I just finished reading Michael Lewis’ book The Blind Side. It is a deep look at the game of football from a strategic, tactical, political and sociological perspective, told within the biography of a high-school player from Memphis named Michael Oher. The title of the book, and much of its exposition, is derived from a shift in football strategy that took place in the 80’s and 90’s.

To summarize this shift: quarterbacks did not often throw the ball until Joe Montana came along (with help from his coach, Bill Walsh). When a right-handed quarterback drops back to throw the ball he typically turns so that his right-shoulder is back, causing his field of vision to be biased to the right. This creates a “blind side” on his left, from where he can’t see defensive players coming to tackle him. This blind side was originally exploited by the NY Giants, and specifically by Lawrence Taylor, who made use of this blind spot to train-wreck quarterbacks in the middle of their throw. This play is not only dangerous from a strategic perspective, but it is likely to be physically harmful for the quarterback (ask Joe Montana).

For several years, this type of play went unchecked, until Bill Walsh began reinventing the position of left-tackle. In order to stop very fast, very strong linebackers from taking advantage of the left side, teams everywhere began looking for a very rare type of human: someone who is extremely large and powerful, with very long arms, but who can also move their hands and feet extremely quickly. This combination is so rare, that players who make good left tackles are typically the second-most highly paid member of the team, behind the quarterback. This is because a successful left-tackle is actually an insurance policy for a team’s quarterback, and quarterbacks who can complete passes win games.

So what does this have to do with SEO?

Once I was about 3/4 through the book I started to draw some parallels between the Left Tackle and the SEO. Think about it this way:

Originally, no one used the internet for marketing (passing game) very much as there were better ways to find customers. Along came this new breed of programmer, the web designer (passing quarterback), who depends heavily on the support of his team (the company’s resources and IT people) but who also builds spectacularly effective and cheap marketing campaigns (a successful passing game). The proliferation of this strategy introduces a new evolution: Google (Lawrence Taylor) which decreases the value of a website that doesn’t play by its rules (time available to throw the ball and complete a pass).

The next evolution is the creation of a new position, the SEO (left tackle). The range of skills needed (the specific size and weight) and the mental-quickness required to grasp, and invent, new tactics (the dexterity of hands and feet) means that successful recruits for this position are hard to find. The SEO (left tackle) is tasked not only with protecting the website investment (quarterback and passing game) from de-indexing (sacking), but also with promoting lead acquisition on the website (time available for the QB to complete a pass).

Often people in the industry wonder why a good SEO is paid as much as the web designer when all the marketing analysts and secondary programmers make less, in the same way that the NFL began to wonder why this one offensive lineman was making as much as the QB. In both cases, the SEO/Left Tackle has the unique ability not only to protect the value of a website by maintaining its good standing with Google (and the others) but also by increasing the site’s ability to obtain new customers.

Perhaps one of the most important parallels is drawn from Lewis asserting that when the Left Tackle has done his job, the play goes off smoothly and the quarterback is celebrated for his passing ability. Similarly, when a well-optimized website becomes a success, the crowd only sees a spectacular website, not the marketing behind it.

I won’t comment on designers and quarterbacks both being described as primadonnas and attention hogs, you can draw your own conclusions on that one.