Review: The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

I just finished Michael Lewis's The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and it really was terrific. How terrific you ask? So terrific that I found myself completely engrossed in a book about - get this - football.

This isn't actually all that surprising. Michael Lewis, through Money Ball, made baseball a completely fascinating topic. So why shouldn't he be able to pull it off with football? And he does.

The Blind Side covers two stories simultaneously. First, it talks about how the position of left tackle evolved from being nothing special, to one of the most critical (and well paid) roles on the field. Secondly, the book covers the story of Michael Oher, a football player who will no doubt be a star in this coveted position.

The evolution of the left tackle position brings up this terrific question: what if you had someone in your organization who didn't actually move the ball down the field, but made it so that others could? How much would that person be worth? Heck, could you even recognize that the person existed in the first place?

Read the book, and you'll truly appreciate that this is a question worth pondering.

As for the story of Michael Oher, it makes the book a must read. Michael's story is completely unlikely: he's a broke, hungry and mostly homeless ghetto kid that ends up being adopted by a rich Christian family, and becomes one of the most sought after college football players in the country. If this was fiction, you wouldn't read it because it was so far from possible. Yet, it's the real deal.

I give this book a 9/10 for being easy to read, hard to put down, and for showing me that even I can like football.