Written by Michael Holley
Long-time Boston Globe scribe and current radio personality Michael Holley isn’t exactly David Halberstam in terms of writing ability, few can compare to the famed author when it comes to non-fiction narratives. However, as far as in-depth sports books are concerned, Holley is pretty good.
His latest, War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building a Perfect Team, is a follow up on a favorite of mine (for obvious reasons since I’m a diehard Pats fan) Patriot Reign, about the New England Patriots football dynasty in the early 2000s. In War Room, Holley does an admirable job of taking on an improbable task: trying to make the process of building and drafting of an NFL team sound interesting to the common sports fan.
Compare the climaxes of Holley’s two books and you’ll see what I mean. In Reign, the book’s climax is the end of Superbowl 38, when the Patriots won the game on a last second field-goal from Adam Vinatieri. In War Room, the climax is the NFL draft, and a big trade pulled off by Atlanta Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff. What is more exciting to visualize as a reader? Exactly.
The truth is the NFL draft isn’t exactly the most scintillating event to watch, read about or relive. Even draft die-hards can agree watching action on the field is about 1,000 times more entertaining than figuring out what cornerback will be drafted first.
Yet despite this, Holley makes War Room an enjoyable read. He does a great job of getting into the heads of three distinct, connected personalities: Legendary coach of the Patriots, Bill Belichick, his former cohort and current GM of the Kansas City Chiefs, Scott Pioli and Dimitroff, their friend and associate, and GM of the Falcons. All three worked together in New England creating a championship team, and then Pioli and Dimitroff flew the coop to run their own franchises.
Their stories are built-up from the first NFL team Belichick ran in Cleveland, the Browns, and followed through until modern day. The first half of the narrative takes place mostly in New England, where the dynasty was created and molded by all three men.
Thanks to thorough reporting done by Holley, and numerous interviews, we get an inside look at some of the coaches, locker room dynamics, players and moments from those teams. Even though a lot has been written about those teams (as a Patriots fan, I’m pretty sure I’ve read it all), there was a lot of new interesting tidbits in this book.
Once the past is completely retold, the second half of the book is all about the three teams in modern-day, and all three men assessing and building their franchises. We learn about the unique scouting methodology Belichick and former Browns vice president of player personnel, Mike Lombardi created in Cleveland. The methodology, which uses a unique numbering system and avoids cliché assessments like the plague, has been adopted and tinkered by all three men. It’s interesting to see it used against current players.
Dimitroff is really the star of the show as we read about his rise from being the unknown son of long-time, hard-nosed NFL scout (Thomas Dimitroff Sr., who was on Belichick’s Cleveland staff) to finding his place on those Patriots Superbowl teams to becoming “the man” in Atlanta. Dimitroff’s offbeat personality – he’s a vegan with an interest fashion and mountain biking – mixed with his old-school attitude towards team-building is fascinating to read about.
What drags the book down is the lack of a payoff in the end. Unfortunately, this is part of the reality of reading a book on reality. You won’t always get a storybook ending. I encountered this problem in another non-fiction book I recently read, Devil in the White City. Sometimes, a payoff isn’t possible.
Holley practically laments near the end of the book how it’s quite possible that one day Pioli’s Chiefs will square off against Belichick’s Patriots with the winner playing Dimitroff’s Falcons. That moment could have happened last year, and would have made for a great ending, but sadly (for the book’s sake) all three teams flamed out in the playoffs.
Thus, the book ends in the draft room after Dimitroff makes his big move, trading a number of picks to Cleveland (ironically) and moving to the sixth position in the draft where he gets Alabama WR Julio Jones. Ending a football book with a big move in the draft is like ending a mystery novel with another murder – it leaves you with too many questions.
Still, War Room is a must-read for any NFL fan. It gets into a seemingly mind-numbing, niche-driven topic and makes the best of it. I strongly recommend it.
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