The exact moment that Jason Whitlock stopped mattering

I mean, Donald Trump still says he won the election. Grifters gonna grift.

 

It's a great trick - be an a-hole, people call you out on it and then portray yourself as being the victim of the "elites." People have gotten a lot of mileage out of that play.

 

He’s certainly been a notable sports writer in his era but when it comes to actually producing good or great or interesting content, there are a lot who’ve done so just as well or better, and a whole lot who’ve had much longer sustained success.

Are we 100% sure Whitlock even makes the Mt Rushmore of KC Star staffers from his era? Probably, I guess but he’s on the bottom half of that foursome, not the top.

 

He was at his peak writing on the Chiefs in the 1990s at the Star. He was great then. But weak on other sports and especially weak on baseball - he was fortunate the Royals were so bad. But Posnanski and Mellinger wrote interesting things about bad Royals teams because they are better reporters. As a national voice, Whitlock did not interest me.

 

arguably
demonstrably
provably

 

Whitlock has never had a peak — unless you're looking up from the media holler he's in now — and he's never been great. The only way he makes it to KC's Mount Rushmore is via a tour bus, a big tour bus.

 

very bad baseball writer. Being a good football writer and nothing else was not all that notable in the previous media iteration.

 

Every Whitlock column during football season eventually devolved into "I played at Ball State" and "Jeff George should get another NFL job." Published in the KC Fucking Star.

If Gib Twyman hadn't screwed the pooch and plagiarized an SI article (I think it was SI), we might have been spared Whitlock.

 

Oh, no it wasn't.

The guy knew football and covered the Chiefs well. His columns could end abruptly at times - from what I read they still do at times - but he definitely reached an audience.

 

Are you Whitlock? I read that guy in the Star, and he sucked ass. Still does.

The difference between him and Posnanski was so wide it wasn't even funny.

 

To suggest Whitlock was a terrible writer about football is the kind of totalizing statement that defeats the purpose of legitimate criticism of the guy.

 

Agree. The guy rubs some people the wrong way so much that they can't give a realistic, reasonable assessment.