Tackle (gridiron football position)

Historically, in the one-platoon system prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a tackle played on both offense and defense.

According to Sports Illustrated football journalist Paul Zimmerman, offensive tackles consistently achieve the highest scores, relative to the other positional groups, on the Wonderlic Test, with an average of 26.

(Conversely, teams with left-handed quarterbacks tend to have their better pass blockers at right tackle for the same reason.)

A 2006 book by Michael Lewis, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, made into a 2009 motion picture, shed light on the workings of the left tackle position.

The book and the film's introduction discuss how the annual salary of left tackles in the NFL skyrocketed in the mid-1990s.