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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN num: 9780312384852
ISBN number: 0312384858
Label: St. Martin's Griffin
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: September 02, 2008
Publishing house: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: September 02, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 98446
Studio: St. Martin's Griffin
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Product Description:
For years, the New England Patriots were a certifiable joke of a franchise. They were run on the cheap and were once the very example of how not to manage a team. They hired inept coaches---one of whom (Clive Rush) was nearly electrocuted when he grabbed a microphone at his introductory press conference. In 1968 their scouting director, Ed McKeever, suggested they draft a wide receiver . . . before someone in the organization realized the player had been dead for six months. They plucked ex-players out of the stands minutes before kickoff---Bob Gladieux was enjoying a beer at the game when he heard his name called over the P.A. (The Patriots had cut a player earlier that morning and found themselves short. Gladieux, who would go on to spend four years in the league as a running back, made the tackle on the opening kickoff.) And they played in a run-down stadium that was one of the worst venues in professional sports. There were brief moments of success, but on each occasion, front-office infighting would invariably cause the franchise to slide back down to the basement again.
But in the very first four months of 2000, everything changed. The hiring of head coach Bill Belichick and Vice President of Player Personnel Scott Pioli and the drafting of quarterback Tom Brady turned the fortunes of the franchise around. And their nontraditional approach to acquiring personnel---remembering that it’s not about collecting talent, it’s about assembling a team---quickly led to three Super Bowl titles in four seasons. It’s a feat that, in the salary cap era, with free agency, planned parity and balanced scheduling, is in many ways even more impressive than anything achieved by the past dynasties of Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Dallas, and San Francisco.
Along the way, Christopher Price has had a front-row seat for football history, chronicling the rise to power of the NFL’s unlikeliest superpower. Price takes the reader inside the franchise to give him a dynamic portrait of a mighty organization at the height of its power. Readers are immersed in the locker room during the strange and tumultuous days of 2001 and 2003, when major personnel moves involving a pair of the most popular players in franchise history---Drew Bledsoe and Lawyer Milloy---threatened to rock their championship foundation to the core. Readers get an up-close look at the team that dominated the league on the way to a record-setting winning streak in 2004. And Price analyzes what went wrong when they fell short in 2005 and 2006, and how they plan to return to Super Bowl form in 2007.
The Blueprint will explore how the Patriots went from the dregs to a dynasty, becoming the gold standard for professional sports franchises everywhere. It will prompt sports fans (and those who study organizations) to acknowledge what many football insiders have believed for a long time: when it comes to building a successful system, the Patriots have the Blueprint.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I've never before seen a book published by a "real" publisher be so full of typos and distracting grammatical errors. Did anyone proofread it? The author, Christopher Price, writes the entire book in such a sloppy train-of-thought fashion that it has the feel of high school term paper that was written the night before. And this term paper would not have received a passing grade.
However, the subject matter is very interesting, and Price does a good job of researching quotes from press conferences and other interviews. But the quotes are mostly ones that Boston sports fans have heard before, and there is little to suggest that Price had any special access, inside info, or even an interesting point of view when writing this book.
I've never seen a clearer example of a book rushed to press and packed with filler to take advantage of a rabid market (in this case, the loyal Patriot fan base). I don't blame the author as much as the editor and the publisher. I recommend that all literate Patriots fans (not an oxymoron!) save their money, or check out a copy of Michael Holley's far superior "Patriot Reign".
Rated by buyers 
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I've read alot of his daily stuff, and LOVE his writing style. He's as good as they come. The book has some nice insite, and is well written. If you're a sports fan in general, you'll love this book.
Rated by buyers 
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The Blueprint offers a complete breakdown of the New England Patriots' history and the foundation for the team's current dominance. The book is well written and is a good foundation for new fans, but doesn't offer much additional insights into the franchise beyond the well known facts. The writer's style is a bit dry. For a more entertaining and deeper look into the New England Organization, Michael Holley's "Patriot Reign" was far more insightful and a much more entertaining read. For a newer fan this book is great; for a die hard, lifetime fan, there isn't much here you didn't already know. On a personal note, a big pet peeve of mine is insufficient editing, and I found numorous spelling errors, and repeatitive thoughts through out the book, which is a bit distracting.
Rated by buyers -
First, yes, the Patriots didn't win Super Bowl 42, some team named the New York Giants won. I am a Patriots fan and I gladly congratulate the NY Giants for a tremendous win in SB 42. To the true Giants fans (and not the fairweather ones that popped out on Feb 4th), you deserve all the bragging rights afforded to you.
Second, the point of this book is not that the Patriots should win it all every single year and if not, then the Patriots failed. It's that the Patriots, unlike a lot of NFL teams, put themselves in position to be an elite team (i.e. with a serious chance to win it all) year after year after year. Yes the Patriots have Tom Brady but its also true that the Patriots also have a lot of turnover and a lot of contract disputes on both sides of the ball and yet this team still finds ways to get to playoffs, get to SBs and even win 3 of em and all of this in the era of parity and free agency.
Third, there will always be a lot of jealous fans of other teams who put up one-star reviews and whine and cry about this and that but these are the same people who think that the sole reason for the Patriots sucess was Spygate which is just silly. I truly hope these people don't vote in 2008 because I would hate to see these gullible fans nullify my vote.
I bought this book on sale and it is extremely insightful. It covers the decisions made from the time spent on the draft and free agency to the unique ways that Belichick coaches each player to have more than one responsibility.
Rated by buyers 
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I'd like to point out this book would of been called "19-0: The Historic Championship Season of the Unbeatable" had they won the superbowl...seeing as how they chocked they just renamed the book and left out a chapter. Anyway, the book is decent if your a fan of New England or if you are a new football fan wanting to know the history of the team.
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