The relationship between Buffalo and its team.

When the best three months of your life are “called three of the uglier months in the recent history of the National Football League.”

An attempt at writing about the football coach.

A profile of the oft-shirtless tight end Rob Gronkowski.

A sport in flux.

A new chapter for Ohio State’s football coach.

Just days after suffering a concussion, a 17-year-old fullback hangs himself. Inside his family’s journey to learn if a brain injury is to blame.

The Penn State sex abuse scandal as told through a father, a son and “Victim 1.”

On conspiracy theories in sports, from the ‘85 NBA draft lottery to Michael Phelps’ gold medal performance in the 100-meter butterfly.

The political fight over a new football stadium in Minnesota.

The story of former Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill and the lasting impact of his concussions.

The alchemy of predicting professional success, from quarterbacks to teachers.

In 1999, “original superagent” Leigh Steinberg represented 86 NFL athletes. His life today:

At age 63, Steinberg -- for years hailed as the real-life Maguire -- now finds himself a bankrupt, recovering alcoholic, plotting a comeback from the bottom. And before 10 p.m. tonight, as mandated by the California Bar Association, he must show that his urine is clean.

The inside story of Pennsylvania’s governor and the fall of Joe Paterno.

A former first-string tackle considers the green zone as a war zone:

Just as football has evolved in accordance with the evolving business ethic of American society, so has it evolved in accordance with the changing strategic assumptions about war. The development (or rebirth) of the T-formation in football coincided almost exactly with the development of a new era of mobility and speed in warfare best exemplified in the Blitzkrieg tactics of the German armies in Europe in 1939-40. The T-formation soon overwhelmed the “Maginot Line” mentality of traditional football, based as it was on rigid lines and massive concentrations of defensive and offensive power.

Terrell ‘T.O’ Owens is 38, currently unemployed, nearly bankrupt after losing his shirt in a electronic-bingo entertainment complex development plan gone bust, father of four children (one of which he has never met), and bowls frequently.

How the game gets made.

An attempt to recruit black students at Virginia’s most famous “segregation academy.”

A profile of Joe Paterno.

The Green Bay Packers are a historical, cultural, and geographical anomaly, a publicly traded corporation in a league that doesn’t allow them, an immensely profitable company whose shareholders are forbidden by the corporate bylaws to receive a penny of that profit, a franchise that has flourished despite being in the smallest market in the NFL—with a population of 102,000, it would be small for a Triple A baseball franchise.

A profile of Bob Fishman, the impresario of CBS’s NFL production crew.

An attempt to sort out whether Vick is truly a changed man or simply a very gifted football player who was bound to be forgiven.

An 11-month investigation ends with a booster, now in prison for a Ponzi scheme, going public with details of how he spent millions on college athletes from 2002 to 2010.

[Shapiro] said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play including bounties for injuring opposing players, travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.

Behind-the-scenes the Cincinnati Ben-Gal cheerleaders.

A 15-year-old dies shortly after collapsing from heatstroke during a high school football practice. Was it has coach’s fault? The state thought so, and put him on trial.