In 1971 and 1972, Bill Bradley intercepted more passes than anyone else in the NFL, the first player to top the league in back-to-back seasons. He did it for an Eagles team well short of contention, while also punting and holding for placekicks. He had arrived in Philadelphia in 1969 after playing quarterback in the wishbone at the University of Texas.
Joe Zagorski’s authorised biography traces Bradley from his upbringing in Palestine, Texas, through his Longhorns and Eagles years and into the long coaching career that followed. Character gets as much attention as statistics. Bradley grew his hair long and wore a moustache in a league that disapproved of both. He turned down drugs as they became common in the game and was among the first players to hold out for more money. As a Texas high-school player, he spoke up for the fair treatment of his black team-mates. The book also gathers the stories behind its subtitle: a ride in the back of his father’s pickup that nearly killed Evel Knievel, a US president left waiting while Bradley went on a date, and a trip to Graceland that ended with him watching television alongside Elvis Presley.
Behind the anecdotes sits a more serious story about how little security players had in Bradley’s era. Contracts were not guaranteed, and an injury could leave a player with nothing. Zagorski built the book on extensive interviews with Bradley. It runs to just over 300 pages, with a substantial section of notes, bibliography and index.
Title: Free Spirit at Free Safety
Author: Joe Zagorski
First published: Highlander Press, 2024
Buy the Book: Amazon US | Amazon UK*
RELATED
Review: America’s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker
Review: The 2,003-Yard Odyssey
Review: Pigskin Nation
This is Zagorski’s second player biography after America’s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker (2020). That book was about Chiefs linebacker Willie Lanier, who declined to take part, so Bradley’s cooperation is the obvious difference. Zagorski’s The 2,003-Yard Odyssey (2024) covers the same era from the other side of the ball, following OJ Simpson’s record 1973 season with the Bills. For the fight over contracts and free agency in the 1970s, including the failed 1974 strike, see Michael Oriard’s Brand NFL (2007). Kevin Cook’s The Last Headbangers (2013) is full of the decade’s characters. Jesse Berrett’s Pigskin Nation (2018) profiles the player dissidents who challenged the league’s authority between 1966 and 1974.
THE AUTHOR
Joe Zagorski is a US Army veteran, former schoolteacher and former park ranger who wrote about sport for two Pennsylvania newspapers, the Coatesville Daily Record and the Evening Phoenix. He received the Pro Football Researchers Association’s Ralph Hay Award for lifetime achievement in 2020. Free Spirit at Free Safety is his fifth book, with a foreword by Ray Didinger. His sixth, a biography of Dolphins Hall of Fame guard Larry Little, followed in 2025.
REVIEWS
“A compelling tribute to a true football maverick.”
John Turney, Pro Football Journal
“Joe Zagorski is a master storyteller, and this book is a perfect example.”
Ken Crippen, founder of the Football Learning Academy
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