The life of an NFL player outside the league

Do yourself a favor and make Michael Silver over at Yahoo! Sports one of your frequent stops for all things NFL. The guy is a magnificient writer, blending innovative story-telling with interesting topics. His 'Monday Morning Rush' piece is the best thing to read about the NFL weekend that was, and that includes Peter King's MMQB at SI.com.

Silver scribed a column today called "Harsh reality of brutal sport." In it, Silver delves into the aggression needed for NFL players to keep their jobs, but the self-restraint it takes not to snap on the Christmas shopper who bumped into you to get that ever-important gift or the douchey suit who talks too loud on his phone in the airplane.

Silver makes the Sean Taylor connection by talking about the player's past run-ins with the law and "the dangers of applying a football-style mentality to civilian life." Don't worry, Silver isn't insinuating anything about Taylor's homicide, only that being a football player with a checkered (our word) past could have made him a target.