Pro Football Focus - Top 101 players of 2012

[RolandDeschain]

hook, line and sinker....

Just leave this thread.

@cvcahawk: Yeah, and that's why he'll get a top contract, despite it not showing up in the stats. I am curious to see where he'll rank on the NFL Top 100, assuming he's on the list.

 

[hawker84]

LOL roland yer tryin to hardd buddie

 

[Sarlacc83]

Next year, Seattle is going to have at least 2 more players (Winfield, Harvin) on that list plus whoever steps up in a big way on our defense. I could see Mebane getting some recognition next year and Thomas jumping back onto the list is likely.

 

[dontbelikethat]

Hard for me to look at the list when they believe there are 101 better players in the NFL than Earl Thomas.

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

Interesting that this list has Keapernick rated exactly in the same spot as the NFLN list.

 

[bigcc]

Winfield is at 58
Harvin is at 51
Article arguing Bennett as one of the players who should have made it: https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... d-bennett/


EDIT: So basically take an 11-5 team that was seconds from the NFC championship, add 2 top 60 players, arguably a top 101 player, a top pass rusher in Avril, a draft class, no big losses in FA (only major loss is possibly clemons for the start of the year), and a full offseason for what I believe was the 2nd or 3rd youngest team in the NFL (can anyone correct me on that?)....... well played P/S.... well played

 

[kearly]

Fun list. Still, it's hard to take serious any top list of NFL players that doesn't start off with a long string of quarterbacks. Matt Schaub was an average quarterback last season but an injury to Schaub would have hurt the Texans more than an injury to JJ Watt. JJ Watt was their #1 player. The first QB listed was Peyton Manning at #7, ranked behind a guard.

Sherman was #5. How much more damaging would it be to lose Wilson compared to Sherman? Ten times more? Seattle barely felt the loss of Browner. Seattle loses Wilson, and good night.

RE: Earl Thomas. Thomas brings schematic value, not statistical value. So it's not a surprise he's off the list. His getting pro-bowls and all-pros will suffice.

 

[NorthDallas40oz]

Hard for me to look at the list when they believe there are 101 better players in the NFL than Earl Thomas.

This is not a subjective list of "who's best" like the NFL Network's Top 100. It's based on objective grading of every player, on every play, in every game. So every tackle you miss, and every INT you drop, and every reception you allow, and every penalty you're flagged for, and so on, works against you. The fact of the matter is that Earl Thomas graded in the middle of the pack amongst safeties last season, even lower than Kam Chancellor. It's easy to get wrapped up in Earl's game-changing 4th quarter INT's and rationalize that he's the cream of the crop among NFL safeties, but the truth is that he had a very middling grade overall in 2012 when you factor in all of the other plays in all of the games last season.

 

[therealjohncarlson]

Fun list. Still, it's hard to take serious any top list of NFL players that doesn't start off with a long string of quarterbacks. Matt Schaub was an average quarterback last season but an injury to Schaub would have hurt the Texans more than an injury to JJ Watt. JJ Watt was their #1 player. The first QB listed was Peyton Manning at #7, ranked behind a guard.

Sherman was #5. How much more damaging would it be to lose Wilson compared to Sherman? Ten times more? Seattle barely felt the loss of Browner. Seattle loses Wilson, and good night.

RE: Earl Thomas. Thomas brings schematic value, not statistical value. So it's not a surprise he's off the list. His getting pro-bowls and all-pros will suffice.

Ehhh I think it would be a little unfair to rank players by their net worth to the team and what would occur if listed players were hurt. I think it's more fair to rank the players by how good they are their respective jobs. So a guard won't ever be more valuable than Peyton Manning, but a guard could arguably be better at his own job than Peyton Manning is at his, compared to other players' at their positions.

 

[themunn]

Hard for me to look at the list when they believe there are 101 better players in the NFL than Earl Thomas.

This is not a subjective list of "who's best" like the NFL Network's Top 100. It's based on objective grading of every player, on every play, in every game. So every tackle you miss, and every INT you drop, and every reception you allow, and every penalty you're flagged for, and so on, works against you. The fact of the matter is that Earl Thomas graded in the middle of the pack amongst safeties last season, even lower than Kam Chancellor. It's easy to get wrapped up in Earl's game-changing 4th quarter INT's and rationalize that he's the cream of the crop among NFL safeties, but the truth is that he had a very middling grade overall in 2012 when you factor in all of the other plays in all of the games last season.

The point is that you can't measure the things that Earl Thomas does by the stats he accumulates.
His speed, awareness and ability to get to the ball allows us to play with 8 in the box and two corners playing man-coverage and not give up acres of space.
His ability adds to our defense in the same way Lynch's running ability adds to our passing offense.
He's not directly responsible for it, but because he's so damn good at what he does, the opposition have to account for him on every play. It's hard to grade him properly when that's what happens.
If next season QBs just flat out decided "I'm not going to pass the ball Sherman's way" and he gets 0 targets and thus 0 passes defensed and 0 interceptions he'd "grade out" very low. But obviously that is not a fair reflection of his impact on the game

 

[DavidSeven]

Matt Schaub was an average quarterback last season but an injury to Schaub would have hurt the Texans more than an injury to JJ Watt. JJ Watt was their #1 player.

If you replaced Matt Schaub with an average QB, the Texans aren't hurt much. If you replace JJ Watt with an average player, they would be noticeably worse IMO.

 

[Steve2222]

According to PFF, Earl Thomas was the 35th rated safety.

el oh el

 

[Sarlacc83]

Fun list. Still, it's hard to take serious any top list of NFL players that doesn't start off with a long string of quarterbacks. Matt Schaub was an average quarterback last season but an injury to Schaub would have hurt the Texans more than an injury to JJ Watt. JJ Watt was their #1 player. The first QB listed was Peyton Manning at #7, ranked behind a guard.

Sherman was #5. How much more damaging would it be to lose Wilson compared to Sherman? Ten times more? Seattle barely felt the loss of Browner. Seattle loses Wilson, and good night.

RE: Earl Thomas. Thomas brings schematic value, not statistical value. So it's not a surprise he's off the list. His getting pro-bowls and all-pros will suffice.

It's best players, not the most valuable to the team. Also, it's a comparison to each other as theRealJC said. If you were to replace Wilson with another QB on that list, you wouldn't notice the same kind of significant downgrade at the position as if you were to replace Sherman with Antonio Cromartie or the massive upgrade if we had Adrian Petersen. Likewise, our team might actually have been better with one of the higher ranked safeties than if we had Earl Thomas. I know that's blasphemy, but it just well might be the truth.