We’ve made it to Wednesday. “Hump day,” as the camel from the Geico commercial would say.

We usually do the Mount Rushmore post on a Friday afternoon, but this topic is relevant and fresh, so we moved it up a few days this week. In this installment of the award-winning column, we came up with our top “dumbass Derek Barnett penalties” throughout the years, and I’ll tell you what – this was a difficult process. It was hard to whittle it down to four, since Barnett has done so many stupid things in midnight green. You can always count on him for one ridiculous cheap shot per game, which is becoming one of life’s certainties. Right up there with death and taxes.

Our list:

 

Late hit #1

I’ll give you two angles on this one, which is the ridiculous hit that Barnett put on Jamaal Williams in the 2019 Green Bay game.

Here’s a close up, where you can see Williams bottled up and not going anywhere. In comes Barnett:

This angle is probably better, because it shows how far Barnett came to hit a guy who was wrapped up. Williams was actually going backward, but Barnett decided to ram into him from behind the play, for whatever reason:

 

Late Hit #2

From Week 1 of this season.

Classic Barnett right here, just hitting a guy late for no reason at all:

This was the play where Jimmy G fumbled the ball out of play, on a second and seven. Instead of putting themselves in better position to get a stop, the 49ers got a 1st and 10 out of this flag, then marched down the field to kick a field goal and increase their lead to 14 points.

 

Roughing the passer

Eagles vs. Seahawks. NFC Wild Card Playoffs.

Seattle was moving down the field on the nine-play, 82 yard drive, when Barnett was whistled for a late hit on Russell Wilson. The flag gave Seattle first and goal from the Philly five yard line, and Marshawn Lynch would find the end zone on the very next play, which ended up being the game-winning score:

 

Hitting a guy not even remotely close to the play

For this final selection, we’re going with the Next Gen graphic.

This was from the New York Jets game, when the Birds hammered backup Luke Falk, who completed 15 passes and was picked off twice. On his first interception, which was returned for a TD by Nathan “White Snake” Gerry, Barnett decided to clock an offensive lineman who wasn’t even close to the play and had zero chance of making a tackle:

That moved the Eagles back to their own 20 yard line on the ensuing kickoff, which was returned for 28 yards. The Jets began their next possession at their own 39 thanks to the unnecessary roughness flag.