I woke up yesterday to some of the best news that I’ve gotten in some time. My favorite football team, the New England Patriots acquired wide receiver Randy Moss for the #110th pick in this year’s draft. I hope I didn’t lose my readers who are not sports fans, please give me a paragraph or two to tie it into personal finance.
For those unfamiliar with Randy Moss, for many seasons he was one of the most physically gifted players in the game. He possess a rare combination of blinding speed, height and leaping ability, and great hands. On the downside, many people point to psychological issues that he is reported to have. Some say that he doesn’t play hard all game. Other’s say he’s a “cancer in the clubhouse”, a reference to his reported bad attitude that casts a cloud over the team.
Due to these intangible issues, many teams were unwilling to take a chance on him, even for a price that ESPN described repeatedly as “legalized theft” on the part of the Patriots. The Patriots dug a little deep in making this decision. They realized that Moss is an insanely competitive player on a team that loses most of it’s games – his team was 6-26 in the last two years. I can understand why it would be hard to play at full speed when success is completely beyond your control. The Patriots can offer him a winning team and a positive atmosphere. They’ve turned a strength of their’s into a bigger strength.
So take a minute today and think of what you do better than any one else. These strengths of yours can open up great opportunities like the one that the Patriots found. What are my strengths and how am I taking advantage of them? I’m above average at a number things, but not truly great in any one of them. I’m taking advantage of this by writing this blog, which helps me in numerous ways. I’ll enumerate them later on this week.
The patriots team is insanely stacked for this coming year. It always make me nervous when they are high expecations like this. But the team should be crazy good next year. I like Moss. I think he’ll play hard when he’s winning.
My blogging friend, I wish you the best of luck with this Moss thing. I think some healthy skepticism of this move is warranted. Not only for the obvious reasons of bringing a character like Moss into that locker room, but for the fact that Moss is 30 years old and may be seeing his skills in decline.
But if it works out….. oh boy…
I loved booin Restin’ Randy and his partner in crime Cocaine Carter when the Vikes came to town.
Like the football analogy, maybe you could give some advice to my beloved Redskins, they keep giving away draft picks for aging veterans who can’t perform
I agree that finding value where others do not can be a great way to get an edge. And I think the sports analogy is a great one. I just wrote a similar post where I used Billy Beane, manager of the Oakland A’s to make my point.