Bob McGinn Retires

[MrMom]

Sad times for NFL fans, no one was closer to the scouting community than McGinn. He would've had some good information on us with our upcoming Packers game this year.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/sport...-standout-careers-journal-sentinel/101237304/

McGinn, 65, has covered the Green Bay Packers for The Milwaukee Journal and Journal Sentinel since 1991, spanning the years from Ron Wolf to Ted Thompson. He came to Milwaukee after 16 years at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, including seven on the Packers beat. He hasn't missed a Packers game since taking over the beat in 1984.

In 2011, he was selected by the Pro Football Writers of America as recipient of the prestigious Dick McCann Award for long and distinguished reporting, placing him in the writers' wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. In Wisconsin, he is a six-time winner of the Sportswriter of the Year award from the National Sports Media Association.
_________________________________________________________________________________
"My whole thing was trying to unravel the mysteries of the game," McGinn told Sports Illustrated in an in-depth feature on him in January.

Bob McGinn in his home office with some of his voluminous files on the Green Bay Packers.

That always started for McGinn with meticulous reporting. His basement is the National Archives of Packers football, packed with shelves and filing cabinets containing newspaper clippings, handwritten interview transcripts, color-coded game notes, stat sheets and media guides going back to Bart Starr's coaching days.

McGinn also established relationships with scores of NFL scouts, assistant coaches and personnel executives to "help me understand that I'm not a know-it-all," he said. "They know more about the game than I'll ever know," he has often said, which may or may not be true.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Loved his notes on draft prospects from various teams.

Heard his mock did not go so well this year but I guess a great deal of people's mocks were thrown off with the bears trade.

 

[jterrell]

This sucks. Goose was the best at it but the DMN couldn't find a way to keep him in that capacity... he was awful at expanded duties.
McGinn filled that void and gave us great insight. Funny to see how wrong some scouts were if you check out past years but it's still great, raw, honest takes.
It is a shame that even as the NFL is finding ways to make millions off the draft media can;t find a way to cover it with a stud like Goose or McGinn.

 

[MonsterD]

Who is now going to relay the scout's take including the one angry scout who always goes against the grain?

 

[speedkilz88]

Yeah, who is the next Scout Whisperer

 

[perrykemp]

Now this is a bummer.

I always enjoyed learning the various insights from NFL scouts McGinn had access to across the league. Nobody else in the league had that kind of access and evidently trusted by scouts that he would never reveal who they were.

Reading those scouts comments over the years made it crystal clear what a crap shot a surprising number of NFL players are -- this is such a diversity of opinion on many of even the top guys.

 

[Risen Star]

His scouts articles were a must read. Hopefully someone will be able to pick up where he left off.

 

[RS12]

Noooooo.

 

[Plankton]

From what I understand, he didn't retire - he was pushed out. Apparently, he still wants to write.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

In most industries you would see somebody there to replace a McGinn because it was a nice niche that he had that the marketplace desired. I have zero confidence that will happen here.




YR

 

[perrykemp]

In most industries you would see somebody there to replace a McGinn because it was a nice niche that he had that the marketplace desired. I have zero confidence that will happen here.




YR

Your right -- you can't just 'replace' a guy who spent the last 30 years becoming the NFL's "scout whisperer" by painstakingly and slowly building up trust with scouts across the league that he would never betray their confidence by revealing their names or mistakenly providing clues that would be hints to as to who the scouts are.

Is developing that kind of relationship even possible today in today's world of instant-gratification sports journalism?

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Your right -- you can't just 'replace' a guy who spent the last 30 years becoming the NFL's "scout whisperer" by painstakingly and slowly building up trust with scouts across the league that he would never betray their confidence by revealing their names or mistakenly providing clues that would be hints to as to who the scouts are.

Is developing that kind of relationship even possible today in today's world of instant-gratification sports journalism?

I think so. The journalists are too stupid and too arrogant to see this. That's the difference between this and other industries where a person with an excellent niche in the market, retires.




YR