A Big Mess In Texas by David Fleming: Book Review

A Big Mess in Texas: The Miraculous, Disastrous 1952 Dallas Texans and the Craziest Untold Story in NFL History is the latest release from David Fleming. Released on October 14, 2025, this book takes a look back at the NFL team that almost no one knows anything about.

I want to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of A Big Mess in Texas. All opinions presented here are my own.

Synopsis from Goodreads

Rattlesnakes on the practice field, fist fights on the team plane, bounced checks, paternity suits, house bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, stadium fields covered in circus elephant dung, one-legged trainers, humiliating defeats, miraculous wins, All-Pro quarterbacks getting drunk at halftime, sex in phone booths, and even a future Hall of Fame coach stealing a cab.

Nearly lost to history, this singular season in the most football-mad region of the world is a kaleidoscope of every larger-than-life, fictionalized Texas football folktale ever written or filmed, with one incredible, it’s all true. Over a fascinating, 10-month rollercoaster ride in 1952, in the waning Wild West days of the NFL, before television turned the game into a corporation, the forgotten Dallas Texans would go down in history as one of the worst teams of all time and the last NFL team to fail. But not before defying the Jim Crow South, pulling off a Thanksgiving Day miracle against George Halas’s famed Chicago Bears, and then celebrating with an even more infamous bender that would make Jimmy Johnson’s Dallas Cowboys blush. A year later, the NFL buried all trace of the most lovable, dysfunctional, entertaining team in history by secretly rebranding the train wreck Texans as the wholesome, all-American Baltimore Colts, the team that would go on to save pro football.

My Opinions

I was interested in reading this book from the moment I first learned about it. Why? Because I love learning about sports history, especially football and the NFL. And I have never heard the story of the 1952 Dallas Texans.

A Big Mess in Texas feels like an appropriate title for this story. But it could also be titled the Big Scheme of Bert Bell and the NFL. I am not saying that Giles Miller was innocent in his failings. But he was pretty naive about what was needed to be a successful team owner. He didn’t surround himself with people who would help him succeed.

Now, about the book, it was an interesting story full of anecdotes about the team and their antics. Like most people who have heard the story, I find it too wild to be true. At the end of the book, the author states that the primary source of information was Miller’s own diaries. He also used a few other publications to help him tell the story.

Who would I think would enjoy reading A Big Mess In Texas? Anyone who enjoys reading about sports history, social injustices, and racial struggles in the South.

Are you looking for some more books to read? Check out my bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.