I write about a lot of different topics and occasionally get into sports-sports subjects. Justin Herbert, dark horse candidate for HoS Muse of 2026, often falls into that category. Why? Usually it’s because he’s really more a window into a running question on this website: Do the professionals working in sports know what the hell they’re doing?
To be clear, I have respect for staffers across the leagues, especially after working in the NBA. A lot of these people make decisions based on information we’re never privy to and most of them burn the midnight oil in pursuit of finding an edge. At the same time, they’re subject to the same groupthink fallacies all human beings are. So I present you one of the biggest paradoxes in professional sports right now: How is it that the worst-performing starter continues to command massive trade value? This conventional NFL wisdom almost can’t make sense, by definition.