Thanks

I have great readers. People who send me holiday cards, books, and YouTube videos because they just enjoy the back-and-forth. While I’m not always able to respond in kind or with as much regularity as I’d like, I still want to thank all of you who frequent this blog, email me, and/or purchase the Rookie Scouting Portfolio publication. Two years ago I wondered if the RSP would have a long-term future. I’m far more optimistic than I’ve ever been due to the response to this blog and the 2012 publication. I hope all of you reading this have a good holiday season filled with gifts that come from being around people that you enjoy.

If you’re new to the RSP blog, here’s a series I wrote comparing Bengals receiver Marvin Jones and Jets receiver Stephen Hill.

• WRs Stephen Hill and Marvin Jones: Going Deep

• WRs Stephen Hill and Marvin Jones: Managing Physical Play (Short)

• Senior Bowl Interview with Marvin Jones

Listens

This is one of the most sonically flexible small groups you will ever hear. Think Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage with a Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie, and Edgerrin James all in their prime.

Football and Fantasy Football Reads

• 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick’s parents can’t believe criticism over their son’s arm tattoos USA Today writer Robert Klemko interviews Kaepernick’s parents after a writer disparaged the quarterback’s tattoos. Personally, I’ll never get a tattoo. I don’t believe in marking my body with ink. However, invoking the quarterback-as-CEO argument against Kaepernick is an out-dated idea. Please look around at our CEOs, congressional representatives, and leaders in academia. They wear the right clothes, have the right hair cut, and project and image of reliability. True, projecting an image is an action and looking like a banker-robot is safe. But athletes aren’t bankers. Unlike bankers, athletes are supposed to take risks. They are supposed to be passionate. They are supposed to deal with tremendous adversity. I don’t want to banker running my offense. I want someone with conviction. To stick with bankers and their politician employees. . . for that matter, everyone. Isn’t it time we apply Ghandi’s Seven Sins to what we think we see in them?
  • Wealth without Work
  • Pleasure without Conscience
  • Science without Humanity
  • Knowledge without Character
  • Politics without Principle
  • Commerce without Morality
  • Worship without Sacrifice
• A Former Player’s Perspective on the Rookie Wall Ryan Riddle offers another fantastic take on a the behind the scenes realities of the NFL.
• Zach Law’s Interview of Mike MacGregor at Fantasy Throwdown If there were an underrated fantasy football resource in the industry, MacGregor is that guy. I wouldn’t be doing this today if it weren’t for him.

Non-Football Reads

• What Could Disappear With Global Warming? This NY Times interactive feature allows you to view several U.S. Coastal cities and see the projected percentage of each will be under water based on several conditions. Time to see New York, Miami, and New Orleans again while you can.
• Homeland Security Has Spent $430 Million on Radios Its Employees Don’t Know How to Use I’m a big fan of journalism from Pro Publica. This piece is dark comedy.
• In California, Democrats’ Redistricting Strategy Paid Off This kind of stuff goes on in my primarily liberal hometown, which was redistricted so it was swallowed up by a huge base of conservatives. The dirty pool is played both ways.
• Brave Thinkers: Taylor Wilson – When he was 14, Wilson built a nuclear-fusion reactor. Then, a bomb-sniffing device that impressed even the president. Now 18, the prodigy is skipping college and using a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship to try to crack the riddle of harnessing energy from nuclear fusion—a feat that plenty consider impossible. . .
• A Cardiologist Makes a Case for Taxing Soda

Views

I’ll be talking about Wheaton soon. Those of you draft analysts on Twitter who predicted I’d like Wheaton were correct.