Not That Tricky: Bill Barnwell's NFLisming

Silverdude2167

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BS_SoxFan said:
Barnwell is horrible.  His "defense" of his NFL Trade Value column, which was terrible, is everything you would expect from him.  Just the worst mix of smartest man in the room attitude crossed with arrogance/smarminess crossed with a willingness to move the goal posts and keep changing his various theses to defend his terrible.  It's amazing that Grantland has such high quality basketball (Lowe) and baseball (Keri) writers, yet they continue to trot this clown out as their supposed NFL expert.  
What you did not enjoy his explanation of his Brady ranking (which doesn't matter)?
 
"If anything, people underestimate just how far Brady fell last year. Sure, he also didn’t have much to throw to thanks to injuries and off-field chaos, but he had a more effective running game and a far better offensive line than Ryan. He had his worst completion percentage since 2003 and his worst and fewest yards per attempt since 2006 — and after Rob Gronkowski suffered a torn ACL against the Browns, Brady simply couldn’t move the ball well at all."
 
I mean, Brady is now obviously terrible. I bet if we took away the best TE in the history of the game from other QB's along with his none rookie weapons, they would be able to move the ball fine. How can you give the exact reason his numbers dropped, and then say none of that matters?
I was hoping his Patriots hate was just an act from last year and he would find a new direction to go with his "planned" analysis, but apparently that is not the case. I am going to need to find a new podcast to fill my commutes with.
 
He showed so much promise and then became a terrible writer so quickly, to bad Grantland will never find a replacement as I am sure a monkey writing on the NFL and receiving the same page placement could generate similar page views.
 

BS_SoxFan

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I didn't even make it to Brady in the rankings. When I saw that he left Jamaal Charles, LeSean McCoy, and Alshon Jeffrey off a list of the 50 most valuable NFL trade assets I was already out.

THEN, listening to the podcast he defends how McCoy shouldn't be on the list because he had a bad year two years ago so you don't know what to expect. When Mays rightfully attacked him for having Eli Manning so high, Barnwell defended himself by saying how you can't just cherry pick Manning's one bad season last year and say he's no longer valuable. But it's ok to look at McCoy's one bad year two years ago to support leaving him off.

He's turned into some weird amalgamation of Felger and Shaugnessy, except that he lacks any of Felger's charisma or any of Shaughnessy's writing ability. Just because you write 15,000 words of contrarian drivel doesn't make it good, Bill.
 

TroyOLeary

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The rankings are obviously meaningless, but he seems more concerned with having cool "Group" titles than he does compiling an accurate ranking.  I'm guessing the real reason Eli Manning is so high is because it allowed him to group the 2004 quarterbacks together.
 

coremiller

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Barnwell wrote about Julio Jones' hot start, in which he repeatedly extrapolates Jones' performance out for a full season.  Amazingly he had to get seven paragraphs in before we get even a backhanded acknowledgement that three games is a really small sample:
 
 
 
Maybe it’s unfair to extrapolate three-game performances out to a 16-game season.
 
No shit, so why did you just waste everyone's time with six paragraphs of extrapolated stats?  This is like when someone hits 14 HRs in April and all those inane "Player X on pace to hit 90 HRs!" articles start appearing.
 
When Barnwell actually looks at how Jones ranks against other players' 3-game starts, Jones is first in receptions but only 4th in receiving yards.  A good start, no doubt, a) but hardly "historically ridiculous" and b) regression to the mean is likely, as anyone who has ever taken even a cursory look at statistics could tell you.  Jones has 34 catches for 440 yards; in 2011 Welker ,had 31 catches for 458 yards in the first three weeks, but of course wasn't able to sustain that pace for a whole season.  Jones hasn't even really been better than Antonio Brown, who has 29 catches for 436 yards.  
 
Barnwell ends the stats discussion with:
 
 
 
What Jones is doing is historic. And even better, there’s little reason to think that he’ll let up.
 
Little reason, except for regression to the mean.
 
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/julio-jones-is-historically-ridiculous/
 

johnmd20

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"What Jones is doing his historic. And even better, there's little reason to think he'll let up. But maybe it's unfair to extrapolate 3 games over 16."
 
Those lines reminds me of the line in The Simpsons Behind the Laughter Episode.
 
"The dream was over. Coming up, was the dream really over? Yes it was. Or was it?"
 
FWIW, I completely get and agree with all of this criticism, but I've come to really enjoy the Grantland NFL Podcast - Barnwell and Mays have great chemistry, and their analysis is certainly on a higher plane than many NFL podcasts.
 
That said, are there better NFL podcasts - particularly ones with a strong emphasis on recapping the games just played and then previewing the games coming up - to which I should be listening instead?
 

JBill

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ConigliarosPotential said:
FWIW, I completely get and agree with all of this criticism, but I've come to really enjoy the Grantland NFL Podcast - Barnwell and Mays have great chemistry, and their analysis is certainly on a higher plane than many NFL podcasts
I listen to a few Grantland podcasts but have never checked out the NFL one, so I go look it up and the title of this week is:

Week 4 Preview and Draft Kings Roster

Is nothing safe from this Draft Kings infestation?! Not even Grantland!
 
Yeah, in their Friday podcast Barnwell and Mays are picking a fantasy team of the week - I don't think they're sponsored by Draft Kings as such, but rather are using their scoring system (for obvious reasons). The segment takes about 10-15 minutes and is easily skippable, but it's harmless enough for me.
 

tims4wins

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9 catches for 105 yards and 0 TDs last two games. Regression is a bitch (and something that Barnwell usually preaches about - which is why his stance on Julio was so curious to begin with).
 

tims4wins

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His last article was on Tuesday. Normally he writes 3-4 a week during the season (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday is his usual pattern)
 

BS_SoxFan

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They also haven't released any podcasts since their farewell to the departed Grantland editors was apparently cut off the end of the last Podcast. 
 

tims4wins

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I like to give Barnwell crap but he hits on a lot of good points about the Pats-Colts game today. While he touched on the punt, it wasn't his primary focus. A few excerpts:
 


The story is already slowly becoming that the fake punt was the turning point that cost the Colts the game, but I doubt that, given that the Colts were already down six points late in the third quarter and about to punt the ball. They were already extremely unlikely to win the game; their win expectancy before the fourth-down play was 21.7 percent.3 Afterward, it was 15.0 percent.
 


The Colts came in as 8.5-point underdogs, the largest spread they’ve faced at home since Luck arrived in 2012, and Pagano coached like somebody who knew that his team wasn’t going to win a straight-up fight. The Colts needed to pull a few tricks out of their sleeves to win, and Pagano pursued David Strategies throughout the game to try to outfox the heavily favored Patriots.
 


The worrying thing if you’re a Colts fan, I think, is that this is the sort of game where the breaks went the Colts’ way and they still lost. If you were looking back at those four brutal losses to piece together a script of how the Colts could beat the Patriots, this is the sort of game you would have imagined. Indy scored on all three of its trips to the red zone and didn’t turn the ball over. It actually won the turnover battle and picked up a defensive touchdown, with Mike Adams grabbing the ball off Julian Edelman’s bobble and returning it for a pick-six. The Colts held Rob Gronkowski to just 50 yards and weren’t beaten to pieces by the Patriots running game, which ran for a still-impressive 116 yards on 25 carries.
 

Silverdude2167

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BS_SoxFan said:
They also haven't released any podcasts since their farewell to the departed Grantland editors was apparently cut off the end of the last Podcast. 
Podcast is back and they lead off with their farewell to those editors.
 
They must have refused to do the podcast till they could say their piece. 
 

tmracht

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Barnwell now on the dot com, two articles in one day after a two week break. Fascinating to see comments enabled on his articles.
 

Phil Plantier

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Bill Barnwell on his weight loss, which I found interesting and inspiring, actually, and an interesting model to attempt:

 

Senator Donut

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I was reading through his feed because he posted something inane about Papa John's stock price and stumbled across this. He posted a chart with the total amount of time a secondary has spent in pass coverage, not adjusted to a per snap basis or even per game. (the Patriots in first have not had a bye week and often play with a lead.) Obviously most counting stats are inherently bad, but how could this be an even remotely useful statistic?

 
I didn't mind this article by Barnwell about the paths to the Super Bowl for the remaining eight NFL teams, apart from this about the Falcons:
What would help: Jacksonville upsetting Pittsburgh. I am willing to bet that the Falcons would like to get revenge for their Super Bowl loss (and subsequent regular-season defeat) at the hands of the Patriots, so taking out New England's toughest rival just makes it more likely Atlanta gets the rematch it wants.
I would like to state for the record that I want absolutely NOTHING to do with a rematch against the Patriots, and the two weeks of "28-3" crap that would inevitably precede it. Maybe some of the players do, but if Atlanta defeats Philadelphia in the early game on Saturday, I'm rooting my heart out for the Titans. (And the Jags.) Sorry.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Is Barnwell trying to imply that the Falcons and their fans wouldn't be satisfied with a Super Bowl title unless it came against the Patriots? I would think a Super Bowl win regardless of opponent would go a long long LONG way toward salving the pain of "28-3".

This would be like arguing that 2004 wasn't satisfying enough for the Red Sox because it didn't include "revenge" on the Mets for 1986.
 

Saints Rest

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I didn't mind this article by Barnwell about the paths to the Super Bowl for the remaining eight NFL teams, apart from this about the Falcons:

I would like to state for the record that I want absolutely NOTHING to do with a rematch against the Patriots, and the two weeks of "28-3" crap that would inevitably precede it. Maybe some of the players do, but if Atlanta defeats Philadelphia in the early game on Saturday, I'm rooting my heart out for the Titans. (And the Jags.) Sorry.
I seem to recall a lot of Pats fans (some even here) who wanted NYG in 2011 as revenge for 2007. Be careful what you wish for.
I think Conig has the correct take: stay far away from NEP, in part for the 28-3 crap (think of how many times during 2004 ALCS, we saw Boone take Wake deep) and in part because when you want your first title, you simply want it, so the easiest path is the preferred path.
 

bigq

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By the way, the Falcons already had a chance earlier this season to gain a measure of revenge for the Super Bowl loss. It...did not go well.
I may be in the minority however I want no part of a Falcons-Pats Super Bowl rematch. The Falcons ability to score points quickly and play strong defense has me concerned. Of the remaining NFC teams I think the Falcons match up best against the Pats. They nearly beat the Pats in the Super Bowl last year and I would prefer the Pats play any of the other renaming NFC teams should the Pats advance again this year.