Inside the Meat Grinder: An NFL Official's Life in the Trenches

Chad Brown did hard time in the National Football League, playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Oilers, and New Orleans Saints. But for the past seven seasons, he has been one of the NFL's top officials, working in the middle of the line of scrimmage, known by those who do battle there as the "meat grinder." Chad has gone head to helmet with the biggest, baddest, and most offbeat players in the league, making the calls that can make or break seasons and sometimes careers, but always calling them as he sees them. From his early days playing pickup football in the sandlots of South Dallas to Super Bowl XXXIII, Inside the Meat Grinder follows one of the NFL's most prominent officials both one and off the field. Born and raised in South Dallas, Chad Brown started playing football on his neighborhood streets in the early 60's. He made his way from street hero to high school hotshot to All-American at East Texas State University and finally to a draft pick of the Steelers. After a roller coaster ride of a professional career and a brief stint as a college line coach (his team went 0-10), Chad decided to see how he would look in stripes. He became an official. Beginning with his first call in a Pop Warner game to Chad's NFL debut as an umpire in an intense 1992 Redskins-Cowboys Monday night match-up, Inside the Meat Grinderputs you right on the field as you dodge flying 300-pound human projectiles and deal head on with the trash talk and the big egos of the NFL. You will also meet the "All-Chad Brown All-Meat Grinder Team," made up of the most likely to exasperate even the most experienced NFL officials. This book will take you inside the world of NFL officiating as never before, as four of the league's finest reveal their lives as the NFL's "police" in a no-holds barred "Round Table" discussion. After a season filled with botched coin tosses and phantom touchdowns, Inside the Meat Grinder sheds a brand-new light, an unprecedented perspective, on NFL officials, the men who never get the respect they deserve.