I am not qualified to post this.

One of my favorite products of the Redskins-Titans game was only subsequent to the on-field product, strange as that sounds to admit after weathering a grueling offseason of counting down the months/weeks/days/minutes/seconds 'til kickoff, was that crafty devil Dillweed's impressive analysis of the first string offensive line play-by-play at Post Game Heroes.

As Dan Steinberg points out that analysis just happened to break opinion from every single local newspaper's coverage of the offensive line, namely:

Now I don't know who is right and who is wrong. Having not slogged through every single newspaper (as Dan has) and reviewed the Post Game Heroes analysis with the game footage in front of me to attest for accuracy, I'm not "qualified" or "credentialed" to speak towards a conclusion for or against Post Game Heroes or the local media. Dillweed's analysis certainly appears to be accurate as he goes into extreme detail that would be more complicated to invent than record.

I am not certain that the local newspapers have reached a conclusion about the line's play that is mutually exclusive with Post Game Heroes, so I'm going by Dan's word on that. But were that the case the conclusion many fans would probably reach is that Post Game Heroes got it wrong and the wisdom of the masses (of local reporters) is better judged.

Yet I watched the game with my own eyes and nothing about the PGH's line analysis jumps out at me as false per my recollection -- which was admittedly affected by alcohol. I didn't think Wade performed better than everyone else on the line, but I don't necessarily absolutely believe that I'm right about that; countless times I've believed that a player did worse/better on the field than was actually the case after a second viewing, a statistical analysis, or a dialogue with other viewers.

And all that was really said in the PGH analysis was that Todd Wade made two good blocks and one bad one in the run game. The offensive line was largely evaluated on the two sacks it allowed against Jason Campbell that resulted in fumbles, one lost. Though as was documented elsewhere neither of those happened to be Todd Wade's fault:

And although it is just one anecdote in a larger sample size, that example happens to coincide with PGH's analysis.

But what does Dillweed know? I mean, he's just a guy... with two eyes just like mine. Just a guy... who does what I do. He's just a guy... and so am I. So count me among those predisposed towards believing his analysis -- my bias is out in the open. Because if you can't count on a guy named Dillweed posting on the tubenets with what appears to be credible analysis of a game I watched then you certainly cannot count on a guy named Skin Patrol posting on the tubenets with what frequently appears to be idiotic, confusing, or factually incorrect analysis. Commenter FW at The Bog made this concern explicit, emphasis mine:

Despite what FW might think, I've always felt the inclusivity of the internet was one of its greatest strengths. In a marketplace (and I'm stealing the language of another, soon quoted) of ideas the greater the "quantity" very likely the better the "quality". The internet isn't unique to the media in that some people are simply better at this thing than others. An impartial observer would have to admit that Ben strings together sentences and concepts a bit better than yours truly. Just as it is probably true that either the Washington Post or the Washington Times better covers the Redskins in the opinion of some fans than the other, which is why some people subscribe to or choose to read the coverage of one over the other (I love them both!). And consumers of that coverage aren't likely basing their decisions on the "quality" or "quantity" of David Elfin's "understanding" vs. that of Jason La Canfora's, as if we could possibly grasp those obscure qualifications merely from looking at the two men's resumes -- which, incidentally, most readers of the Times and Post likely haven't. I don't know which Journalism school either man went to. I don't care, really.

[Quick Aside: This is not at all an attack on journalists. But Journalism school does not train individuals to accurately and intelligibly analyze the sport of Football. Rather it exists to  promote good Journalistic habits such as writing and reporting (which is why those guys are so much better than me in both those areas; I didn't go to journalism school. Philosophy, for full disclosure). Without knowing anything about Dillweed except that he has an awesome pseudonym, there's no reason to presume that he's less qualified to analyze football than any newspaper's particular beatwriter. And sometimes being qualified to discuss football in virtue of, say, having played it at a competitive level, doesn't necessarily mean you'll be any good at analyzing it in the first. So, like, take that.]

A similar though more nuanced criticism against the "citizen journalists" of the internets was leveled by Richard Schickel though the subject of that discussion was the invasion of book reviewing by the unqualified masses. This would be Books Haven or some nonsense and I'd be pining idiotic on literature.

A brilliant SB Nation colleague of mine responded to that criticism as relates to sports citizen journalism, blogging, more eloquently than I possibly could. In response to Shickel's observation, not unlike FW's above, that credentials are important:

Sunday Morning Quarterback, in a post that is well worth reading in its entirety, responded: And with that the discussion is over. The greatness of any literary work was never predetermined by the fact that its author went to Oxford or Harvard or had published a lot of critically acclaimed works prior, that an author knew the subject more intimately than all others, or even that an author's credentials were clearly stated/proven before the product was read. To take an example from Shickel and SMQ, I haven't the foggiest idea where George Orwell went to school. I don't know what his writing credentials are. And that hasn't mattered in the least to me because his authority is derived from the greatness of his product, just as is true for every writer, ever, in history. Had he published 1984 anonymously, perhaps under the name Dillweed on a tubenet blog, it would affect exactly none-at-all the greatness of that book.

By the way, I'll be out today relocating to a new town in order to pursue my own credentials at Law School later this month. I say that only to apologize for a lack of posts, of which this is probably the only one today, though regular blogging resumes tomorrow. My good friend at Behind the Steel Curtain and I have some interesting stuff planned for this Saturday's game against the Steelers, so stay tuned. Or don't. Because what qualifies me to talk about the team I love?