The Most Honest Book About Football You'll Read All Year

Former Bronco Nate Jackson's book is out today, and it's an exceptional memoir of life on the NFL's margins. You'll find out what it's like hiding injuries to make a roster, waiting for the year's annual drug test to pass so players can start smoking, and what a dickbag Eric Mangini is. Slow Getting Up has earned rave reviews, so don't take our word for it. And if you're still not sold, here are some of the best pieces Jackson has written for Deadspin.

What's the difference between a leg broken in front of millions of people and a leg broken in an empty sandlot? Only the former gets valorized by NFL Films. Read...

Being knocked out in a football game is not a painful event at impact. It is a dimensional vacuum through an extremely narrow wormhole. It is a piano falling on your head in the middle of your recital. It's a system reboot. Read...

Tony seems fine in the other room, but they won't be taking any chances. He has already had the CT scan to determine whether his brain is bleeding, and it isn't. Now he's waiting for the MRI machine to free up so they can see about the tingling. Read...

Why am I doing this again? I've been there—a couple times, in fact. And in both instances, there was nothing for me to do but move along, as quickly as possible. Read...

This type of injury shuffle is a constant in the NFL. It's so routine that scouting departments have comprehensive lists of available players whom they can bring in with just a phone call. That's the life of an athlete on such a list: waiting by the phone. Read...

These parties are 1 percent Playmate, 20 percent wannabe Playmate, 10 percent wanna-not-be Playmate, 29 percent athlete/actor/musician/agent/manager/publicist/financial adviser, and 40 percent creeper. Read...

But we're talking about Jon Gruden here, and to Gruden, diabolical football robot blowhard, losing a football game is worse than someone dying. This is not hyperbole. Read...

To this day, I have no idea how she got my number. I have no idea if I was texting with the woman in the photos. I'd like to believe I was, for obvious reasons. Read…