human resources

Pretty much anything from cod to cocaine*, if you look at it right, turns into a way of seeing the world more clearly. Sport is an obvious one, since it's got humans red in tooth and claw, on and off the pitch, with added dimensions of history, storytelling and money.

The NFL's annual human resources jamboree culminates in next month's draft, where the worst teams get first choice of the best new players entering from the college system. Pretty much everyone thinks a boy named Suh, a huge defensive tackle, is the best player. Pretty much everyone in the mainstream media had him being picked first by the hopeless St Louis Rams from December, when they first started putting together mock drafts, until about three weeks ago, when they finally started to catch on to the obvious truth that defensive tackles don't win you games. The player that you can't win games without is quarterback, and even if the quarterback options aren't amazing (Bradford, Clausen), the Rams should still pick one:

In business terms, drafting Suh over Bradford or Clausen would be like giving the best IT guy ever a 7-figure salary when you don't even have a CFO. That computer whiz could be the best IT guy in the history of the planet, but devoting all of your resources to him would eventually force you to file for Chapter 11. On the bright side, you'd never have a single computer virus!

This is from Walter Football, and WF has been making this point for months, basically, along with a load of other things that the major media sites are starting to say now. It's a really good comment on economic value.



* Cocaine, by Dominic Streatfeild (it really is spelt like this) is terrific. I have bought it for lots of people over the years, none of whom looked that pleased to receive it, all of whom thanked me when they'd read it.