best book yet.”—Brett McMurphy, ESPN College Football Insider
In the world of modern football, no single position defines a team or a franchise like the quarterback. It’s also the hardest to evaluate. And the difficulty of separating future stars from expensive duds has been easy to demonstrate through the years with college and NFL teams failing at a stunning rate in their appraisals of the QBs they select, costing them millions of dollars—and winning records—in the process. As a result, identifying and developing future stars at the quarterback position has become a specialized and high-stakes business. In the past decade the boom of the private quarterback-coach business, with its pageantry-for-boys vibe, has changed the position and the game.
So what exactly goes into the making of an elite modern QB? How are top recruiters and coaches attempting to sift through the murk of the quarterback world, with its booms and busts, and create the best signal callers of the future?
With THE QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks, veteran sports writer and bestselling author Bruce Feldman (November 4, 2014; Crown Archetype; Hardcover) gets to the heart of these questions by chronicling a tumultuous year—the most significant in the history of the position’s development—inside the secretive world of star recruits and gurus who are shaping football’s future. Feldman examines the interlocking paths of some the most fascinating characters involved in this fiercely competitive world, focusing on three in particular: Johnny Manziel, one of the most gifted and charismatic collegiate quarterbacks ever, with superior talent and entertaining antics; his guru, George Whitfield, a man whose unparalleled skill for making QBs has earned him the nickname, “The Quarterback Whisperer”; and Trent Dilfer, the least-talented QB ever to win a Super Bowl—the Salieri to Manziel’s Mozart—who now grooms top-tier talent at his Elite 11 camp.
Along the way, THE QB examines how advanced analytics has taken root in football, revealing what few know about creating the perfect passer. From the computer/brain analysis company trying to quantify how playmakers think to the biomechanics expert who says he “fixed” Tim Tebow, to Dilfer looking for the “Dude Qualities” he believes predict NFL success, Feldman shares findings that often run in the face of decades of conventional wisdom.
In THE QB, the stories of these three men illustrate just how high the stakes of the quarterback game really are, taking readers on a compelling, behind-the-scenes journey into the heart of America’s favorite pastime.
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About the Author
BRUCE FELDMAN is a senior writer and college football commentator for Fox Sports. Prior to joining Fox in the spring of 2014, Feldman spent three years at CBS Sports and 17 years at ESPN, where he was the first hire on what would become ESPN.com. He is the author of three previous books including the New York Times bestselling Swing Your Sword, he has been nominated for four National Magazine Awards, and has had his work cited in The Best American Sports Writing four times. Prior to his time at ESPN, Feldman played wide receiver for the semiprofessional Hudson Valley Vikings.
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