PFT Commenter offers up some strong takes on summer reading. All spelling errors are intentional (we think). -Ed.

I havent read a book in 10 years. Theres this thing called the internet and the writing there is about a millon times better then any book you can find in a store or a "school." Why even read the Bible anymore when youve got politicains to tell you all the important parts anyways?

Well that all changed this offseason, folks.

Before Mike Florio wrote fiction for ProFootballTalk he wrote SciFi for himself. Thats right- in 2001, Florio penned and published a novel called "Quarterback of the Future." Its about two College Quaterbacks on the best team in the country who travel back in time to play for the 1960 Pittsburg Steelers. It. Is. Amazing.

Well you might ask what makes Florio qualified to write about time travel,, if he could predict the future you would of thought his offseason power rankings might be a little more acurrate. Well Mike Florio knows more about particle theory then you or I might realize:

Florio grew up right in the thick of the "Golden Triangle of Quantum Physics" of Wheeling, WV, Pittsburgh and Akron, so when a local newspaper reported the story of a man in Richmond who clamed to be a confederate solder from 1862, it naturaly drew Florios attention. Mike never saw a follow up article almost like the local police and press figured out the guy was schizofrenic and wasnt actually a time traveler, but that didnt stop Mike from thinking about it for the rest of his life then wondering "what if we could use Time travel to make the Steelers a better NFL team 40 years ago?"

Now lest you be skeptical about weather or not time travel is possible, lets read a note from the author who has aparrently figured out how to bend the rules of time and space. And yes thas'ts me and yes I read in the nude.

Ok so Florio solved timetravel big whoop. What I want to know is "Is this book Elite?"

Lets go to the Amazon revews:

Here are the only ones that came out within 2 year's of the book being published-

Now Im not saying these where all written by the same person but I mean come on. It was a great book IMO but "Better then Tom Clancy"? Brother I can count on my balls whose better then Tom Clancy and heres a hint: Its me and whichever God wrote the Bible.

Apparently at one point Florio tryed to pad his stats sometime in 2009 by asking PFT readers to go by the book which lead to several toungue in cheek (no offense to Michael Sam) revews comparing "Quarterback of the Future" to Shakespear:

Which inspries this comment:

To questions:

1. Why was Florio selling a Adam Archuleta workout DVD out of his trunk to fund ProFootballTalk?

2. Were can I buy it?

Before we start in on my book report,, hears the summary to get you primed:





Now lets meet the cast of character:

Jack DeCotto- Bluecollar lunchpail QB from Pittsburg. He gets a full ride to St Marys College which is a national powerhouse. Jacks a gritty Italian throw back type player. from the old neighborhood They never come out and say it that his dads a coach but you can obvously tell Jacks a coaches son by his work ethic and over all demeanor and how he treats women. He gets hurt during his redshirt year and losses the starting job to some flashy feet first scrambler. Then Jack travels back in time. Then he travels back in time again. Then maybe he does again.

Lonnie Gordon- Scrambling, flashbucket, athletic, insticntual , speed merchant QB who steals Jacks job and gets drafted by the Chargers number 2 overall before travling back in time to the year 1960 with Jack.

Dr. Carolyn Henson- Physic wiz professor who teaches Lonnie and Jack at St. Marys in the year 2001 and then after Jack and Lonnie travel back in time her past self in 1960 gets pregnant with Jacks son because they had sex.

If Im casting this as a movie I think either Florio himself or Chaning Tadum would play the character of Jack, Jaden Smith/Samuel Jackson plays young Lonnie/old Lonnie, and Sandra Bullock does the thing where she pretend's to be way smarter then she is and plays the smartest Physics sciencist in the world.

The Plot:

Florio definitley has some fun with it here. In the very first chapter Mike flashes foreward to the future of 2010 with a newspaper article talking about how are leader is "President Rodham" which dear God oh my God I thought this was sci-fi not horror. That really dosen't have anything to do with the plot but I felt it needed to be mentoned.

So Jack is a big High School star and get's a full ride to St. Marys and meanwhile Lonnies starting his first season of football practice as a 11th grader and just get's the starting job handed to him. Lonnie clearly dosent love the game the right way like Jack. After a couple days of playing his first football Lonnies coach calls his parents in for an meeting.

Lonnies Dad Carl is a Black man and his Mom Winnie is White, and Carl gets very reverse racist when theyre trying to figure out why the Coach wanted to talk to them. In this passage Florio expounds on leadership, sexulity, and race relations.

"You been taking showers with your underwear on or something?" "Carl!" Winnie Gordon said. "What kind of a question is that?" "Well," he said, "you never let the boy play sports before. Maybe he's afraid to walk around with his manhood exposed." Carl turned back to Lonnie. "That's not it, son, is it? You're not embarrassed about that tiny little thing you inherited from your Grandpa Joe, are you?"... "I really don't think this has anything to do with whether our son is comfortable with showing his privates to the other boys on the team.. I mean, why would anyone be interested in looking?" "Oh, they look," Carl said. "It's an instinct. Goes back to when we were cavemen. The one with the biggest unit is the leader." ... Then Carl Gordon started singing, to no particular melody: "They sneak a peek at the e-quip-ment, just to see who's got the most, and they boast., while they eat their toooooast."

Florio is also being very reverse racist here by haveing Carl suggest that Lonnie inherited a small ding dong from his White Grandfather. Heres a secret : White people dont have small peckers we've just got huge balls thats a fact. Its all about prespective.

I dont know about you guys but when Im reading a book about a QB from Pittsburgh and his wiener Im expecting the title to be "50 Shades of Grey" not Quaterback of the future. Besides this small penis/bad QB theory has obvously been debunked with the Brett Farve doctrine.

But enough about Lonnie and his Gadget play package. Lets visit with All America kid Jack DeCotto. Jack gets a fullride to a Elite college in Pittsburg and he gets redshirted his freshman year. Jacks a real gymrat. Hes up everyday running miles trying to better himself and dazzling every body in practcice, when one day hes out for a run and get's hit by a literally car. He thinks he has time to recover during his redshirt year, but his coach double crosses him and recruits Lonnie the flashy young talent out of Urban Pittsburgh.

Lonnie steals Jacks job from him by trying to act all like Miek Vick and play street ball instead of good solid pocket passing. Hes not even all that great he seems like hes overrated in the book, but any ways he lead's there team to the national championship game and sets like every record.

Ok so Florio solved timetravel big whoop. What I want to know is "Is this book Elite?"

Theres a very intresting part of the book where Lonnie starts sleeping with any girl with a hole and a heartbeat against the prudent Tim Tebow-like advice of Jack. Then Florio makes some strong illusons to Lonnie developing a severe mystery illness during this time peroid where he is doing nothing but random sex, but Florio never really resolves this. But there are multiple incidentses where Lonnie is to sick to go to practice, or go to class, and hes wasting away and Jack says he looks like a dead guy. They never menton why Lonnie is so sick, Its almost like Florio gave Lonnie a realy bad STD in his orignal version but then decided to take that part out for some reason (Florio had no comment on this when I ask him.)

But as Lonnie is asaulting his body with viruses and infectons, Jack is converted to a Ed McCaffrey type WR. Jack relishes he new role and teaches Lonnie how to work hard. For his efforts coach lets Jack throw a double reverse pass to Lonnie to win the NCAA champonship. But Lonnie dogs it on the play and misses the catch.

Lonnie gets drafted by the Chargers with pick number 2 (no offense to Mark Schlereth) and Jack dosent get drafted at all. Then one night Jack finds out that showboat Lonnie got $17 millon to lose the championship game from HighRise brand athletic shoes!!! Jack flips out because he would of never taken money to lose a game and he takes Lonnie out in a alley behind a bar and breaks Lonnies ribs to teach him a lesson. As the 2 fight, a flash've light apeers and they get transported back in time to 1960 as one does.

Now to spite what you might think, traveling to 1960 isnt all Elvis Presley and poodle skirts. Lonnie specially faces hardship because virtually NO ONE in 1960 ever said "not to be racist but..." before arresting minoritys for eating lunch in the same room as white people. Disgusting. Lonnie learns this first hand by running into a reverse reverse racist cop who beat's him up and throws him in jail on there first night. Also the cop's a reverse racist character because hes Irish and thats a stereotype to write about a Irish cop, so as another persecuted person I really know how Lonnie must of felt.

Naturaly the first instinct of any bluecollar football player is to go out and try to find a game of football to join in no matter what era they get transported to. Woodhead woud of found a sandlot game by lunchtime on day 1 in this scenario. So in day 2 of literaly being time traveled, Jack suggests they try out for the Steelers. Just a real competitor and hard worker. They meet with Art Rooney who is so not racist that he lets Lonnie even try out for the Steelers but as a WR.

The Steelers allready have a QB in the great old Bobby Layne the last NFL player to play without a face mask, so Jack trys out to be his backup. It was intresting that Florio added in the actual person Bobby Lane, but made him a fat rapist which seems like libel?

Bobby Layne arrived a few minutes later and the discussion intensified. "that girl was so drunk she didn't know what was in her mouth," Layne said. And they all laughed even louder.

Strong take. While Bobby Lane was a real NFL player theirs no record of him sexually assualting anyone but they didnt really keep those type of stats back in the glory days of the NFL. Beside's I was more intrigued with another player that Florio wrote in:

The name of the Steelers center in this book is "Don Zella." This is not a actual center that played in the NFL acording to me doing internet searches. What makes Zella a compelling character is that Florio give's him the unique ability to make his dick talk. Literaly Don Zella can make his dick talk in this book. Zellas dick has a vocublary of like 35 words including "touchdown," "Dakota" and "hostile workplace enviroment." Honestly folks the NFL woudnt see another talking dick like this untill Richie Incognito got drafted. Serously a talking wiener is a realy bizzarre thing to make up about someone even if the rest of the books about time travelling QBs. So I figured old Mike must of based this on someone who use to play.

As I said in the beforementioned paragrapgh, there is no record of a NFL player name "Don Zella." In fact the only hits in a googles search of "Don Zella NFL" leads me- no joke- STRAIGHT to a actual ProFootballTalk Commenter who goes by the name of "Don Zella." So I checked throug "Don Zella's" posting history and it appears hes a Viking fan just like Florio and he somtimes shows up JUST to vigorously defend Mike from other commenters. Folks this goes deep folks. Lets examine Don Zellas ENTIRE history of comments on ProFootballTalk shall we?

Here he is talking about whom the Steeler's should bring in as a backup for Big Ben:

And here's he is hating on foremer PFT writer Gregg Rosenthal's powerankings:

Here we see Commenter LMacball shows up to acuse Florio of some pretty sneaky stuff here being a Steeler homer and suprise suprise look who answers the bell:



To recap: Did Mike Florio comment on ProFootball Talk under the name "Don Zella" a charecter that he invented who had a talking dick? I think we can safley assume that yes, without queston, he definitely did.

So in between a rapist QB and a Center who's penis speaks words out loud, the 1960 Steelers have alot of guys who just like to keep thing's lose in the lockeroom. Soon enough Jack takes the reigns at QB and Lonny even gets some time in at WR. Jack invent's the no-huddle offense and 3 WR sets and hes pretty much looked at as a God leading the Steeler's to a undefeated regular season. But then Jack and Lonnie figure that they should try to travel back in time to the year 2001 again.

Did Mike Florio comment on ProFootball Talk under the name "Don Zella" a charecter that he invented who had a talking dick? without queston, he definitely did.

To do this, Jack trys to track down his physics professor that he had in college in 2001. But the years 1960 and his old professer is in her late 20s and attending college in Pittsburg. Jack literally bumps in to her acidently on a street somewhere (stuff like that happen's all the time no matter what Nate Silver says) and asks her if in between classes for her Master's degree she could maybe discover how to time travel. Jack grows close with her and they have steamy timetravel future-past sex.

Unfortunatley the reader is denyed a Mike Florio written sex seen because the book cuts away right as they start to bang it out so Im writing the sex seen here for you as I would imagine Florio would of written it.

Jack took his shirt of and looked at Carolyn. Unless he dind't. But he did. "Carolyn," Jack said. "What do you say we- you know- 'yada yada yada.'" "You cant "yada" sex Jack." She cooed. Carolyn unbottoned Jacks trousers and put her head down between his legs, turning her head in to a human jockstrap that was between Jacks legs. "Carolyn, no." Jack demanded she stop. "I have a job to do. Im here to have intercourse-only with you,, Your being a distracton." Carolyn removed her under where and squatted. "Come over hear Jack. Get undercenter and give me the Hard Count" she cooed as she acheived a 3-point stants. "Now thats what I call a twominute drill" She cooed after they were done a couple minutes later, She got preggers and 9 moths later Jack chose to play in a football game instead've attending the birth of there child.

After having a sex with a future old-lady Jack start's to really enjoy his time in the past. Lonnys being selfish and dosen't like living in the year 1960 because hes just being a real me-first selfish guy. But the Steelers are doing well with there two Superstars Jack and Lonnie accept for the fact that theres two Aaron Hernendez-type players on the team that literally want to murder them. After a big game the two bad teamates start beating Jack and Lonny up in the VERY SAME ALLEY THEY TIME TRAVELED IN BEFORE (this is murder 101 you dont give youre opponent a chance to escape to the future when your trying to kill him, you gotta play press and jam him at the line in the present day.) All of a sudden its another flash of light and Jack wakes up and hes in 2006 playing as a NFL QB for the Broncoes and Lonny is stuck back in 1960.

Future Jack Decotto is a parently a real asshole. He finds himself in a world where his friend Lonnie had lived in the 1960s and thus never gotten to take Jacks starting QB job in College. So Jack became a real Jonny Football diva QB. He refused to play for Denver when the Broncoes drafted him unless the team changed there color scheme, which they did. Jack also is in debt to some Italian mafia guys who's names are literaly Sammy Nutella and "Dickhair" Manina. Heres just one example of there hilarous interactions:





Those two get in to all sorts of hijinx like that. Manina even clogs Sammy Nutellas toilet six ways to sunday during there superbowl watch party which is a terribly inconsiderate thing to do. Dickhair clogging a toilet? I mean come on thats just unrealstic.

As DeCotto wakes up he hates the person hes become but he has no memorys of the past 5 years inbetween 2001 when he time travelled backwards and 2006 when he arrived in his body again. Usualy when some jerk doesnt remember all the stuff that happened in 2001 we just call them Obama voters folks. But Jacks selective amnesia is a problem on account've the Broncoes are playing in the Superbowl in 13 days and Sammy Nutella will kill him if the Bronces dont win the game by exactly 7 points.

Jack faces a tough decison as he gets in touch with Carolyn who's been probly complaning for 45 years that Jack never called her back after having sex (Women, am I right folks?). Carloyn suggests getting hypnotised but if he goes through with that he might lose all his memorys of being in 1960 and the magical night he shared with Carolyn, but he also might get his knowledge of the Broncoes offense back. Can Jack help Denver win a Superbowl? Will Carolyn try to collect back child support payments from Jack? Whats up with Lonnie is he cool with not ever getting his millons of dollars to play in the NFL like he was suppose to or is he still being a butthurt dramaqueen?

You'll have to read the book to find out folks.

But dont take my word for it.

A word from the author:

I was actually able to get in to contact with Florio to get his take on it and he was nice enough to issue a press realease for me to share with you all:

Thanks for joining the very small group of people to actually buy a copy of Quarterback of the Future in the 13 years since it was released. I'm amazed you actually read it. It wasn't very good (it probably was pretty bad), but it helped my find my way into whatever we'd call the business I'm now in. Maybe a few more people will buy the book after I'm dead. Maybe enough to help my kid get a new lawnmower, or something.

Mikes just being humbele here obviously but you can almost hear a little smirk in his voice knowing that he absolutely nailed his debut novel. But heres the real trippy part: Ive neglected invoices from alot of DUI lawers over the years so its entirely possible that Mike was a lawyer of mine back in the 90s and I frustrated him enough with overdo payments that he quit law and started writing about football. If Mike Florio had never wrote this book then he would of never gotten ProFootball Talk to be a big site and I would of never existed. So yes its concevable I traveled back in time to make sure that Florio quit doing lawyer stuff and finished the manuscript about time traveling to insure that my strong takes would exist in the future. Some real Termnator type stuff and let me just say to all of you who're lucky enough to be reading this: your welcome.