Friday News

It’s been a little quieter around here as May winds down, but that’s because I’m busy working on a lot of fantasy football material at Footballguys.com. We’re rolling out an iPad magazine that is going to be fantastic. I’m also working on fantasy rankings, a few strategy pieces, and some articles for FootballDiehards.com’s fantasy magazines that will appear on newsstands in July.

But not to worry, there’s a lot of good stuff in the works at the RSP blog and June will mark the time where I get back to watching games for the 2013 NFL Draft. I’ll be sharing analysis from those study sessions here, writing more about the 2012 class, and developing more analysis of established NFL players. As you can see, there really is no off season.

I do this every week, but I sincerely thank all of you who buy the Rookie Scouting Portfolio and The RSP Post-Draft Analysis. I have a day job, but I also make a lot my living as a freelance writer. My goal is to be able to work from anywhere and have a lot more time to write about football than I already take. But I know you don’t get the RSP to be nice, and I certainly don’t write and sell it for charity. It’s football candy to a young kid that never tasted sweets. Hell, it’s the entire candy shop. Best yet, the RSP gives back, donating 10 percent of each sale to Darkness to Light so they can train the community on the facts regarding sexual abuse how to prevent it.

Reads

I just got (Grantland feature writer) Chris Brown’s new book The Essential Smart Football. I’m certain that many of you that didn’t know my work from Footballguys.com, FFToday.com, or the New York Times.com Fifth Down Blog, directly or indirectly came to this blog thanks to Brown, whose blog SmartFootball.com teaches me something new every time I go there. If you want to learn about the game it’s the first place I would recommend.

Hilarious, informative, and somewhat sad cartoon: Why Nikola Tesla was greatest geek who ever lived. Thanks to fellow Footballguys.com writer Ryan Sitzmann for the post on Facebook. You’ll never see Thomas Edison the same way again.

Former Packers’ linebacker George Koonce submitted his doctoral dissertation on life away from the game the day Junior Seau committed suicide. This is a must-read.

Listens

If you’re a music lover and you don’t know who trumpeter Freddie Hubbard is then you need to get acquainted. If I were to draw a football parallel, Hubbard is like Bills’ all-time great pass rusher Bruce Smith. Both were fantastic the moment they arrived on the scene and careers of such sustained excellence that its almost easy to forget how great they actually where. I was going to give you a link to Hubbard performing his seminal composition “Red Clay.” We have a lot of that stuff down here in Athens, Georgia, because he makes it sound a lot more exotic and cool. Anything with the great Lenny White and Herbie Hancock is worth a listen, but my favorite of this soul/funk/hard bop era of the early `70s is the track “Mr. Clean,” from his album “Straight Life,” with Hanock, Jack DeJohnnette on drums, Joe Henderson on sax, Ron Carter on bass, and George Benson on guitar (before he became a crooner to an R&B beat).

Badass.

Views

David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence

We spend a ton of time lauding the scientific process but what is just as important, if not more important is the creative process. I’m sure Tesla would agree more than anyone – he was supremely creative in his medium.