Friday, September 21, 2012

12 comments Bill Barnwell is Being a Bit Unfair

Bill Barnwell has a column up on Grantland where he decides he wants to pile on the Panthers misery from getting their asses kicked by the Giants on Thursday night. He basically states the Panthers GM, Marty Hurney, isn't as good of a GM as Jerry Reese. Well no shit. Jerry Reese has won two Super Bowls in the last five years, so there aren't many (any) GM's with that specific track record. Then Barnwell states Hurney is incompetent. While much of this criticism can be seen as fair, there are also unfair parts about it. He's playing off the latest game the Panther played mostly and how terribly they played in order to argue his point. Calling Hurney "incompetent" is a bit much when Hurney has been the GM during three playoff appearances, two NFC Championship Game appearances and one Super Bowl appearance. I wonder why he wasn't incompetent when those occurred? Or maybe was incompetent, but the team played well so his incompetence couldn't be seen? Either, he's being a bit unfair in the name of piling on. This column by Barnwell needs some context. Hurney has done an average job, but he isn't incompetent. I can take criticism for saying Hurney paid too much to re-sign the Panthers own players, but at least give him credit for drafting these players. Barnwell refuses to do this. I give Hurney a "C" as a General Manager. I'm not impressed, but I don't know if he should be fired at this point nor do I believe he is incompetent.

It's easy to pile on a team and their architect after a blowout loss, but the nature of how the Panthers lost to the Giants and Hurney's history over the past several years got me thinking about just how incredible Hurney's continued employment is.

Sure, it is easy to pile on right now, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to do it. Admitting you probably shouldn't be piling on at this point doesn't excuse you from doing so. Also, by focusing on Hurney's last several years is to ignore his good drafts prior to that.

The top priority for most NFL fans is to see their team win a Super Bowl, preferably as quickly as possible. The top priority for most NFL general managers is to hold on to their seat at the GM's table.

How do you hold on to that seat? By winning games and winning Super Bowls. In a way the fans and the GM's goals are truly aligned.

By all accounts, it's a surprise that Hurney's still on the job. The 2-14 season that the Panthers endured during the 2010 campaign should have been enough to get the moving companies working overtime at team headquarters.

Here is a little background that Barnwell doesn't provide in order to give the proper context: Jerry Richardson (Carolina's owner) tore apart the 2009 Panthers team in preparation for the lockout. The Panthers (at the request of Richardson) cut many of their veterans. The 2010 team was a disaster in waiting and turned out to be a disaster on the field. Richardson had Marty Hurney cut costs and cut players in an effort to financially prepare for the lockout. It was a sucky thing to do, but there was an unspoken agreement between the fans, players and the team that the Panthers were going to re-sign their important players after the lockout ended. For now, it was going to suck. I don't like that Richardson did this, but he wanted to change the philosophy of the organization. Throw in the fact John Fox was a lame duck coach whose philosophy no longer matched the philosophy of the front office and the owner, plus he was saddled with players he didn't want or like and was forced to play them, and you have a 2-14 season. If anyone should be fired for that specific season it is Jerry Richardson. Owners rarely fire themselves.

Then Barnwell goes into the Jake Delhomme extension, which was incredibly dumb. I will concede this point. Much of that extension was to take a backloaded deal and free up money to sign Julius Peppers. Jerry Richardson's sons had something to do with this contract (while Richardson was getting a heart transplant they were running the team and they were later essentially fired by their father when he got back) and while Hurney was involved with it, Jerry Richardson's sons were supposedly the ones who helped push it through. Again, I'm not here to defend everything Marty Hurney did. I'm here to defend him from the scathing and unfair parts of this column.

Beyond Delhomme, though, the team was seriously flawed. Hurney had repeatedly dealt future first-round picks to try to move up in the existing year's draft,

He's "repeatedly" done this? Hurney has traded a first round pick a total of two times. I guess theoretically this is a "repeat." He did this in 2009 and 2010. He traded back to get Ryan Kalil and Jon Beason in 2007, which Barnwell ever so conveniently leaves out. Also, in this discussion Barnwell will further criticize the contracts Hurney has given out, yet doesn't acknowledge the players he handed these contracts out to were players Hurney drafted. If Barnwell acknowledged Hurney had drafted good players and re-signed them (to contracts he felt weren't very good contracts), then that would ruin his point that Hurney isn't good at drafting. Fine, criticize the contracts, but give Hurney credit for drafting these players. Barnwell chooses not to do this.

Without a first-round pick in the 2010 draft or cap space because of the Delhomme deal gone wrong, Hurney needed to find contributors in the 2010 draft. Instead, he missed wildly.

Now understanding Delhomme was cut at this point, the Panthers had Matt Moore as their quarterback going into the 2010 draft. He was the guy they thought would be the starter...then he played poorly, got replaced, took over the starting job again and then got hurt. So Hurney was looking for a backup/future quarterback in the 2010 draft for a team that was depleted because the owner was intentionally cutting costs and players. There wasn't a veteran backup available because veteran backups cost money and Jerry Richardson wasn't allowing Hurney to spend any money on a veteran backup quarterback. So when Matt Moore failed, there weren't many backup options available. I find it hard to fault Hurney for this since if it were up to him I imagine he would have signed a veteran backup quarterback.

The team took Jimmy Clausen with the 48th pick and ran him out as the starter far too early,

A little honesty in this writing is all I want. What choice was there to play Clausen? You are John Fox. You have the following quarterbacks on the roster, Matt Moore, Jimmy Clausen, Tony Pike. This is because the owner ordered Delhomme be released and no free agent veteran quarterback signed. Moore had been very bad in his first couple of games and sustained a concussion. Do you start your rookie second round pick (who was supposed to be "NFL ready") or do you start your rookie sixth round pick (who was Tony Pike)? You start Clausen. He was put in a terrible situation and was ruined. I fault John Fox as much as Hurney for this. Fox did nothing to ensure Clausen could succeed, essentially asking him to run the same offense after Week 3 that Moore had taken two years to learn. He was running this offense for a team that essentially was giving up the 2010 season to prepare for the lockout. There is so much blame to go around, but Hurney needed to hit on Clausen and he missed. I would bet 75% of the other NFL GM's would have taken Clausen at #48 and then started him in this situation.

They drafted Brandon LaFell and Armanti Edwards in the third round when the likes of Emmanuel Sanders, Eric Decker, Jimmy Graham, and Aaron Hernandez were available.

I'll give Barnwell Armanti Edwards. He's a bust. But Hurney should have taken Sanders or Decker over LaFell? Is this really an accurate statement? Career numbers for each receiver:

Decker: 59 catches, 825 yards, 9 touchdowns
Sanders: 57 catches, 752 yards, 4 touchdowns
LaFell: 84 catches, 1263 yards, 5 touchdowns

Is there even a comparison? LaFell has clearly been the more productive receiver. I'll even throw in Aaron Hernandez just to see how he compares to LaFell...

Hernandez: 130 catches, 1532 yards, 14 touchdowns

Yes, Hernandez is clearly the superior player to LaFell, but in terms of yards (and remember, Hernandez is a tight end and LaFell is a wide receiver) it is closer than you would think. It is absolutely ridiculous to say Decker or Sanders should have been drafted over Brandon LaFell. I can't emphasize this enough. This criticism and second guessing of Hurney is not only unfair, but factually inaccurate. LaFell has been a better receiver than both Sanders and Decker.

Hurney wasn't able to get rid of the first-round pick that ended up becoming the first overall selection in last year's draft. While the Panthers were lucky to have Cam Newton fall into their lap,

Whoa, whoa. Let's back up a little bit here. Newton "fell into their lap?" When did Newton's success in the NFL all of a sudden become this sure-thing? I remember there being a different feeling around the 2011 draft. Newton wasn't an Andrew Luck kind of prospect and to have him "fall into their lap" took quite a leap of faith in a college zone-read quarterback who supposedly wasn't able to handle NFL playcalling, much less reading NFL defenses

Here is a quote about the selection of Cam Newton by the Panthers coming from Bill Barnwell: 

"Every situation is different. But QBs drafted for their arm strength first have failed so frequently that it beggars belief"
-- Grantland's Bill Barnwell


He fell in their lap though. No scouting was necessary on the part of Marty Hurney, right? Easy choice at #1 overall. 

As bad as all that was, though, Hurney's true disaster came through re-signing the talent at the core of that 2-14 team. That's part of the benefit of hiring a new general manager when you go 2-14; you get a fresh set of eyes that isn't emotionally committed to the talent currently on the roster in the same way that a GM who scouted and drafted that talent is.

Just as a note, Charles Johnson was considered the best pass rusher on the open market and DeAngelo Williams was considered one of the best running backs on the open market. They were free agents and I don't know if they would have gotten the money they got in Carolina anywhere else, but the Panthers were dedicated to re-signing their own players and showing their fans they want to win after the 2010 season.

Over several weeks last summer, Hurney handed out eight contract extensions to starters on that 2-14 Panthers team, including two that set records for players at their particular positions.

It's not a contract extension if a player is a free agent, as Thomas Davis (I believe he was a restricted free agent), Charles Johnson and DeAngelo Williams were.

The other five were, to borrow a term from Jonah Keri, crizazzlebeans. They seemed ill-advised at the time and, in most cases, look dramatically worse a year later.

What Bill Barnwell fails to mention is every player the Panthers re-signed were players that Marty Hurney had drafted. I can see from Barnwell's point of view how he doesn't like these contracts, but he fails to mention these are players that Hurney drafted. He gets the blame for the contracts, which I can see as fair, but the fact Hurney has drafted pretty well gets glossed over. Barnwell has the balls to call Hurney an "incompetent GM" in an effort to pile on, but he intentionally neglects evidence to the contrary.

Please remember the Panthers had used all of the 2010 season clearing cap room and Hurney had to re-sign these players in order to keep the faith of the fan base. He wasn't backed into a corner, but once he was ordered to clear cap space in 2010, he couldn't let some of the team's best players hit free agency after the lockout ended. I'm not excusing Hurney's averageness, just pointing out the situation at the time. The Panthers had to re-sign these players after taking a huge crap on their fans for an entire season.

A five-year, $50 million deal for Jon Beason that guaranteed the former "Seventh Floor Crew" member $25 million and made him the highest-paid inside linebacker in league history. The deal, signed in July 2011, came amid reports that Beason had been struggling with an Achilles injury for several months. Beason went on to tear his Achilles tendon during the opening week of the season, an injury that cost him the remainder of that campaign and will have deleterious long-term effects on his career.

I'm not sure where these reports came from or if there were NFL guys "in the know" about this, but there isn't a way the Panthers could have known Beason would tear his Achilles in the first game of the season. Plenty of GM's have re-signed players, only to have that player get hurt. It doesn't mean the GM doesn't know what he is doing. What was the alternative in this situation? Allow Beason to play the entire season without a contract? Sure, knowing what we know now Hurney should have let Beason play his contract out. They could have saved some money on re-signing Beason. What Barnwell doesn't acknowledge is that Beason is the leader of the defense. You don't let the leader of your defense, who is playing in the prime of his career, go without a contract extension and head towards free agency. It sends a bad message. You take care of your best players. Yeah, if Hurney had hindsight he would probably have done things differently. I think it is more than unfair to use hindsight as proof why Beason should not have been re-signed. There are a lot of reports about players having injuries which don't affect their career, so it isn't like these reports will obviously lead to a career-threatening injury.

 A five-year, $36.5 million deal for Thomas Davis, a talented linebacker coming off of ACL tears in consecutive seasons.

Davis got screwed by free agency getting changed around when the lockout occurred. He could have been a free agent, but players with five years of experience didn't reach free agency until their sixth year. It was a large deal that Davis would have lived up to if he had stayed healthy. The deal is essentially now a pay-for-play deal after it has been restructured a few times. Davis is now a pass-rushing specialist and third down linebacker making $2.1 million this year. That doesn't seem exorbitant to me. He's fairly affordable until 2015.

Davis played in the first two games of the 2012 season, but was inactive against the Giants on Thursday night.

Because it was a short week and he tweaked his hamstring. Davis is still a very important part of the Panthers defense.

A four-year, $12 million deal for Olindo Mare, yet another example of a team being fooled by a kicker...Mare is currently a free agent and probably, because of his leg on kickoffs, better than half the kickers who signed franchise deals this offseason.

This is the only signing by Hurney that didn't involve a player the Panthers drafted. Mare was a disaster, but how can Barnwell pick on this signing if he says Mare is better than half the kickers who signed franchise deals this offseason? The franchise tag for kickers was $2.814 million. Mare was given $3 million per year. The deal didn't work out, but if Mare is better than half the kickers who are being paid $2.814 under the franchise tag, was it really that bad of a deal, other than it ended up not working out?

That was the biggest difference between the Panthers and Giants last night. Giants general manager Jerry Reese is one of the best-drafting general managers in all of football, and you saw that in the players who were making plays.

The fact Hurney hasn't drafted as well lately as one of the best GM's in the NFL doesn't make him incompetent. The Giants clearly have a better team and better depth than the Panthers did. Yes, this is partly Marty Hurney's fault. The fact Hurney isn't Jerry Reese doesn't show Hurney's failings, but shows how good Reese has been.

Brown had been cut and bounced around the league after his Achilles injury, but the Giants originally drafted him in the fourth round of the 2009 draft. Ramses Barden hadn't made an impact before Thursday, but he was a third-round pick that same year. Victor Cruz was an undrafted free agent nabbed by the team for the minimum. That's depth the Panthers can only dream of.

So you mean a team that went 2-14 two years ago doesn't have as good of depth on the roster as a team that won the Super Bowl last year? This is revolutionary! What a wonderful and in-depth piece of analysis! You wouldn't think the defending Super Bowl champs would have better talent up-and-down the roster than a team that went 6-10 last year, would you?

The average two-win NFL team wins an average of 3.1 games the following year, meaning that the Panthers only outperformed that expectation by 0.9 wins.

But they did outperform expectations, right? So why doesn't this count? The Panthers are rebuilding. The Panthers "only" outperformed expectations by that amount. I thought exceeding expectations was a good thing. Carolina wanted to keep all of the quality players that Hurney had drafted from 2004-2008 because they had cut costs the previous year. Basically, they rebuilt backwards. They cut costs and then re-signed their own players to deals, as opposed to cutting costs because they had signed underperforming players to large deals.

And the average 2-14 team doesn't spend themselves into a stupor to get out of the gutter.

While that's true, the Panthers didn't do short term spending on older players to get out of the gutter either. They paid under-30 players who were already on the team. So they did spend a lot of money to get out of the gutter, but the money wasn't spent on short-term solutions, but was spent on young, (hopefully) long-term solutions. Clearly, Thursday night made it look like the plan wasn't working and I'm not going to argue it is working at this point. His 2009-2011 drafts have killed the depth of the team in a time when depth was badly needed because of the cost-cutting during the 2010 season. It's way too early to tell about the 2012 draft. Right now, for better or worse three players are starting and Frank Alexander is the third defensive end, while the punter that was drafted (Brad Nortman) won the punting job in Training Camp. I think (and I will include myself in this) many people unfairly expected more from this flawed team.

Richardson is a former player held in high regard among his fellow owners around the league, but remember that he's the same guy who reportedly dismissed the likes of Drew Brees and Peyton Manning during the lockout negotiations by insulting their intelligence and asking them if they knew how to read the revenue chart.

Do they know how to read a revenue chart? I'm not sure these two players do know how or should know how to read one. So it may have been a jerk move, but he could have been correct also.

It seems ironic that an owner who doesn't trust the players to understand basic economics has entrusted his team to a general manager who doesn't seem to have a strong grasp on it, either.

This is a very convenient article to be posted after the Panthers got blasted on national television. Where was this article in the offseason or last week after the Panthers defeated the Saints? This strikes me as a very opportunistic and slightly unfair scathing review of Hurney. He isn't Jerry Reese. It's an unfair comparison to use in order to show Hurney's incompetence. Nobody needs Bill Barnwell to write a column explaining the difference in these two GMs. Marty Hurney is a GM who is occasionally very good and occasionally very bad. The Panthers need him to be very good over the next few years. He picked a very bad time to be bad at drafting (around the 2010 season) and the criticism of the contracts he gave out after the 2010 season conveniently leaves out that Hurney has a history of drafting well prior to the 2009 season.

Bill Barnwell doesn't have an agenda, but his criticism of Hurney leaves out some portions of the relevant storyline to fit his own narrative, as well as leaves out Hurney's previous history of drafting. Compared to Jerry Reese there are a lot of GM's that are incompetent. It's interesting to read this scathing article after a public loss on national television and not on a Wednesday in August when the facts don't seem to perfectly fit the narrative Barnwell is furthering.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

You said: "It was a sucky thing to do, but there was an unspoken agreement between the fans, players and the team that the Panthers were going to re-sign their important players after the lockout ended."

First of all YOU need to get YOUR facts strait before you to take the time to blast Bill! I am a resident of the city of Charlotte, and PSL holder and WE fans never agreed to a damn thing that those bafoons Hurney and JR chose to do! So dont start telling the nation that garbage just so you can ride Marty sack and increase your hits!

Nathan D said...

The funniest part of Barnwell's column was the praising of Reese. He just wrote a column the other day crushing Reese for giving dumb contracts to running backs! So, who is the bad gm here Bill?

Arjun Chandrasekhar said...

i don't think he said reese was an outright bad GM in his column on running backs. he said over the past couple of decades the giants general managers (including both reese and his predecessors) have been good on the whole but one of their weaknesses has been to overdraft running backs, but all things considered both reese and the entire giants organization are good at what they do

Koleslaw said...

Once again, another sports writer decides to start shit and once again Ben points out the flaws in the argument. Well done again, sir.

Unknown: Ben's a pretty big Panthers fan so to question his team loyalty and/or knowledge doesn't work well.

As a non-Panthers fan, let me say that I think the rest of the NFL fanbase thought more of this team based solely on how well Newton's rookie season was. Teams need more than a good QB though. Football 101.

ivn said...

a little late, but there were a few things that bugged me about TMQ (surprise surprise):

Golden Tate of the Bluish Men Group made a vicious peel-back helmet-to-helmet hit on Boys linebacker Sean Lee. Edge defenders are considered "defenseless" if they cannot see a blocker approaching from their blind side.

the camera angle wasn't very good, but Tate initially hit Lee in the chest with his shoulder. Lee was only "defenseless" because he wasn't paying attention (he had his head turned to Wilson); if it was a blindside hit, Tate wouldn't have drilled him in the chest.

Why was Belichick content to play for a 42-yard field goal attempt? New England might have run at least one snap, maybe two, to move the ball closer.

Stevan Ridley's spot in the RB rotation was in trouble (before the Vereen injury) because of his fumbling issues. The Patriots had also just seen Ryan Williams cough the ball up when Arizona was trying to ice the game.

I'm surprised Ben didn't point out that he completely twisted the end of the Redskins game to fit his narrative — he said that Morgan threw the ball at Cortland Finnegan in a bid for attention(!!!) and not because Finnegan is a famously dirty player who had been chipping at Morgan all game.

I also disagree with him 100% on the kneeldown play in the Giants-Bucs game.

Bengoodfella said...

Unknown, before I get my facts straight, let's work on helping you spell the word "straight" correctly. I hate to be the dick that points out your bad spelling, but I can't get past it. You realize I am a big Panthers fan too, right?

Also, very brave of you to come at me anonymously. I know quite a few PSL holders and residents of Charlotte who agree with my point of view. Obviously the fans have no say in what Hurney and Richardson do, but it was understood, as long as you were paying one little bit of attention to what was being said from the beat writers covering the team that they were going to re-sign the "important" players on the team after the lockout was over. Obviously the fans have no say in the decision, but it was basically promised the patience with one bad year would be rewarded because Carolina was going to re-sign players once the lockout was over. It happened too, even if you don't like it. I'm sure you have an incredibly great idea for what Carolina should have done, but are too busy misspelling words to elaborate further.

Clearly, you are a first time reader to this blog. I care nothing about hits and gave Marty Hurney a "C" which really isn't riding his sack. This article won't even be in the Top 10 most-read posts for this month and I knew that writing it. I care nothing about hits. I'm sorry you are so angry.

Nathan, I didn't read that column. If it was about overdrafting RB's then I am sure he thinks the same thing about the Panthers. They have taken two RB's in the last six years in the first round. I'm sure "Unknown" is pissed about that as well.

Arjun, I generally like Barnwell's work but I think he was being a bit unfair in this instance. Running backs are overdrafted and I do not love how much money is tied into Carolina's RB's, but they are vitally important to the team right now, so it made sense.

Koleslaw, I'm glad you liked it. I don't write about Carolina much, but as a fan who doesn't love or hate Hurney I had to at least defend the unfair portions.

I thought more of the team too this year. I really thought the offensive line and defense would be a lot more stout. I was wrong. It's still only the third game of the season, so I hold out hope.

I feel pretty knowledgeable about Carolina, but the topic of Marty Hurney can turn fans against each other very quickly. So the response doesn't shock me.

Ivn, better late than never. I see you are a fan of tough football. Nothing wrong with that. I thought it was funny to see b/c I hate the Cowboys. Every replay I saw made it look like it was helmet to helmet. Yeah, I think Lee needs to pay better attention too.

I didn't point it out because I knew Finnegan was a trash talker but I thought Morgan did exactly what Finnegan wanted him to do. I sort of ignored that Gregg said he wanted attention because I thought the penalty was indefensible. Morgan really didn't do it for attention, but it was such a dumb penalty. Finnegan is famously dirty. I'm not a fan of his.

So you think Schiano didn't do anything wrong at the end of the game. I see where you are coming from, but I thought Schiano shouldn't have let his guys do that. It just didn't feel right to me, though there really isn't a rule broken in that situation.

Someone brought up a good point to me at work the other day about kneel downs that made me think. He said that it was just like a running play, but the QB just gives himself up, so just like the defense has the right to crash the line if the ball was being handed off, they have a right to do so when the QB just kneels.

rich said...

Ben, love the site, but I have to agree with Unknown here - I mean he's a PSL holder AND a resident of Charlotte? Clearly he knows his stuff.

All kidding aside, his comment made my head hurt with its logic - did he actually think you were saying fans were in on the meetings and agreed to what Richardson did?

when the likes of Emmanuel Sanders, Eric Decker, Jimmy Graham, and Aaron Hernandez were available.

This is one of the most annoying things writers can do. In hindsight, yes all four of them were available and would have helped the team, but that's not how the motherfucking draft works. Entering the draft, Graham had ONE season playing football. ONE. No one thought he'd become the other worldly player he is.

Never mind, you take those guys away from Brady (Hernandez) and Brees (Graham) and put them around Delhoumme and Clausen, I'd bet we'd be sitting here talking about how much they suck.

Brown had been cut and bounced around the league after his Achilles injury, but the Giants originally drafted him in the fourth round of the 2009 draft. Ramses Barden hadn't made an impact before Thursday, but he was a third-round pick that same year.

So these two guys play well in one game and suddenly they weren't terrible picks? Because they were terrible, terrible picks.

The 2008 draft was incredible, but since then, Reese's drafting hasn't exactly been that stellar.

2009:
1st - Nicks
2nd - Sintim, Beatty
3rd - Barden, Beckham
4th - Brown
5th - Bomar
6th - Wright
7th - Woodson

9 picks, one great pick, a meh and 7 bad.

2010:

1st - JPP
2nd - Joseph
3rd - Jones
4th - Dillard
5th - Petrus
6th - Tracy
7th - Dodge (a fucking punter they cut a year later)

1 great pick and a bunch of shit, only JPP and Joseph are still on the roster.

2011 same deal, a bunch of guys who haven't done much.

Reese's success is built around one really great draft (2008), not fucking up their 1st round picks and keeping the core of the team together, a core group he largely inherited.

Reese is one of those guys who I'm glad is my team's GM because he's done a phenomenal job, but his draft accumen is largely based on one draft. Every draft since then have been pretty bad.

Bengoodfella said...

Rich, I don't know. I think it is pretty clear the fans had no say and the "understanding" was against the will of the fans. Either way, I'm not sure he read the entire post I wrote.

I hate it when guys say, "Team X could have taken Player Y, Z, or A." Every team in the NFL could have had Hernandez and Graham. It isn't Carolina that is the only team who missed on him.

I better knew Graham as a basketball player. I knew he played football, but he didn't play much. What got me was that Sanders and Decker aren't even as good as LaFell has been. How in the hell can he say Hurney should have taken Sanders or Decker? It doesn't make sense.

I think Jerry Reese has been great. Hurney hasn't been all that bad and I think what you just showed is that every GM misses on picks. Hurney had been great and missed on two straight drafts. It's unfortunate b/c at that same point the Panthers cut much of the core of the team and changed the philosophy on how they want the team built.

Reese has been great, but it is unfair to base the criticism off a terrible game. Where was the criticism of Hurney on Monday morning when the Panthers offensive line (every single person on the line was drafted by Marty Hurney) dominated the Saints, while the two overpaid running backs scored 2 TD's and the overpaid LB (Beason) had an interception and crucial fourth down tipped pass, while the overpaid DE (Johnson) caused a fumble on the same fourth down? Of course Barnwell doesn't criticize Hurney on Monday after the signings don't look so bad, but churns out this column when the Panthers get their ass kicked.

Dan said...

I thought Bill Barnwell's analysis of the Giants today was exceedingly lazy. He lists many stats to show they are terrible but doesnt actually give any in depth analysis behind the numbers, but he says they could get better MAYBE.

Anyway that led me to search to see if you criticized him before and lo and behold I found this timely article considering....

Panthers 38 giants 0

Maybe you can repost this article with an addendum showing how many players are still on the team that hurney drafted. I assume its the majority but I really have no idea.

Bengoodfella said...

Dan, I haven't had a chance to read Grantland since Sunday. So he wrote an article about how the Giants are fucked now? Does he just choose the loser of the Week 3 NYG-CAR game and write a column about them.

I try to avoid writing too much about my favorite team because no one cares. That's a good idea though, to go back and look at the players who contributed in the game and how many of them Hurney drafted.

I actually may do that, but I don't want to come off as bitter and using one game as an example of why Hurney wasn't that bad. Gosh, it is tempting though...

Dan said...

His weekly Monday column is a summary of a handful of games and teams and his top story this week was about how the Giants are terrible, but he managed to take both sides of the argument as to whether they can get better so no matter what happens he can cherry pick his column later on to prove he was right.

I think you should do a column on the giants-panthers game because its clear that Barnwell was completely wrong in this column and he needs to be called out on it.

Bengoodfella said...

Dan, it's funny but he was right about some of the guys but wrong as well. Hindsight says J-Stew isn't worth the contract, but I will argue until I am blue in the face that Charles Johnson is overpaid, but I don't think it's a bad contract.

I will re-read what he wrote and then possibly do a followup. Of course then the Panthers will lose their next 13 games.

I read the Barnwell article and he called the Giants "brutally flawed" then talks about how their regression will end, they will get luckier with turnovers and then says they aren't done yet. Maybe brutally flawed doesn't mean what I think it means.