Innovation and the NFL

(Ed: Happy New Year, and sorry for the delay in posting. I will revert to my usual rate of blogging shortly)

I just read a great article about Florida phenom Tim Tebow and his probability of success in the NFL. What was different about this piece than say similar ones about Peyton Manning, Reggie Bush, etc, is the sense that Tebow brings a unique and possibly unprecedented skill set to the NFL that may not have been valued in the past but could have enormous returns as the game evolves.

The piece reminds me of a great book a read a few months ago, The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. The book chronicles the story of Ole Miss left tackle Michael Oher, who's rise to prominence from a poor, homeless child in and out of school to potential draft day stud was written in the stars years before his birth, with the exogenous introduction of Lawrence Taylor into the NFL. Taylor was such a special player that his rise to prominence raised the returns to having a freakishly gifted athlete guarding a quarterback's "blind side" (i.e., for right handed QBs, it would the left tackle). The increased returns were reflected in the market value of left tackles: NFL wages was artificially depressed until the early 1990s, when the era of free agency lifted the constraints on wages. At this juncture, the wages of left tackles increased precipitously.

I highly recommend The Blind Side, and not just for the economics.