Football Reads/Listens/Views
Alfred Morris RSP Evaluation – I grade on a 100-point scale. Morris received an 89 on my scale when I watched him play Auburn last year. An 89 is an immediate starter grade. I only watched one game and was reticent to rank him higher than 20th among backs because I didn’t get to see a strong sample size. However, I think you’ll find the details about what I saw commensurate with what you’re seeing from him in Washington.
I loved Ray Rice’s game at Rutgers and one of the things that I think is instructive to fans about his running style is how most of his moves are made to get down hill as fast as possible or stay moving down hill. Watch how quick he is to get his pads, hips, and knees moving down hill.
There’s a true urgency for Rice to stay north south on almost all of these runs. He’s not the fastest back, but his quickness and singular focus to continue moving forward is unusual. When he does change direction it’s usually a double move where he feints in one direction and the dip or cut back to a down hill path. He’s the best north south runner in the game and one of my five favorite players in football.
Free Fantasy Throwdown Tournament! – This game is easy to learn, competitive as all get out, and addictive. Signup to play – no strings attached (I don’t advertise that kind of stuff). Challenge me (my login is ‘matt’).
On the Couch Podcast– Sigmund Bloom invites Rotoworld’s Evan Silva and me over to his padded cell for a seat on his couch for some talk therapy on Cam Newton, Brandon Lloyd, and Bloom’s vaunted “eye test,” and word association. Great having Silva join Bloom, he’s terrific fantasy football resource in digital media.
Futures: UCLA RB Jonathan Franklin – My Football Outsiders column profiles the intelligent running of a back who gets angry with his coaches when they don’t let him get reps with special teams. That’s the kind of football player NFL organizations will covet.
Listens
Non-Football Reads
The Beautiful Occupation – Adrian, one of my fantasy football readers, and among the recently converted to the RSP blog, is a citizen of the world:
I’ve [tended bar] in the Greek Islands, worked on a catamaran off the East Coast of Australia, waited tables in London (and Chicago), taught a little English in Guatemala, Cambodia & Vietnam, and also spent my fair share of time in SE Asia funding my travels by buying and selling Thai & Burmese handicrafts. Although I do have a college degree, I am positive that I’m a wiser and more educated fella because of my time spent traveling the world.
Adrian lives life and shares it in this excellent travel blog. The photography is fantastic and I recommend you follow him, his partner Ashlie, and their pursuits around the world.
The Money-Empathy Gap – My colleague Chet Gresham linked to this New York piece on the scientific research behind this phenomenon. This article by Lisa Miller is the must read of the week if you ask me.
Ask a Banker: What Do Investment Bankers Actually Do? Matt Levine is the editor of the business site DealBreaker.com and he writes about his former profession in plain language. I got interested in this topic while writing a magazine article about students preparing to enter Wall Street through the investment-banking track.
Views
An electric motorcycle-automobile hybrid with a range of up to 200 miles and complete with gyroscopes that can take a blow from a car and not lose balance on the road. I want one of this vehicles from Lit Motors.
Thank You!