Football's Quiet Millionaires

The new apparent trend in the NFL these days is to pay the man that's protecting your QB quite handsomely. A study conducted by Michael Lewis, the Author of "Moneyball", the book that changed the way baseballs salary system works, has written a new book called "Blindside", which brings to light the importance of the offensive lines left tackle.
In the NFL the leagues 3rd and 4th highest paid athletes (per season) are both left tackles. This is because the left tackle protects the quarterbacks "blind side" or the side that his back is too when he drops back to make his pass. It's hard to believe that a position that doesn't appear in the boxscore's and receives relatively no praise, is the second best paid position in the league.