When List Making Goes Wrong

The NFL Network has revealed 90 of the top 100 players as voted on by the players.  At least NFL Network says the players voted.  As is the case every summer, some players have taken contention with the Top 100 list.  Donte Whitner, now of the Cleveland Browns, is among these players.  His tweets and comments are here.  Whitner feels that he is among the Top 100 players in the NFL.  His exclusion from the list serves as launching point into the flaws of the Top 100. 

Looking at the safeties ranked in the Top 100 does raise questions.  The list is as follows: Earl Thomas (17), Eric Berry (50), Troy Polamalu (61), Kam Chancellor (65), Antrel Rolle (72), T.J. Ward (82), and Eric Weddle (92).  Looking at raw statistics is a dicey approach as safeties are required to emphasis pass defense or stopping the run depending on scheme and team personnel.  That makes Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value (AV) metric particularly useful.  The football junkies at Pro Football reference have boiled down the 2013 season’s stats and placed a value on each player that transcends raw statistical inequities as much as possible.

Based on the AV metric, where higher is better and the scale runs roughly from zero to 15, the rankings for safeties are flawed.  Listed in order with the AV value in parenthesis it should read, Thomas (11), Chancellor (11), Rolle (10), Ward (9), Berry (8), Polamalu (8), and Weddle (8). That shuffled line up should raise some eyebrows at NFL Network.

Whitner scored an AV of nine and his rookie teammate Eric Reid posted an AV of nine.  As a measuring stick for Whitner’s effect on his teammates, Dashon Goldson had an AV of ten in 2012 playing with Whitner but managed only a four this past season in Tampa Bay.  It seems safe to say that Berry and Polamalu have coasted on reputation and been ranked far too high.  Polamalu cannot claim to be raising his teammate’s performance either.  Ryan Clark posted an AV of six in 2013 after an eight in 2012.

To further, bolster Whitner’s claim that the voting not as advertised one only needs to look at J.J. Watt.  Watt came in as the 12^th player on the Top 100 list.  Meanwhile, Pro Football Focus graded him as the number one player in the NFL and it was not close.  Click to read how Watt almost broke the grading scale, again.  It is also worth perusing the most authoritative and credible ranking of NFL players based on the 2013 season.

 

              How does a player playing on an unseen level only merit the 12^th spot in the Top 100?  If the goal of the Top 100 was to generate debate and attention prior to training camps then the NFL Network deserves a pat on the back.  If the Top 100 list’s intent was credibility, then the NFL Network should save time and trees by ditching their balloting process.  A blindfolded, inebriated, primate flinging darts would be just as credible.