michael lewis the blind side evolution of a game

That all began to change when a player named Lawrence Taylor at right defensive end began to make quarterbacks’ lives hell on earth. The video of this moment is not for the faint of heart. Lawrence Taylor sacks Joe Theismann, breaking his right leg. But everyone can tell you where the ball was and who caught it thirty yards downfield. Ask anyone who watches football, and very few people can tell you after the game how the right guard performed, or if the right tackle made all his blocks. No player (except maybe the quarterback) was any bigger than the game. Once upon a time, offensive linemen were essentially indistinguishable from their O-line teammates. In addition to the amazing, inspiring rags to NFL riches story of Michael Oher that we all know so well from the wonderful movie named after the book, The Blind Side, Lewis offers us the idea that football as a sport has evolved over the past twenty years to make Michael Oher and his athletic gifts as a left tackle so highly prized. My belief in this maxim was only strengthened when I closed Michael Lewis’ wonderful book, The Blind Side. But as a lifelong reader, I’ve discovered that sometimes the book offers you much more than the movie ever could.

One of the most common questions I was asked when people saw that I was reading this book was, “Didn’t you see the movie?” I don’t live that much under a rock. Our protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side.Michael Oher, Baltimore Ravens' left tackle The second force is the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost.

Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt.

What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school such as, say, how to read or write. The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. By the author of the bestselling Moneyball: in football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.

Michael lewis the blind side evolution of a game