For all of its pageantry, a football game is a violent go-minute turf war.


Bounded not only by the league s rules, players adhere to and enforce an unwritten honor system known simply as The Code. As mysterious as it is sacred, the code prescribes an internal system of justice known only to those within the sport itself. Until now...


Ross Bernstein, best-selling author of The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL and The Code: Baseball s Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct, offers an unprecedented glimpse of football s unspoken rules regarding sportsmanship, retaliation, and intimidation. The result of more than 100 interviews with some of the biggest names in the game, The Code is a systematic description of every major unwritten rule in the game today from excessive end-zone celebrations, trash talking, and going after the quarterback, to using stickum and silicone, sign-stealing, and the use of perform-enhancing drugs.


Along the way you ll read about some of the most memorable violations of the code including Dexter Manley s profanity-laced trash-talking episode that was too graphic for NFL Films highlights; the bench-clearing brawl between the Vikings and Chargers that inspired the league s rules on fighting; and Spygate, the most notorious example of on-field espionage in the league s history.


For the first time, get the complete, no-holds-barred truth about the implicit rules of football directly from the players, coaches, and referees who live their professional lives by the code.


The Code to me was about how the game policed itself and about how the players protected one another...That self-policing out on the field is really important, otherwise nefarious players might take advantage of certain situations...I wouldn t say I ever tried to hurt anyone who cheap-shotted me. I would make sure that he got the proper attention though, fro my teammates. Steve Young, 15-Year NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback


I was under a pile on time during a game against the Giants and was trying to rip the ball out of Dave Meggett s hand. All I could get was a finger though, so I just yanked it as hard as I could and cracked it like a chicken bone. It just snapped. Then I heard him scream. I saw it was an opportunity, and I took it. It wasn t personal, it was just football under the pile, I suppose. Bill Romanowski, 16-Year NFL Linebacker


Trash talking to me was a tactic. I used to take a lot of time researching my opponents...I wanted to intimidate him and drive him nuts...Eventually he was going to miss a key block or do something that would allow either myself or one of my teammates to capitalize on that. It was a game. What a rush. John Randle, 14-Year NFL Defensive Tackle


The Code is an indispensable guide to the inner workings of football s internal system of justice and sportsmanship, all described by the men who have enforced it. You ll never watch a game the same way again.