The NFL has had a bad year. A string of news stories have painted a harsh picture of a league that neglects the virtues of integrity and fair play (not to mention the health and safety of its players — and their families). But all the slings and arrows lobbed at the Shield won’t stop most Americans from enjoying another Super Bowl Sunday, and why should they? Football is inextricably linked with the culture of this country, a fact that has seldom been more thoroughly investigated and sensitively explored than in H.G . Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, the 2000 saga of “a town, a team, and a dream.”

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