Book review: Joe Posnanski scores with poignant, hilarious ‘Why We Love Football’

The award-winning sportswriter’s previous books have profiled significant ballplayers (“The Baseball 100”) and ticked off 50 of the biggest occasions in the history of our national pastime (“Why We Love Baseball.”)

Posnanski is back with a new sport. In “Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments,” the former Sports Illustrated scribe pens a thoroughly enjoyable look back at the players and plays that have come to define America’s most popular sport.

Sure, one could argue with what was included and what was not, the order, etc. But at the end of the day, the book is a love letter to football — a poignant, informative and at times hilarious look at what makes the gridiron game such a part of the national fabric.

“It takes us fans to the mountaintop, and it tears our hearts out,” Posnanski writes. “It lifts us and crushes us, thrills us and revolts us, leaves us empty and leaves us wanting and leaves us breathless.”

There are no-brainers in there — the 1972 “Immaculate Reception” that lifted the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Oakland Raiders to their first-ever playoff victory, the “Kick-Six” missed field goal return for Auburn that stunned Alabama in the 2013 Iron Bowl and Bart Starr’s title-winning quarterback keeper during the 1967 NFL Championship “Ice Bowl” game against Dallas at Lambeau Field — but “Why We Love Football” is at its best when it explores the off-the-beaten-path moments in the game’s long history.

And the intersection of football and pop culture. The passage on former Notre Dame coach Dan Devine’s portrayal in the underdog feel-good film “Rudy” alone might be worth the book’s purchase price.

For football fans like this reviewer, the book is an absolute must-read. But it should be accessible to the football-averse, too, with its brilliant writing and research that unearths gems and perspectives that bring the game and its characters to life. Readers will find themselves laughing out loud at times.

“Football matters because, at its best, the game illustrates life at its most exuberant and most passionate and most emotionally heightened,” Posnanski writes.

“Why We Love Football” proves that statement by reminding us all what makes it the No. 1 sport in the land.