Most ‘inside the team’ books are written from the sidelines. A reporter embeds with the team and follows them for a season – or just a week – and writes a fly-on-the-wall documentary. In A Few Seconds of Panic Stefan Fatsis follows the path taken by George Plimpton in Paper Lion and tries out for the team.
While Plimpton tried to pass as a quarterback in the Detroit Lions training camp, Fatsis, then a Wall Street Journal reporter, tries out as a kicker with the Denver Broncos during the 2006 offseason and training camp. He observes the mix of bravado and fragility that defines life on the NFL fringe, from special-teams meetings to the cold calculus of roster cuts.
The narrative is strongest when he moves beyond the novelty of being a journalist among players and works to demystify the role of a kicker: ball-striking mechanics, timing, and the tiny margins that separate “has a shot” from “camp leg.” Placekicking is a fragile business defined by routine, timing, and the cold reality that one mis-hit can end a career.
The book doubles as a practical tour of an NFL workplace. Readers see how a franchise actually functions: the tempo of drills; the hierarchy between stars, vets, and camp bodies; and the broken dreams of players who don’t make it as coaches try to balance potential against reliability.
Title: A Few Seconds of Panic
Author: Stefan Fatsis
First published: Penguin Press, 2008
Buy the Book: Amazon US | Amazon UK*
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The team meetings and special-teams periods demystify the game’s choreographed chaos, while the off-field moments, such as practice-squad anxiety, family logistics, and injury management, show football as a job first, spectacle second. The result is a clear-eyed update to immersion sportswriting that treats the NFL not as mythology but as a serious, often precarious, profession.
THE AUTHOR
Stefan Fatsis is a journalist and author, known for books including Word Freak and regular appearances on NPR’s All Things Considered. He previously covered sports for The Wall Street Journal.
QUOTES
“Welcome to training camp!” Al Wilson bellows. “Today we have a special guest — Mr. Stefan Fatsis.” He says it like I’m the next contestant on American Idol. I met Wilson briefly in the locker room this morning, and he pronounces my last name correctly (the way it’s spelled) but Europeanizes my first name, saying STEH-fahn instead of STEH-fi n. “He’s from The Wall Street Journal! He’s going to write about us! And now he’s going to come up here — and break it down!”
I’m going to what? I realize that I’ve been summoned to stand in front of a team of professional football players, but to do what I’m not certain. Tyler nudges me forward. I bow my head to one side and smile, trying to look unflappable, jocklike, as I jog slowly up my row. Ninety heads swivel as one. Rhythmic clapping collapses into applause.
REVIEWS
The book excels when he breaks down the minutiae of the kicking craft. The key is consistency, requiring “the same motion every time, with maximum leg speed created by the drawback, downswing, and follow-through.” He dissects the unique pressure kickers face – those “few seconds of panic” when they’re sent into the game with time winding down, the outcome at stake and a stadium of screaming fans. “In the NFL, you always feel like you’ve got to prove yourself,” says then-Broncos starter Jason Elam. “Every day… Because you are a replaceable part.”
David Davis, Los Angeles Times
“While it’s no secret that big-time sports are replete with homophobia, relentless hazing and testosterone both natural and artificial, the players’ fragile psyches and management’s everyone-is-replaceable mentality may surprise and unnerve even hardcore fans. It’s those revelations, and the author’s humanizing treatment of his larger-than-life teammates, that keep interest high—not the anticlimactic chronicle of his attempt to kick in a preseason game.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Fatsis, too, has his own personal highs and lows through camp, enduring the long days, the trainer’s visits and the sting of failure in front of coaches and players. It’s an incredibly fascinating read for football fans, squashing the notion that the life of an NFL player is always glamorous.”
Publisher’s Weekly
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