Business

Pigskin primers

It’s time to get in shape for football: Lift a beer. Reach for a potato chip. Yell at the TV. If we missed anything, it’s covered in these mags.

ESPN
Magazine’s NFL preview is magnetic, from the arty food photos of the Vikings’ Matt Kalil’s astronomical calorie intake to the gorgeous photography. An anonymous player questionnaire throws up facts not easily drawn out in one-on-one interviews. How many players think being in the NFL is worth the chance of brain damage — addressing the hot topic of the season, concussions? Fifty-four percent responded that it was worth the risk, up from 45% despite the ongoing debate and lawsuits over concussions.

Lindy’s Sports preview has all the required reams of statistical data on the players and their teams. For fans who want to think a little harder about the sport, the lead essay by senior editor Howard Balzer offers the most insight. Forget the brain-dead fans; it’s the players you need to worry about. As Balzer notes, more than 1,500 former players are suing the league for concussions suffered in what even its staunchest supporters are saying is an increasingly dangerous and violent sport. “How much can they pay me to take away my health and my future,” asked guard Jacob Bell. Player suicides are also becoming more common.

You have to be a total nerd to appreciate the Athlon Sports football special. Nothing sensational here and the features are bland as can be: Peyton Manning is back, Year of the Tight End, and bold predictions like Tim Tebow will eventually start for the Jets. Tell us something we didn’t know or hear already. If the special is going to sit on the coffee table all season, they should really make it look more attractive than the White Pages.

ProFootball Weekly scores low marks right out of the huddle for its prediction that QB Alex Smith’s 49ers will beat Tom Brady’s Patriots in the Super Bowl. Elsewhere, the football tabloid fumbles the biggest scandal in the sport by offering no more than passing references to the impact of the New Orleans Saints’ penalties after a bounty probe by commissioner Roger Goodell resulted in fines and suspensions, including a season ban for head coach Sean Payton.

With the Jets hype machine in full gear, New York asks some tough questions about Tebow. “We all love him,” Joe Namath says, asked whether Tebow should start as quarterback instead of Mark Sanchez. “But the thing is, he is just not all that gifted a pocket passer.” Asked whether he curses in the presence of Tebow, Coach Rex Ryan admits, “Yeah, that happens… I am sure if you asked him, ‘Would you rather your coach not cuss?’ he would say, ‘Absolutely.’”

The New Yorker visits with the creators of the mind-bending “Matrix” movie trilogy, who are gearing up to launch a freaky new flick they describe as a cross between “Moby Dick” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Elsewhere, there’s a feature on the always-evolving rapport between Obama and the Clintons, which lately has reached a detente — at least among most of the troops in the respective camps. While Bill and Barack are all smiles, “at least one of (Hillary) Clinton’s closest advisors” has said he will vote for Romney, “backing the strategy that an Obama loss in 2012 will usher in a Hillary Clinton win in 2016.” Ouch!

Newsweek also tackles the Barack vs. Bill question with a cover story penned by former New Yorker scribe Peter Boyer. So what do we get from Boyer under his new editor Tina Brown vs. his old editor David Remnick? Overall, a story that’s predictably less wordy, but also predictably dumbed-down and stale, navel-gazing over whether Obama can muster enough Clinton-esque centrism to win the election. Meanwhile, a seven-page spread asks whether Vogue editor Anna Wintour might become a diplomat in Paris or London. This fawning fluff may lend insight as to why Tina recently gave Anna a pass in the curious case of the reporter who was disgraced after Vogue published her puff piece about Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s wife.

In an interview with Time, President Obama says his administration did a bad job of “telling its story” during his first term, and the big reason was that it was in a big hurry. “There were all kinds of things we could do to have explained that effectively,” Obama says, citing the Recovery Act as an example. “But we didn’t have a lot of time.”

Elsewhere in this issue devoted to the Democrats, a senior Obama aide admits, “We just couldn’t get our story straight.” If you’re already feeling a bit of election-season indigestion, there’s a smart take on how Facebook insiders made a fortune despite the company’s implosion on the stock market.