If you enjoyed the book Moneyball, and you like football, you’ll really enjoy Michael Lewis’ new book, The Blind Side. Michael Lewis is well known for writing business profiles of finance and high technology personalities. In both Moneyball and The Blind Side, Mr. Lewis describes the events involved in the evolution of a major league sport, and how those changes have changed how players are paid.
The story told in The Blind Side is a perfect example of how market forces work together to shape events. The book is the story of how the Left Tackle position evolved from just another lineman position, to be the second highest paid position in the National Football League.
Two forces in NFL football intersected to create the circumstances we have today. The first was the success of Bill Walsh, former coach of the San Francisco 49’ers, and his West Coast Offense. The second force was the emergence of a single player, Lawrence Taylor.
The West Coast offense changed football from a running game where the pass was used as the exception, to a game where receivers spread the field and ran exact passing routes. Quarterbacks in this system proceed through a number of pre-set choices as a receiver, and look to make the highest completion rate, not necessarily the longest yard gain. Quarterbacks in this system were becoming very successful.
A glitch emerged in the West Coast offense. More eligible receivers meant less men on the line blocking. Bill Parcells, the Defensive mastermind and head coach of the New York Giants unleashed Lawrence Taylor, a new kind of pass rusher. Bill Parcells believed that a very important piece of a football game is the element of fear. Taylor lived to sack quarterbacks, and he did so in a way that would hurt, not a small example of which was the infamous Joe Theisman broken leg.
And so this became the crux of the problem. The highest paid member of the team, the quarterback, and thus the business’ largest asset, was under fire. It so happens that most people, and so most quarterbacks, are right-handed. When the quarterback drops back in the pocket they stand sideways, with their right side back and their left side pointed forward. In this position the team’s largest asset can see in front of him, and to his right, but not behind him, thus…the blind side.
What emerges from this is a really fascinating example of market forces at work. Where once all lineman were considered interchangeable parts, now one line position becomes critical. The left tackle became the definitive position that protects the quarterback’s blind side from the new order of Lawrence Taylor like defensive ends. With the labor agreement in the early nineties that brought on free agency, pure market forces erupted.
The scarcity of the body-type and skills that make the best Left Tackle became so in demand that that position became the second highest paid position in the NFL. Higher than running backs, higher than wide receivers – all for a player that most fans never distinguish from the other lineman.
As in Moneyball, The Blind Side has its own equivalent of “the Greek God of Walks.” That is, a player that epitomizes this new reality of the game. In the Blind Side, that player is a “freak of nature,” by the name of Michael Oher. A poor black kid from West Memphis, Michael Oher came “out of nowhere” to be the country's best left tackle prospect. Lewis interweaves the story of Oher’s journey from nothing to college football (he currently plays for Old Miss), with the story of the evolution of the left tackle position.
The story told in The Blind Side is a perfect example of how market forces work together to shape events. The book is the story of how the Left Tackle position evolved from just another lineman position, to be the second highest paid position in the National Football League.
Two forces in NFL football intersected to create the circumstances we have today. The first was the success of Bill Walsh, former coach of the San Francisco 49’ers, and his West Coast Offense. The second force was the emergence of a single player, Lawrence Taylor.
The West Coast offense changed football from a running game where the pass was used as the exception, to a game where receivers spread the field and ran exact passing routes. Quarterbacks in this system proceed through a number of pre-set choices as a receiver, and look to make the highest completion rate, not necessarily the longest yard gain. Quarterbacks in this system were becoming very successful.
A glitch emerged in the West Coast offense. More eligible receivers meant less men on the line blocking. Bill Parcells, the Defensive mastermind and head coach of the New York Giants unleashed Lawrence Taylor, a new kind of pass rusher. Bill Parcells believed that a very important piece of a football game is the element of fear. Taylor lived to sack quarterbacks, and he did so in a way that would hurt, not a small example of which was the infamous Joe Theisman broken leg.
And so this became the crux of the problem. The highest paid member of the team, the quarterback, and thus the business’ largest asset, was under fire. It so happens that most people, and so most quarterbacks, are right-handed. When the quarterback drops back in the pocket they stand sideways, with their right side back and their left side pointed forward. In this position the team’s largest asset can see in front of him, and to his right, but not behind him, thus…the blind side.
What emerges from this is a really fascinating example of market forces at work. Where once all lineman were considered interchangeable parts, now one line position becomes critical. The left tackle became the definitive position that protects the quarterback’s blind side from the new order of Lawrence Taylor like defensive ends. With the labor agreement in the early nineties that brought on free agency, pure market forces erupted.
The scarcity of the body-type and skills that make the best Left Tackle became so in demand that that position became the second highest paid position in the NFL. Higher than running backs, higher than wide receivers – all for a player that most fans never distinguish from the other lineman.
As in Moneyball, The Blind Side has its own equivalent of “the Greek God of Walks.” That is, a player that epitomizes this new reality of the game. In the Blind Side, that player is a “freak of nature,” by the name of Michael Oher. A poor black kid from West Memphis, Michael Oher came “out of nowhere” to be the country's best left tackle prospect. Lewis interweaves the story of Oher’s journey from nothing to college football (he currently plays for Old Miss), with the story of the evolution of the left tackle position.
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