The Last Headbangers by Kevin Cook is mis-titled, as many heads are banged, hammered and slammed in the modern game. To be fair, the violence of today's NFL is in many aspects quite tuned down from the legalized muggings of the 1970s. Cook begins his story with the 1974 Oakland-Pittsburgh Divisonal playoff, immortalized as "The Immaculate Reception" in the Steel City and remembered less charitably by East Bay devotees and sympathizers. Miami and Dallas figure in as powers of the time, and the end of '70s style pro football is marked here by "the Catch," the January '82 Dwight Clark reception heralding the rise of 49ers dynasty.
The National Forgotten League by Dan Daly covers the early days of pro football, ending with the birth of the AFL in 1960. This book is also a collection of anecdotes, but darn, there are some good ones. The first professionals were regarded by the general public as thugs too undisciplined to work for a regular criminal enterprise. The fans were held in even lower regard, being largely immigrant single men who spent the Lord's day gettin' drunk and gambling on the aforementioned thugs. Football is a rough game today, but it's nothing like the Coal Leagues of Western Pennsylvania, where nationally renowned referees had to be imported to prevent fans who bet on the losing side from rioting.
The professional football season is only five months a year, so let those of us who care, care deeply, and let's use the power of reading to broaden our historical knowledge. It would be a shame to run out of things to yell about.