This book was very inspiring. What Brett went through with his painkillers made me more of a fan of him. When he quit his battle with drinking, I thought only a warrior could do that. Hats off to Brett Favre. Bill Gutman told it as it was.

This book is fantastic. If you are looking for a book to read about a hero in the NFL, this is the book to read. Brett lays everything out for the reader. He talks about his upbringing, college and the NFL, and how it lead him to his painful addiction to pain killers. He is a true "hero"... I would recomend this book to anyone, if all athletes were this honest, the fans would be more forgiving. You can't help but root for him at the end of the book... I have given 10 of these books away for presents, and I am not even a packer fan..I am now a Brett Favre fan...

This is a great book if you are a true Brett Favre fan. This is a great book on how Favre became such a great quarterback. He started off a nothing in the NFL, but when you keep trying and work hard you can see what happens. It also shows how Favre overcame the problem he had with over taking pain killers. I thought it was great to see how well he recovered from the incident and the way he handled it with the media and his fans. This is just an overall great to read for all the fans out there.

Mishler has gone the extra yard to interview great players from both sides of this rivalry. From "crossover players" who found themselves in the enemy camp for their professional careers to the great anecdotes which fill each page any Packer or Viking fan will be entertained. I thought I had heard or read most of the Lombardi year stories, but Todd came up with some new ones I hadn't heard from the post season circuit. A perfect complement to D'Amato and Christl's "Mudbaths and Bloodbaths".

You don't have to be a Vikings or Packers fan to enjoy this book. Any true NFL fan will want to read this book to relive some of the greatest games ever played between these NFC powerhouses. Insight from players and fans alike give a personal feel and provide that extra "edge" that will leave you both chuckling and gritting your teeth depending on which side of the Minnesota-Wisconsin border you happen to live on. Don't hesitate, but a copy for yourself and get some extra's for Xmas gifts!

Cold Wars: 40 Years Of Packer-Viking Rivalry by football enthusiast Todd Mishler is an informed and informative review of every game these the cherished Greenbay Packer and Minnesota Viking football teams have played since 1960. Filled cover to cover along with anecdotes, insights, and cheers from players, coaches, sports writers, and fans, Cold Wars is enthusiastically recommended as an engaging history perfect for Wisconsin and Minnesota football buffs and could well serve as a template for writing books about other historic football rivalries!

...is to say that it is well-written enough that it will hold a reader with no particular interest in the subject matter.

Such is the case with "Instant Replay". The earlier reviewer is right -- this is without a doubt, and by far, the best book on pro football ever written. It is very engaging, informative, and humorous.

(With due respect to Kramer, I suspect that Schaap is probably 90% responsible for the excellence of the book. His writing brings about the result I alluded to in my first sentence).

So much has been written over the years about the Green Bay Packers of the 1960's that at times one may grow weary of the same old ancedotes and cliches about about legendary coach Vince Lombardi and his troops. Kramer's book is the perfect tonic for that: a diary of the 1967 season, Lombardi's last in Green Bay, that gives the only in-the-trenches, as-it-happens look at this great team (and coach) ever written. Not only do we get an up-close look at Lombardi (and other legends like Bart Starr) as the season unfolds, but we are also shown the mindset of Kramer as he tries to disect why he does what he does. The kicker is that the ending remains as much as mystery to him as to us until the book's climax- the classic 1967 title game. The whirlwind of emotions Kramer experiences as he and and his aging teamates try to wring one more championship from their exhausted bodies range from jubilation to instrospection to fear to disgust. This is a page turner in the classic sense- absolutely no predicatbiltiy whatsoever infects it. Over thirty years after it release, Instant Replay, although dated in spots, remains in all probablity the best book on pro football ever written.

This is a good book for bedtime reading. Easy to pick up where you let off without finishing lengthy chapters. Very well written and entertaining even if you are not into sports. Jerry Kramer gives a day by day journal of his season with the 1968 world champion Green Bay Packers. His journal includes personal stories of his first days of summer to the super bowl II victory over Oakland. He gives insight into the players love/hate relationship with Vince Lombardi and his thrill of the winning block over Dallas in the ice bowl.

Ms. Mozahn has done a great deal of research on a team whose histoy is legendary. She shows us the importance of the team to the community and its inspiration to individuals.

This book is about the Green Bay Packer players and the teams that have won 12 National Football League Championships and 3 Superbowls. There are interesting stories about players like Brett Favre, Reggie White, and Don Hutson who helped to make the Packers a winning team. There are many colorful action pictures and exciting stories of the Packers 3 Superbowl wins and other great games. This is a book young and old football fans would love to read.

If you are interested in the inside stuff -- before Wolf & Holmgren, this is simply the best. He was there and wrote it all down.

Get a copy!

If anyone can tell me the value of a signed and numbered copy, I would appreciate it. I lost mine in a flood. Thanks. Judy

Loaded with good local cruising information not found elsewhere. A must if you are cruising GreenBay/Door County.

Excellent for Cruising Green Bay. Everything you need for a successful sail.

I just wanted to say that I am a Green Bay Packer fan, just like everyone else in Wisconsin and I also am a tailgater at all the Packer games. It is about time someone took all the great recipes from the tailgaters and printed them in a book. The recipes are out of this world and looking at all the pictures of the tailgaters makes me wish for the season to start again. Every Packer fan in the world should have a copy of this great book.

Impressive array of recipes from real football fans. I tried a number of the recipes and they were great. The book is also fun to read and is a real treat for Packer Fans!

The year 1997 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the 1967 NFL Championship game between the Packers and the Cowboys. Two book were published around that time. One was by Mike Shropshire and the other was by Ed Gruver. Of the two books, Gruver's is superior. It looks briefly at the coaches, the organizations, the seasons, and then devotes the lion's share of the book to the actual game. Especially helpful were the diagrams of key plays that occurred during the game. The book devotes a chapter to each quarter. In addition to the players and coaches, the author looks at the game from sportscasters and referees. The author also covers issues that Shropshire ignored. For example: was Jerry Kramer offsides on the winning TD and did Donny Anderson score on the previous play. The author also does a good job on covering the discussion of possible plays that could be called on the final play. The Shropshire book was not bad, but this one wins hands down.

THIS BOOK IS TRULY A GREAT READ. THE INTERVIEWS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND RESEARCH IS REALLY EXCELLENT. THIS IS BOOK REALLY BRINGS BACK SOME MEMORIES. I WAS ACTUALLY COLD JUST THINKING ABOUT THE HARSH CONDITIONS OF THAT DAY OF SURVIVAL. WELL DESCRIBED AND A GREAT WAY TO LEARN ABOUT THIS LEGENDARY GAME. HATS OFF TO MR GRUVER, AND ALL ASSOCIATED WITH THIS MASTERPIECE.

A wonderful book. Ed Gruver recaps this game with thirty years of perspective, and he does it right. It's well written, with comprehensive background information and game detail. The appendix has all the pertinent statistics you could want, including a play-by-play compilation.

Gruver is not biased toward the Packers. He pays richly deserved respect to the Cowboy players and coaches. The Cowboys were a "warm weather" team that might have been expected to fold their tent when faced with the severe cold, but, like the Packers, they gave everything they had on that day.

I don't see much to criticize in this book. Maybe Phil Bengtson's family would like to have seen his name spelled correctly. I'd prefer to see more discussion of the historical significance of the game, but Gruver probably thinks of himself as a reporter and not as a historian.

Not being bound by such modesty, I'll do it for him.

The greatest games in modern NFL history are:

(5) 1998 Bronco-Packer Super Bowl. (4) 1982 49er-Cowboy NFC Title Game. (3) 1969 Jet-Colt Super Bowl. (2) 1958 Giant-Colt NFL Title Game. (1) The Ice Bowl.

An epic game should have three qualities: it should effectively decide a championship, it should be historically significant (usually by signifying a changing of the guard or a change in the way the game is played), and the game action should be unforgettable. The Ice Bowl combines these qualities better than any other game.

It marked an end to the dominance of the "old" NFL and provided a glimpse of the complex offensive and defensive schemes to come. It matched two of the five greatest coaches in NFL history. No game was more dramatic; the cold weather and frozen field gave it a sense of primeval struggle. I feel that the title "Greatest Game Ever" as applied to the '58 Championship Game has been inflated by the well-known power of eastern media. The Ice Bowl deserves that title.

As I read this book, the thing that kept running through my mind was how much research the author had to do. That is the difference between this book and other biographies, especially when you think that the two best sources of information - Vince and wife Marie - have long since passed away. I commend him for his efforts as not just a writer, but as a researcher. I will say this though, there are volumes and volumes of information about the Packers and Lombardi, making the writer's job not easier, but less time-consuming because of the availability of all the information out there.

As for the writing, I loved the way he blended Lombardi's day-to-day life with the football seasons. Just when you thought he was going to give you some boring play-by-play, he took you in another direction, describing Lombardi's relationship with a player, an assistant coach, a business leader, even his secretary, and he did so in a thorough and fascinating manner. He then took you back on the field for the play-by-play, and as a reader you felt like you never left.

You don't have to be a sports lover to love this book, because to me it's not really a sport book. Instead, it is a journey into the psyche of a man who was driven to succeed in everything he did. Chapters on his personal appearances, business ventures and other interests were nearly as interesting as the tales of his obsession with football. Lombardi was truly driven to be the best at everything he did.

The title of this book says volumes because to Lombardi pride did matter. Everything he did - except perhaps his relationship with his immediate family - he did with the intent of showing others that quality mattered to him.

I loved the book and despite his many shortcomings, I love Lombardi.

I too started the book as a football fan, and ended the book as a fan of the man and his principles. From childhood, through minimal success on the field, then to enormous success as a leader in America in the 1960s. You get a sense of the true values and character of not just Vince Lombardi, but America during a time of national change. I was only 10 years old when he died, but the stories of the Lombardi Packers are still cherished in the midwest today. But that misses the point. How a man can lead every team he touched to the top is studied and presented and you can almost see into his mind. It was sad to see the family suffer through years of anguish, mixed with with pride, love, and loyalty. The author's style and storytelling were excellent.

The historical underpinings from the immigrant Italian family living in Brooklyn, cutting through WWII, stopping at West Point and continuing to Green Bay, Wisconsin is nothing short of a historical education of America in the 20th Century. Vince Lombardi's range of experiences through his involvement in the sport of football constructs a timeline of how rapidly the world has changed in the last 100 years. Maraniss delves into the life of Lombardi to discover what made him the legend he is in the society of sports people. Lombardi's strength of character sprang from his upbringing. Maraniss does such a fine job of detailing Lombardi's childhood that you can see where the strong influences of church and family guided his sense of duty and passion in life. The reader will be providing herself or himself an outstanding education of a facet of society that covers more than just the renaissance man named Vince Lombardi. Anyone who enjoys biographies MUST read When Pride Still Mattered.

This is a book about the game of football when it was REALLY football, and when the players were genuinely tough guys who poured their hearts into the game... and not the candy-derriere prima donnas on the pro teams today (except for the Dallas Cowboys). Vince Lombardi worked these guys, built and molded them, inspired them to be one of the best teams of any sort in history. It so happened their medium was football, but I think their determination and Lombardi's leadership could have driven this particular Green Bay Packer group to accomplish anything they set out to do. Kramer's story is a fantastic look into the gritty gridiron world of yesteryear, before all the promotional opportunities and player greed converted professional football from a knock-heads team sport into something more akin to professional wrestling.

Buy it today. It's a great story you won't be able to put down.

As a fan of the Packers, or sports in general, Instant Replay is a must-read for the sports enthusiast. Stirring and funny, Jerry Kramer weaves his way through life with Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. One only hopes they reprint this for future generations. Don't overlook it's companion, Distant Replay, which picks up where Instant Replay leaves off, 20 years later. These should be a staple in the sports reader's library.

This is a fascinating diary of a year in the life of a pro football player. And what a year!! Jerry Kramer is an offensive guard who plays for the 1967 Green Bay Packers as they try to become the first NFL team to win three straight championships. Not only is it a great drama (especially if you don't already know the outcome), but it's very interesting to see how the NFL has changed over the past 30 years - and how it's still the same in many ways. It's also a good snapshot of what the average person saw, thought, said and dreamed about in the late 60's, from the perspective not of a flower-child or a politician, but from a regular, honest guy who happened to play pro football for a living before the big salaries and ESPN. I can't recommend this book enough. I didn't want it to ever end.