Bill Barnwell on career do-overs

Alma · Oct 24, 2013

sgreenwell said:

RubberSoul1979 said:

Bill Barnwell is the voice of the out-of-touch millennials who have no sense of history or perspective, those who prefer Madden the video game to Madden the coach/TV personality. In his narrative, the provocative gets broken down into pointless minutiae. Other times, he just misses the point completely.

"Imagine Washington keeping Robert Griffin on the sidelines all season last year so they could start Rex Grossman for 16 more games. That doesn't happen in a sports-blog-driven world."

Right. Because if the blogosphere didn't exist, RGIII would have sat the bench. The bloggers set the rookie QB's free. Really?

Say nothing of Mike Shanahan, RGIII's insane talent, the talent/knowledge advantage of today's rookie quarterbacks compared to a decade ago, Dan Snyder's expectations, the fact the Redskins traded up to get RGIII, the urgency of Washington to develop a first-rate QB for the first time since Mark Rypien...none of that matters. It's a "sports-blog driven world," and we're all just living in it.
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You did a really good job here of pinpointing what is probably my problem with Barnwell. I think he's good when he sticks to criticizing coaches for being too conservative, and using advanced stats in a non-wonky way. The part you excerpted is kind of the mode he's in constantly on the podcast, in which it almost seems beneath him to be commenting upon football. I kind of wonder what his background is; I only know of him from his work on Football Outsiders and Grantland, and while that's not a bad thing in this day and age, he's mostly gone from a niche publication to one with a much bigger audience.

Also, he really, really needs a new headshot.
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Bill wants to work in football as a market analyst, if I'm not mistaken.

The thank you for not coaching weekly piece is fine, but not revelatory. That said, I don't think Barnwell has much predictive power. He's good in hindsight, with measurables, like most of us are.

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Bill Barnwell on career do-overs

Alma Well-Known Member

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Bill Barnwell on career do-overs

Alma Well-Known Member

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