Siamese Fighting Fish; RSP Film Room Hangouts; Waltz on the walls of city hall, Poynter.org on Bill Simmons’ suspension, and more…

What is Reads Listens Views?

If you’re new to the Rookie Scouting Portfolio blog, welcome.  I post links on Fridays to content I’m saving for later consumption or pieces that I found compelling. You may not like everything listed here, but you’re bound to like something.

Views – Waltz On the Walls of City Hall (Skip this and you’re a fool . . . )

RSP Film Room Google Hangouts

Here’s a two-hour hangout that Ryan Lownes and I did last night: We watched South Carolina RB Mike Davis and Florida State WR Rashad Greene

Future guests will include Optimum Scouting’s Alex Brown, Footballguys’ Cecil Lammey, Sideline Views Lance Zierlein.

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel or this blog to see the Film Room sessions with Rotoworld Josh Norris and Sigmund Bloom of Footballguys.

Download the 2014 Rookie Scouting Portfolio + Post-Draft Update!

Friday’s are also my chance to thank you for reading my work, encourage you to follow the RSP blog, and download the Rookie Scouting Portfolio publication.

The 2014 Rookie Scouting Portfolio Post-Draft Add-On is ready for download.  If you’re in a dynasty league, the combination of the 2014 RSP and the RSP Post-Draft will have you prepared for this year and beyond. Want details? Need details? I have ’em right here:

• 84 pages
• How to use the RSP and RSP-Post Draft together
• Overrated/Underrated
• Good/Bad post-draft fits
• UDFAs to watch
• Long-term dynasty waiver wire gems
• Strategic overview of 2014 rookie drafts
• Tiered Value Chart Cheat Sheet across all positions
• Post-Draft rankings analysis and commentary–including notes about impending contracts years of competition on the depth charts
• Average Draft Position (ADP) Data of 19 dynasty drafts
• RSP Ranking-to-ADP Value Data
• Raw Data Worksheets to continue calculating additional ADP data for future drafts

Hell, take a video tour of the 2013 post-draft to see what I mean:

Seriously, this analysis is worth the price of the 2014 RSP package alone, but you get this as a part of your purchase with the 2014 RSP. Remember 10 percent of each sale is donated to Darkness to Light to prevent sexual abuse in communities across the United States. While that alone should get you to download the RSP package, do it because you will be blown away with the detail and insight of the analysis and content. It’s why the RSP has grown so much in the past nine years.

Best yet, 10 percent of each RSP sale is donated to Darkness to Light, a non-profit devoted to preventing and addressing sexual abuse through community training in schools, religious groups, and a variety of civic groups across the U.S.

Download the 2014 RSP and RSP Post-Draft here

In Case You Missed It/Coming Soon

• Boiler Room: Auburn WR Sammie Coates – A great athlete, but a raw receiver, Coates does have redeeming qualities that could make him a good NFL starter.
• Futures: UCLA LB/RB Myles Jack – “Myles Jack once took a knee in a victory formation . . . he gained 38 yards on the play.”
• RSP Film Room w/Ryan Riddle, featuring LB Shaq Thompson and RB Jay Ajayi
• Boiler Room: Duke WR Jamison Crowder – Inches and milliseconds separate good college players from quality NFL starters. Two plays from Crowder illustrate how close (and far) he is from a pro career.
• DLF Podcast – I join Karl Safchick and Jarrett Behar for a discussion on the nuts and bolts of scouting wide receiver talent.
• Futures: Miami RB Duke Johnson – Available Saturday 9/20/2014

Reads/Views (Football)

• Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux – It was around this time that I was still a casual baseball fan. Although not a football read, it’s a great read that transcends sport. Take an hour this weekend.
• True Fantasy Points: Danny Tuccitto’s new Footballguys’ column. This week: the science end of buying low and selling high
• Texans will rue the night they took Pizza Boy J.J. Watt over Nick Fairley, Houston lover by Chris Baldwin – It’s alright to be wrong, but I did find it worth posting based on Lance Zierlein’s tweet: “Here is what happens when you write a troll job trying to bash a guy you’ve probably never seen. It ends poorly.
• Ravens’ Smith: Panthers stabbed me in the back – I wouldn’t be surprised, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Smith looks everywhere to fuel his fire.
• Bill Simmons’ ESPN suspension and the challenges of editing star talent – The issues behind the suspension. A worthwhile post from Poynter.

Listens/Views – OK Go – Skyscrapers

Reads (Life In General)

•  Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath – A neuroscientist discovered that he is a psychopath and this article does a fantastic job of profiling what we know (or think we know) about this condition.
• Hot Doug’s: The exit interview – Doug Sohn, owner of Hot Doug’s, closed his popular Chicago restaurant yesterday after more than a decade…because he can.
• The War Photo No One Would Publish – (Warning: The photo is obviously graphic and disturbing) When Kenneth Jarecke photographed an Iraqi man burned alive, he thought it would change the way Americans saw the Gulf War. But the media wouldn’t run the picture.
• Watch: Where the White House intruder went, in one GIF – The Washington Post has also done a series on security lapses in the White House. And in related news…
• President Obama has faced three times as many threats on his life as past presidents
• Surrender to the Void: A Metaphysical Q&A With Sam Harris, International Man of Reason – Good friend of the RSP Steve Volk has a fine interview with the bestselling author of The End of Faith. 
• Near death, explained – New science is shedding light on what really happens during out-of-body experiences — with shocking results. (I haven’t read this yet, but the topic is interesting because these topics often elicit reactions from skeptics that are inconsistent with what they profess to believe).
• Your Body’s Amazing Reaction To Water – Writer James Nestor delves into the science of the “mammalian dive reflex,”…

Listens/Views – “Nuance” by Marc-Antoine Locatelli

Views – How Wolves Change Rivers

Views-(NSFW) WTF is Cultural Appropriation

Well done…