Bakhtiari takes job as Rodgers' bodyguard seriously →
Tyler Dunne, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, recently profiled Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari.
As a kid, Bakhtiari said energy was always “spewing” out of him. He was the class clown. Rambunctious. His parents called him the “Tasmanian Devil.” And his older brother, Eric Bakhtiari, remembers one freakout in particular when David stood up in a resource class at school and screamed “Ahhh!,” weaved around the desks and left the room.
... As a player, Bakhtiari is a visual learner.
When the Packers’ offensive linemen first met in the classroom last season, Bakhtiari would stammer through empty answers. He couldn’t articulate a blocking assignment. He said left guard Josh Sitton — the player pivoted to his right every play — thought he was “a complete idiot” in the classroom.
“Then we go out on the field,” Bakhtiari said, “and I don’t (expletive) up once. It just makes sense to me out there. But if you ask me to verbalize what we’re doing I’d just say, ‘Dude, I don’t know.’ Let’s just go out on the field and I’ll show you.’”
When he takes notes on specific plays, Bakhtiari doesn’t use words. His notepad is a constellation of X’s and O’s and arrows.
It's a good reminder that intelligence comes in different forms. Football players are frequently derided as neanderthals who's only outlet is violence. And, yet, I'm fairly certain that I couldn't breakdown football plays in real time the way that Bakhtiari can.
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