100-YARD BASH
It’s party time for NFL fans. The league’s 96th season kicks off on Thursday and, except for the fact that this season’s championship game, Super Bowl 50, will be the first to be titled with Arabic and not Roman numerals, little else is assured. These four magazines aim to make things a little clearer.
If you’re looking for one magazine to have by your side all season long, one that breaks down players and teams nine ways to Sunday, doesn’t treat you like an idiot and appeals to diehard and casual fans alike, then the Sporting News Pro Football Preview issue is it. Right from the opening pages, Editor Scott Smith doesn’t fool around, picking the Packers to defeat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The issue doesn’t waste your time with pretentious features or gimmicks. Smith also has one of the most intelligent takes on Deflategate printed to date. Sporting News has produced sports preview issues for a long time — and has perfected the formula. This one’s a keeper.
Jets quarterback Geno Smith is, perhaps, the only bigger September disappointment than Sports Illustrated’s NFL ’15 Preview issue. Its leadoff picture feature on how NFL players might fare in a different position is, to be kind, really lame. Second, the Time Inc. brain trust decided to include other sports in its upfront Scorecard section. Someone throw the flag on this mag. It decided it was cool to include a story on Dan Marino’s new life as a vineyard owner? Gimme a break! Columnist Dan Patrick writes about a college football coach? Gimme a break! Even the art director should be given a 15yard penalty because the typeface is terrible. The first real football story is on Page 70. Really? SI picks the Ravens over the Seahawks in the Super Bowl.
The most powerful and richest brand in sports, ESPN, has for years wasted its influence and power on TV. With the ESPN NFL Preview Issue, it proves it can be equally stupid in print. While rival Sporting News dishes up an intelligent take on Deflategate, ESPN simply polls NFL players. The 134page issue wastes fans’ time by offering up a feature that has a former general manager build an allstar team — and allows him to use players out of position. Criminy! And if that weren’t enough, the editors of the title offer up a 12page feature on a player — Chris Borland — who isn’t even playing. By the time you reach page 112 and the team reports, you really don’t care that they picked the Seahawks over the Colts in the Super Bowl.
We decided to include Lindy’s Sports Fantasy Football 2015 not only because it breaks down players’ stats as well as anyone but because fantasy sports is expected to generate about $15 billion in revenue this season. That’s 50 percent more dough than the NFL will ring up. This issue is not going to win any editing prizes, but the way it presents its player and team stat breakdowns is easy to read, smart and comprehensive.
Like the other news titles in the mix, New York weighs in on Pope Francis’ first visit to America. It perhaps does the best job providing a general review of what the pontiff has been doing since taking the reins in March 2013, including forgiving a Vatican reformer even after he was exposed for having an affair. New York also has its take on Donald Trump and again provides good material. Its angle is profiling Republican kingmaker and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and how he is deciding whom to endorse as the Republican antiTrump. Adelson does not trust that Trump will strongly support Israel. A feature on director Nancy Meyers, who cast Robert De Niro as the 70yearold intern to Anne Hathaway in the upcoming “Intern,” and tracking the lives of exonerated prisoners during their first weeks out of jail, round out a full issue.
New Yorker gives an insider take on Francis in its lengthy cover feature “Can the Pope Change the Church?” The case is clearly made that the pope is from outside the Vatican and has been having a tricky time navigating its politics, but it gets so deep into details that those who are not Vatican watchers can easily get lost. Kudos to the late author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, who writes just weeks before his death about rediscovering his love for the muchmaligned gefilte fish.
Conservative magazine National Review, with its cover story “My Pope, Right and Wrong,” cuts the populist some slack, saying he is ignorant on economic matters and “We should inform him” during his visit. Meanwhile, it makes the argument that even though 59 percent of Americans view the pope favorably his popularity is fading. Really? That might explain why the mag, over the course of several articles, bashes Trump, saying he is no more important to the GOP primaries than Herman Cain or Rick Perry. Then it goes on to criticize The Donald, saying, “There’s nothing of value here.” Well, considering that GOP darlings Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are all polling at under 10 percent, it seems that just dismissing Trump’s rise as shortsighted suggests that the mag is pretty out of touch with its base.