Accept Cody Barton's valuation and move on
Some fans just wanted reasons to be mad about how THE ENTIRE NFL feels about Cody Barton: Seaside Joe 1473
The Seahawks replaced Bobby Wagner with Cody Barton last year and the Seahawks will replace Barton with (???) this year. We’re not sure yet. Maybe Bobby Wagner.
And we don’t have to be sure right now. A year ago at this time, Seattle’s top two offensive tackles were Stone Forsythe and Jake Curhan. Why didn’t we see Forsythe and Curhan last season? Because a year ago was the middle of March and the Seahawks weren’t going to overpay Duane Brown or Brandon Shell just to feel comfortable in March.
Barton went to the moon on Monday and signed a one-year deal with Washington for a guaranteed $3.5 million. The reaction on Twitter was predictably as irrational as the delusions that these same fans fed themselves in October and November when Barton’s debut season as a starter didn’t go as they expected as playing time dwindled post-Week 4.
I don’t know what the name is for the kind of fallacy that Corbin is using here, but using the “I admit something we all know, which is this player isn’t THE BEST AT HIS POSITION, therefore he must be as good as I say he is!” won’t work on me. Anymore. Some Seasider out there, what’s this fallacy?
A lot of Seahawks fans, some of them claiming to be Xs and Os experts, expressed confusion and dismay at the loss of Barton despite the plausibility that they watched Seattle play football games over the last four years…right? I am not setting out to destroy Barton’s reputation or to sully his name—Pete Carroll’s 2022 usage of Barton and the NFL’s valuation of him as a free agent has done enough of that already—but for any Seahawks fans out there who is feeling as emotionally manipulated as I have by Twitter’s biased takes on everything, I want to let you know that…your eyes and memory didn’t fail you if you watched the games.
Barton could be a cool dude. Barton could turn out to become a better player if Washington turns out to be a better fit for him. He wasn’t going to magically become a better fit for Pete Carroll after four years together.
I understand. It’s not easy to assign value to most football positions, if not all of them, and inside or off-ball linebacker or whatever we need to call the Barton role doesn’t typically carry those fan-obsessed stats like yards, touchdowns, sacks, or interceptions. So instead some fans run to the Internet and “analytics” and “Xs and Os” for help and find reasons to confirm their fears because social media only exists to feed fear and insecurity:
“Oh wow! Next Gen Stats is “analytics” and it’s confirming my fears! Or my hopes! Depends on the day! Barton must be the third-best linebacker, huh!? This is ALL I need to see! I don’t need to recall watching the games anymore!! I’ve got…’hustle….s-s-s-s-stops?’ to confirm all that worries me, plus Matty F, Brown says I should be in CRISIS mode! That’s my favorite mode! You know what I call it when I’m not in crisis mode? CRISIS MODE!”
Okay, so we’ve got ‘analytics’ to confirm that Barton’s an underrated linebacker, right? After all, they have…a chart.
“Analytics” is just a re-branded form of cherry picking. I give you….four other tweets by Next Gen Stats for four other free agent linebackers who signed contracts in free agency on Monday. They’re all top-3 linebackers, like Barton.
There’s a stat for everybody. Say it, preach it, stick it under a Snapple cap: “There’s a stat for everybody!”
You didn’t think that Next Gen Stats was in the business of ranking the general value of players or painting an accurate and fair picture of the NFL, did you? The job of the Next Gen Stats account, as is the basis for all Twitter accounts (hi, PFF), is to…BE RETWEETED. So that means that there’s a stat for everybody. If it’s not complimentary, you won’t retweet it.
And you don’t have to take my word for it that Barton is a replacement level linebacker who is not being perceived by a loss from the Seattle Seahawks or as an irreplaceable player by the league. What do I always say about how to best assign the perception of value?
Take the word of his market.
The Seahawks spent four years with Cody Barton. They practiced with him. They put him in the group chat. They ate at Panera with him. Eventually, Pete gave him his opportunity and handed the linebacker position to him on an Chili’s triple dipper platter.
Seahawks bring back Jarran Reed
By Week 4 and for most of the season, Pete rescinded Barton’s opportunity to be a full-time player and it only came back around to him after Jordyn Brooks tore his ACL. Then when it came time for free agency, Seattle valued Phil Haynes and Nick Bellore more than Barton. They rejected him like he was Jonah Hill in 21 Jump Street asking the Seahawks to prom.
That’s a big statement by Seattle, given Pete’s history as a coach who is loyal to a fault, Brooks’ injury, the lack of depth at linebacker, the amount of experience Barton had with the defense, the rush to keep Bellore and Haynes, the lack of interest in Barton on the open market, and the number of players at the position who got more years and money on Monday. The bickering is over, the argument is finished, the winners have been chosen, the answer couldn’t be more in your face.
The Seahawks didn’t lose Cody Barton on Monday. The Seahawks continued their search to replace Bobby Wagner.
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There is no way "hustle stop" is a real thing.
This is one of the reasons I give you my money, Kenneth, because you're very good at cutting through all the BS, the hyperbolic hot taeks, and getting us back to reality. Those NGS posts are an exceptional example of how meaningless a lot of these individual stats actually are, especially when they lack any context, and a "hustle stop" has to be one of the more tortured terms I've seen in a while. It sounds impressive, it sounds meaningful, but if "hustle stops" apply to the 2022 Barton I watched play 17 games, I'm not sure what they mean.
Also, if it's August 28th or September 30th or November 7th and the Seahawks are down to a laundry list of replacement-level players in the LB room, that's crisis time. It's not crisis time 3 days into FA with the draft still to come. Sure, there's room to worry about it right now if you want but its a waste of everyone's precious time and emotional energy. I love him but Matty needs to calm down.