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In just six NFL seasons, fewer than half the players drafted by the NFL in 2006 are still employed by NFL teams or are actively searching for work.  And overall, that means that the 2006 class has been a fairly successful class.  If we just look at years 4-6 of the respective careers of these players (players who fall mostly in the 28-30 age range in 2012), we can get a fairly accurate picture on the top twelve players in this class.

1. Jahri Evans, RG New Orleans Saints, from Bloomsburg (PA)

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 48

The best player in this class from 2009-2011 is a super bowl champion and fourth round pick from a small school.

2. Haloti Ngata, DT Baltimore Ravens, from Oregon

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 47

I had Ngata as my top rated player back in 2006, but he fell out of the top ten.  It was one of only two times that a defensive lineman has topped my board in the last seven drafts.

3. Jay Cutler, QB Chicago Bears, from Vanderbilt

Cumulative AV rating since 2008: 45

Cutler was drafted by the Broncos 11th overall.  Mike Shanahan traded up to get him.  You would be surprised how often those trade ups (particularly ones for quarterbacks) result in the team that traded down receiving a better player than the team who had targeted a guy to trade up for.  This is one of the times where the Broncos ended up better off for their aggression.

4. Maurice Jones-Drew, RB Jacksonville Jaguars, from UCLA

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 40

Jones-Drew didn’t win rookie of the year in 2006, in probably the most irresponsible use of voting power in the history of pro sports.  The award instead went to Vince Young.

5. Greg Jennings, WR Green Bay Packers, from Western Michigan

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 34

Greg Jennings is one year away from completing his second NFL contract, meaning that there is an outside chance he could hit the market at age 29 looking for a third contract.

6. Johnathon Joseph, CB Houston Texans, from South Carolina

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 31

In Joseph, the Texans signed the cornerback they hoped they were getting when they drafted Dunta Robinson out of South Carolina way back in 2004.  Better late than never.

7. Marques Colston, WR New Orleans Saints, from Hofstra

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 31

Colston, of course, is actually done with his second contract, and is hitting the market at age 29.  Just a prediction: he will play elsewhere in 2012.

8. Nick Mangold, C New York Jets, from Ohio State

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 30

Mangold is frequently an all-pro selection at center, and would probably be the consensus best center in the game if we polled enough people.  Still, seven players from his draft class accrued more Approximate Value between 2009-2011.  Is that just an example of how limited centers are to help win games? Possibly.

9. Vernon Davis, TE San Francisco 49ers, from Maryland

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 30

It is probably safe to conclude that Vernon Davis has provided adequate return on the 6th overall pick in the 2006 draft.  Davis — appearing in the playoffs for the first time in 2011 — set a playoff record for most receiving yards in his first two appearances.

10. Frank Gore, RB San Francisco 49ers, from Miami (FL)

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 30

If I remember correctly, Gore was widely considered a surprise pick at the top of round three, but he’s been a damn good one.  Of players ahead of him on this list, only Evans and Colston were still on the board when the 49ers picked Gore.  Who had the better draft between the Saints and the 49ers?  You could argue that they settled it on the field in the playoffs this year.

11. Elvis Dumerville, DE Denver Broncos, from Louisville

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 29

When Mike Shanahan gets it right in terms of drafting a defensive player, I’ll go out of my way to point out that there’s hope for us yet.

12. Tamba Hali, OLB Kansas City Chiefs, from Penn State

Cumulative AV rating since 2009: 28

Hali’s career started slow, but he has matured into the best pass rusher from this draft.  Why is this controversial?  I will explain below.

Honorable Mention

These are not the 13th-20th guys, rather some notable names that came from this draft class who have been among the best players in the NFL over the last three years.

• Brandon Marshall (27)
• D’Brickashaw Ferguson (27)
• Eric Winston (26)
• Miles Austin (26)
• Chad Greenway (25)
• AJ Hawk (24)
• Donald Penn (22)
• Marcedes Lewis (22)
• Brent Grimes (21)
• Antonio Cromartie (21)
• Tramon Williams (21)
• Kamerion Wimbley (21)
• Barry Cofield (20)
• Demeco Ryans (20)
• Andrew Whitworth (20)
• Devin Hester (20)
• Michael Huff (19)
• Cortland Finnegan (19)
• Kyle Williams (19)
• Reggie Bush (19)
• Mario Williams (19)

But from 2009-2011?  It’s not so clear.  Williams is the one who missed three quarters of this season with a torn pectoral muscle, a season in which the Houston Texans finally got over the hump.  The highest rated player on the Houston Texans from the 2006 draft is CB Johnathon Joseph.  But Williams isn’t even the highest (or second highest) rated player from that Texans draft class.  Eric Winston, the right tackle for the Texans, who has managed to start 16 games every season for the Texans since 2007, on a line that has improved into one of the NFL’s best units.  It was debateably the NFL’s worst when Winston was drafted onto it, and he is the longest tenured starter of that group.  Even 2nd round LB Demeco Ryans has been just as much a part of the Texans’ success as has Williams.

Since the start of the 2010 season, Williams simply hasn’t been worth what he has cost the Texans in terms of salary.  You probably would never have guessed that since 2009, AJ Hawk has a higher cumulative AV rating than Mario Williams does.

This is relevant because Williams is a free agent.   He is, in theory, the highest rated free agent available, though Peyton Manning certainly could become that upon his release.

2006 NFL Draft Superlatives

Draft Winners: 49ers, Saints, Texans, Broncos
Draft Losers: Rams, Redskins, Browns, Cardinals, Patriots, Falcons
Best Value: Marques Colston and Jahri Evans, New Orleans Saints
First round busts: Bobby Carpenter (Dallas), Tye Hill (Rams), John McCargo (Bills), Laurence Maroney (Pats), Matt Leinart (Cardinals)
Percentage of each round that started in NFL (min. 8 games started in at least one season): 1st (90.6%), 2nd (90.6%), 4th (52.8%), 5th (50%), 3rd (41.2%), 6th (38.5%), 7th (17.0%)

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With Arizona four-star Wide Receiver Davonte Neal committing to play college football at Notre Dame next year, Notre Dame has dodged a bullet from signing day when Deontay Greenberry flipped his commitment away from Notre Dame to Houston, creating a major offensive void in the Irish’s previously impressive recruiting haul.  While Neal isn’t as highly regarded as Greenberry was by recruitniks, his signature makes him the highest rated wide receiver in the Irish’s 2012 recruiting class.

That’s good.  Though the way Neal went about his commitment today doesn’t make it entirely clear that he’s doing what he thought would be best for him:

Reportedly, there is an ongoing “power struggle” over the decision.  The player apparently wants to stay near home and play for the Wildcats, while the father wants his son to play for the Irish.

…

Simply put, the entire Neal family should be embarrassed over and ashamed of what took place late Tuesday morning at the receiver’s former elementary school.

And this incident reminds me a little bit of this from a month ago:

“From what I have been told, [QB Gunner Kiel] is no longer coming to LSU,” recruiting expert Michael Scarborough of Rivals.com told the Times. “He wants to come to LSU, but his mother (Aleta Kiel) got very emotional Monday and did not want her son to leave. He plans to enroll in classes at Notre Dame on Tuesday.”

Scarborough went on to add that “[w]hat has been relayed to me is that he wants to come to LSU, but his parents want him at Notre Dame because it is closer to home.”

Sure, the takeaway here is that Brian Kelly is managing to compete with the big dogs in college recruiting using tactics that going back to the very beginning of his tenure at Notre Dame, has allowed him to routinely land 4 and 5 star recruits without enjoying the advantages of being an annual national championship contender and also without Notre Dame being the pro-football factory it once was.  And part of the reason Kelly is the head coach at Notre Dame is so that he can modernize the Notre Dame football program and re-brand it as a modern football powerhouse, instead of the relic it’s detractors claim it to be.

It would be an issue if Notre Dame falls down the recruiting rankings because they can’t get the elite players to sign.  But the problem preceding Kelly’s administration wasn’t that they weren’t winning on signing day.

Notre Dame Rivals.com Recruiting Rankings 2002-2012

2012 – #22
2011 – #10
2010* – #14
2009 – #21
2008 – #2
2007 – #8
2006 – #8
2005* – #40
2004 – #32
2003 – #12
2002 – #24

Median recruiting ranking, by coach
Tyrone Willingham – 24th
Charlie Weis – 8th
Brian Kelly – 14th

Separated by coach, you can kind of see why there was reason to be concerned over the downward trend in recruiting under Ty Willingham, but after Charlie Weis put the Irish back in the BCS in his first two seasons, you can certainly see how recruiting simply hasn’t been an issue for the fighting Irish.  Since 2006, their mean ranking according to rivals is 12th, which is much higher than the average finish in the AP poll for Notre Dame over that timeframe.  Is is that the classes are overrated?

To a degree, sure, when you don’t win, anything that indicated future success is overrated.  But looking at Charlie Weis’ best three classes, most of the big name prospects panned out.  This is the second rated recruiting class according to Rivals in 2008.  Braxston Cave and Kapron Lewis-Moore are slotted as excellent fifth year seniors, who will combine to start 7 seasons for the fighting Irish, although both were injured and missed the end of last season.  Ethan Johnson was a three year starter.  Of course, Kyle Rudolph and Michael Floyd are going to be very significant NFL players over the next few years.  Rudolph profiles as one of the best in-line tight ends in football.  Floyd is projected to go in the first round of this draft.  Trevor Robinson has started for the Irish since 2009.  Darius Fleming could go on the second day of the upcoming NFL draft.  John Goodman and Jonas Gray were never starters, but bloomed late to contribute to Brian Kelly’s offense.  Robert Blanton was a four year starter.  If this class underachieved as the second best recruiting class as ranked by Rivals, it’s because Dayne Crist only provided ND with one injury-truncated season as a starter.

Both the 2006 and 2007 classes ranked and to list players who are in the NFL currently from those recruiting classes: Patriots DB Sergio Brown, Saints G Eric Olsen, 49ers TE Konrad Reuland, Cardinals G Chris Stewart, Dolphins TE Will Yeatman, Falcons CB Darrin Walls, Bills OL Sam Young, Bears RB Armando Allen, Browns LB Brian Smith, Seahawks WR Golden Tate, 49ers DT Ian Williams, and soon to be free agent Jimmy Clausen.  How did those recruiting classes result in Charlie Weis getting fired?

Unlike the 2008 class, there were some pretty significant recruiting busts and painful transfers.  Both Yeatman and Reuland transferred after they lost playing time to Rudolph.  Allen started for four years at RB, but didn’t break out until Kelly came in.  Darrin Walls was off the roster in 2008, perhaps when he was needed the most.  And the five stars from those classes really didn’t pan out.  Sam Young did not play like the best OL recruit of the last decade.  James Aldridge was a five star RB out of nearby Crown Point, IN, and finished his career as a fullback on a team that needed someone to stop its spiral.  And of course, Clausen didn’t stay long enough to achieve college immortality, instead giving way to another 5-star QB who never played like one (Dayne Crist).

But if it seems unfair to put the failures on an entire program on a couple of highly rated high school kids just to justify a theory about the Irish being unable to recruit elite athletes, it is only because it is unfair.  It is very clear that the issues for the Notre Dame football program run deeper than recruiting.  Perhaps a deeper examination of how Notre Dame is getting their recruits will show why they are struggling to consistently win with them.

Brian Kelly’s early success at Notre Dame was driven by the overachievement of Weis’ final recruiting class.  That 2009 class was perhaps Weis’ best, even though it wasn’t as highly rated as the others.  And over two years, Kelly changed the coaching  staff and put elite defensive talent on that side of the ball, fixing the single biggest problem of the Weis era, a leaky defense.

It is in spite of the great treasure trove of offensive talent Kelly stepped into that the Notre Dame offense hasn’t been all that good under Brian Kelly.  The quarterback play has been largely abysmal.  The rushing attack consistently good, though if the backs had been able to contribute even a little bit in the passing game, that would take pressure off the overmatched quarterbacks.  TE Tyler Eifert has developed great under Kelly and even considered leaving for the NFL draft this year with two years of eligibility remaining.  The offensive line has gone from a highly recruited weakness to an overall strength with lesser recruits.  But the receivers have been a largely frustrating group despite consistently high recruiting results.  Combined with the quarterback play, Notre Dame’s potentially explosive passing attack has never been particularly strong.

Two or three results, like those seen in the cases of Kiel, Greenberry, and now Neal is not necessarily indicative of a bigger problem, but all three mean comprise the future of the passing attack that has held the Fighting Irish back to date.  And it will be interesting to watch over the next few years: are the players who Notre Dame is signing going to help them compete on a national level, or are they specifically competing for ‘overrated’ high school recruits that SEC and Big XII schools are focusing elsewhere on.  Is it problematic that the talent that the Irish are relying on for the future are considering Houston and Arizona, and decommitting from LSU en route to Notre Dame?

It’s probably not a big deal so long as ND is able to win those recruiting battles.  It’s just something worth keeping an eye on if Brian Kelly’s recruiting classes don’t lead to more consistent winning.

This article aims to examine the NFL free agent market, and find where the money may not flow to the best talent.

Quarterbacks

Jason Campbell (30) –  Campbell isn’t a young, improving quarterback anymore, but he had his best start in 2011, truncated by a collarbone injury in Week 6.  He’s a good bet to be one of the best 20 quarterbacks in the NFL over the next three seasons, and any franchise that needs to get something going with a veteran guy who is good with younger players, this could be the signing you are looking for,

Kyle Orton (30) – Another guy who is likely good enough to be a starting NFL quarterback, and is relatively young enough so that you don’t have to go out and immediately draft his successor.  Orton’s value is in his ability to throw for 300 yards regularly while protecting the football.  What Orton has lacked as a starting quarterback in the NFL is a power running game that can make up for his physical deficiencies that originally caused him to drop to the fourth round and presently truncate his numbers against teams that play man-to-man defense very well.

David Garrard (34) – If the only concern your team has is who in this free agent class can give you the best return on a one year investement, David Garrard is the best possible signing in this class.  Garrard’s age suggests that if he has a 16 game season left in him, it is going to be isolated.  But Chad Pennington had that one season where he led a 1-win Miami team to the playoffs the following year, and if any NFL team picking near the top of the draft is looking for the same kind of shot in the arm, Garrard is the guy

Chad Henne (27) – The opposite of Campbell, but no less appealing as a prospect, Henne would benefit from going to a veteran team when his birthdate is favorable on a three year contract and he can win the starting job and lead a team to the playoffs.  Miami was not the franchise for Henne to achieve success, but he was good in 2009, better than that in 2010, and had a lost contract year in 2011.  Chad Henne can be the long term solution for your team at quarterback, but there’s a big difference between 27 and 29 years old and the other pieces must be in place.  Henne would be a perfect fit in San Francisco replacing Alex Smith, though he would appear destined for New York to push Mark Sanchez.

Running Backs

Ray Rice is perhaps the best player hitting free agency this year at age 25, but one can only assume he will get paid as such.

Cedric Benson (29) – Benson may have to sign somewhere as a no. 2 back, but he was once again quite good in Cincinnati’s zone rushing scheme this year, and after three straight “prove it” years with the Bengals, Benson is an undervalued short term solution at running back who can give a team good years at starter production and not kill you in the passing game.

Mike Tolbert (27) – Tolbert offers great versatility having played both running back and fullback for Norv Turner.  He’s probably overvalued on this market as a primary runner.  But if you have a team like the Chiefs who uses two backs fairly regularly, Tolbert as a three-down player is good enough to justify a four year contract with guaranteed money in the $6-8 million range.  He is not Darren Sproles on third down, but he can do everything you ask.

Wide Receivers

I believe this wide receiver class is mostly fools gold, and that there will be a lot of crazy money thrown around with not a whole lot of success.  The Patriots are almost certain to get a good value to sign Wes Welker because they use him differently than any other team is capable of.  What would be great value for the Patriots would mean overpaying for anyone else.  The most interesting name is Mike Wallace, who is a restricted free agent with the Steelers and is probably worth the first round compensation it would take to sign him away, particularly if you are the Browns, Bengals, or Ravens.

Stevie Johnson (26) – Stevie Johnson might be the best unrestricted free agent in this class if Buffalo lets him get away.  He’s not going to get paid like Dwayne Bowe or Marques Colston, and that’s why he’s the best value on this list.

Randy Moss (35) – Moss is going to sit on the back burner as younger players get paid, but he’s one of the better targets of this free agent class with regard to winning games with competitive people, and Randy Moss on a two year contract makes so much more sense than Plaxico Burress did at this time last year.

Johnson, Wallace, and Moss are all options for the New England Patriots, who need a receiver to replace free agent Deion Branch.

Tight End

Jeremy Shockey (32) – With guys like Jermichael Finley and Fred Davis likely to wear the franchise tag because of the premium that is being put on tight ends right now as well as their favorable birthdates, don’t forget about Shockey, who was made expendable by the Panthers’ post lockout trade for Greg Olsen with the Bears.  Shockey is still a starting tight end in the NFL, and if you don’t have a guy who can control the passing game between the numbers, you probably don’t have much of a passing game.

Offensive Tackle

This is such a thin position that there are no values.  Max Starks (Pittsburgh) and Jared Gaither (San Diego) are in line for big money contracts because they are free agents and can play tackle in this league.

The value signing is likely to be someone who is cut from a big contract, someone like Marcus McNeill of the Chargers.

Guards

Carl Nicks is going to get more money than every other guard on the market combined, and it is well deserved.  Ben Grubbs is right behind him in the pecking order, and may not return to Baltimore because of the team’s cap situation; Grubbs, a former first round pick, was the second best guard on his own team this year.

Evan Mathis (31) – Mathis was a cost-free pickup by the Eagles who outperformed most of the players who are going to tax the Eagles salary cap situation over the next few years.  The Eagles are expected to re-sign him, but if I’m the Redskins or the Giants, I’m not sure I would let that happen so cheaply.  Actually, I know for a fact I wouldn’t.  In fact, with OL coach Hudson Houck’s retirement from the Cowboys, they should get in on Mathis as well.

Chilo Rachal (26) – Came out of USC with excellent talent in 2008, and didn’t give the best return to the 49ers.  Still quite young and a good bet to develop into one of the better lineman in the NFL over the next couple of years.  The Redskins should be interested.

Centers

Scott Wells and Chris Myers are both great players who will cost a pretty penny to re-sign, but in my eyes, this class is headlined by a guy who was the Chris Myers of three years ago.

Dan Koppen (33) – The former pro-bowl center of the Patriots has become a forgotten man of sorts, and the Patriots are not anticipated to re-sign the player who started at center for two super bowl champion teams.  He doesn’t have a lot of effectiveness left and is coming off of injury, but Koppen could be out there on the market around the draft.  Look for him to be playing in Kansas City next season.

Samson Satele (28) – The Oakland Raiders have an awful cap situation, and a vested interest in keeping their interest in re-signing Satele quiet as not to drive up the price.  If he could add guard to his arsenal, that would make Satele so much more valuable on a long term contract.

Will Montgomery (29) – Found a home at center with the Washington Redskins.  Will get lost in this class and possibly re-sign for just over $1 million.  This is exactly what the Redskins are hoping for.  If he has to try the market again next year, he’ll be 30 years old, so Montgomery obviously has a vested interest in cashing in while he can.

Defensive Tackles

For every time you hear a commentator declare that the key to a great 3-4 defense is a great nose tackle, just remember that when push comes to shove, NFL teams just don’t put their franchise tags on their nose tackles.  They’re too interchangeable and don’t play enough snaps.  Nose tackles can have a more direct impact on a game than nickle backs, but they essentially split snaps with each other between base and sub packages.  Haloti Ngata didn’t get paid because he was a nose tackle, he got paid because he’s the toughest interior lineman to block in the NFL.

Arizona’s Calais Campbell is the cream of the crop at this position.  Here’s someone who might sit on the market a little longer:

Kendall Langford (26) – Has been made expendable by depth on the Miami Dolphin DL and a scheme change back to a 40 front.  Langford is one of the 30 best defensive linemen in the NFL, and is in a class where there just aren’t a great number of interior defensive linemen with expiring contracts.  Despite this, his name has generated almost no publicity.  Of course, the same issue didn’t prevent Stephen Bowen from getting a big 5 year contract with the Redskins.

Jason Jones (26) – A very dangerous part of the FA class for defensive lineman because he was sensational in the first three years of his career and was incredibly marginalized last year after the Titans let DL coach Jim Washburn go to Philadelphia.  After seeing what Jason Babin did last year, Jones is going to have his suitors.

Amobi Okoye (25) – A first round pick of the H0uston Texans in 2007, Okoye has been around forever.  He has just now exited the discussion of U-25 talent in the NFL.  A good comp for him on the free agent market would be Randy Starks, who was signed in free agency by the Dolphins at age 25 in 2008, and has gone on to be one of the better interior defensive lineman in the NFL.  Had a good year for the Bears on a one year deal, but wasn’t a primary headline maker.

Defensive Ends/3-4 Outside Linebackers

Anthony Spencer (28) –  Spencer is a three down defensive player in a 3-4 scheme who is underrated because his primary value is that he takes on blocks well against the run, and turns action back inside.  The Cowboys always talked about increasing his sack production, but his inability to do that across from DeMarcus Ware is going to affect how much he gets paid.  Spencer can rush the passer as well, he just isn’t a good option as a third down pass rusher with other, better options typically available.

Ahmad Brooks (28) – Brooks was a supplemental draft pick of the Bengals in 2006 as a middle linebacker.  He’s still in the league because he has re-invented himself as a pass rusher.  Just 28, there’s still untapped potential here for some team looking to improve it’s third down defense.  For the 49ers, the pick of Aldon Smith makes Brooks expendable.

Kroy Biermann (27) – Beat out Jamaal Anderson for playing time, but the free agent addition of Ray Edwards makes him expendable.  With John Abraham also slated for free agency, the Falcons need to get Biermann back in the fold.  Will any of their NFC South competition price them out of the market?

Jamaal Anderson (26) – Anderson was a first round bust of the Rich McKay-led Falcons, but he was a very young 21 on draft day, and he’s still just 26.  His first season outside of Atlanta didn’t really change it.  But for a guy who will be around in the bargain bin, Anderson hasn’t failed to flash the NFL skills to play multiple spots on the DL, and at 26, if you can get him to sign a three year contract, you can get the prime of Jamaal Anderson’s career for about two million per season, which seems like a good deal to me.

Antwan Applewhite (27) – He was a linebacker in San Diego for years, and was a defensive end for the pass rush starved Panthers last year.  He’s a great option to have on third down.

Linebackers

Manny Lawson (28) – Remade himself as a true linebacker in the defensive scheme for Mike Zimmer’s Cincinnati Bengals, and now is a very interesting proposition as a 4-3 OLB on the free agent market.

David Hawthorne (27) – I really think the Seattle Seahawks would love to lock David Hawthorn up long term without paying him like a top five linebacker in the league, but I don’t think they’ll be able to.  Hawthorne is one of the very best defensive players in the league, and if there is a free agent signing who can change the course of a franchise, Hawthorne might be the closest thing, at least on the defensive side of the ball.  He’ll probably sign for about $5-7 million per season, with a lot of guaranteed money.  I still like him a lot at that price

Erin Henderson (26) – Had just one season as a starter for the Vikings replacing Ben Leber.  Still, having a season like Erin Henderson did at age 25 is a pretty nice positive indicator for future success.  Not a safe signing my any means, but he doesn’t come with the injury history of his brother, fellow free agent E.J.  Erin is probably the smarter investment at this point in time, even if he’s unlikely to enjoy the career E.J. has already had.

Gary Guyton (27) – Fell out of favor with the Patriots brass, but played a lot of football at a high level very early in his career and could be one of the best value signings on the entire free agent market.

Cornerbacks

Cortland Finnegan (28) – With his temperament, maybe isn’t the safest investment.  It’s going to be tough for Finnegan to get paid in a market that features Brandon Carr, Carlos Rogers, Tracy Porter, and Brent Grimes.

Terrell Thomas (27) – A year ago, Thomas was one of the rising corners in the NFL, and in line for a big payday.  Now, he’s coming of an ACL tear.  Thomas was drafted by the defending super bowl champs, and had the misfortune of missing both of their Super Bowl Championship seasons.

Safeties

Dashon Goldson is going to dominate headlines when he hits the market, but I’m not sure he’s one of the five best safeties in this class.

Tyvon Branch (26) –  One of the best safeties in the league is just coming into his own.  Oakland will do everything they can not to let him get away.

LaRon Landry (28) –  Was one of the very best players in football in 2010.  Has been hurt and on and off the field for the last two seasons.  Washington is willing to let him walk and probably is making a mistake in doing so.

Michael Griffin (27) –  Has struggled with year to year consistency, but has generally been worth his draft position out of Texas.  Just 27, he’s likely to move on to a team who needs more range out of their free safety.

“I promise you he’ll be the second pick. Could even be first. I can’t promise you that, but Luck and Griffin are going 1-2 in some combination.”

–Mike Lombardi on the B.S. report, transciption via B/R

The NFL draft is more or less a strategic game.  It’s an important one, and the winner of it isn’t always rewarded with the best draft, because there are a lot of post-draft factors that determine the success of a class.  And winning this game is relative anyway.  Some battles are already won and lost on the day the players declare.

There are essentially just six players in the Robert Griffin game.  There are the potential sellers: the Rams and Vikings, there are the potential buyers: the Redskins, Seahawks, and Dolphins, and you have the most important player, the Cleveland Browns, the only team in position to both buy and sell.  The game could theoretically be expanded to include the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Washington Redskins as sellers, but then we’re getting into situations that have less than a 10% chance of occurring.  I will stick to the most likely six players in this discussion, and treat the Redskins as either a buyer or a non-player.

Michael Lombardi is typically wired into the inner-workings of teams’ thinking with regard to the NFL draft, but I believe I can use game theory and a couple of reasonable assumptions to prove that he’s not accurate in the above quote, and then I will be proven right as things break down.  I don’t think it is likely that Robert Griffin goes second overall after Andrew Luck goes first, but I think the Washington Redskins ultimately determine how able the Rams are to trade their pick.  And the story on the Redskins is that they want Griffin and are looking to name their price, but aren’t going to overpay for the Heisman trophy winner.

And even though Mike Shanahan has a tendency to go-it-alone on football decisions, I think his evaluation of Griffin as clearly the second best QB in the draft, but in a normal year, should be available at the 6th pick, is a lot closer — I think — than Lombardi’s assertion that he’s only not going to go no. 1 because Luck is going to force him to go no. 2.

This is relevant to the St. Louis Rams.  It makes sense for the Rams to begin with the assumption that everyone is going to trade up for RG3.  There are four potential buyers who are more likely to want RG3 than the Rams (or Colts): Cleveland, Washington, Miami, and Seattle.  Here’s the problem: Cleveland and Washington don’t really want to consider a trade up for RG3.  They certainly have the ammo to pull it off, but they talk, and Washington and Cleveland are not going to compete with each other for RG3.  Seattle remains an RG3 longshot because if you’re the Rams, you don’t really want to take a year where you “earned” the second overall pick, and end up not picking in the top ten.  The Rams are going to fall in love with a player they want, and even though they could pick up mulitple first round picks to move out of the top ten, the value of the 2012 first rounder declines so much with that move it is almost not worth doing.

If Miami wins the coin toss and picks 8th overall, things get really interesting.  I could see the Rams being willing to drop down six spots — thinking the draft might be deep enough to offer an elite talent at no. 8 (some are, most aren’t) — and pick up Miami’s first round pick next year plus multiple additional 2012 picks to do so, headlined by a third rounder.  There are multiple problems with the Miami scenario: Miami is going to be very active in the FA market as well as the trade market in the weeks leading up to the draft, and if they make a splashy move such as signing Peyton Manning, they will need their first round picks the next two years a lot more than they need RG3.

To recap: for Miami to be a serious player for the second overall pick, a couple of things need to happen.  Miami must fail to acquire a veteran who they feel would be a significant upgrade over Matt Moore in 2012.  St. Louis must feel that the draft is so deep with elite talent, that picking at no. 8 (or 9) would be preferable to reaching for someone they like at no. 2.  There is no doubt that St. Louis would much rather pick at no. 4 or no. 6.  I do think it is likely that if Miami doesn’t end up getting into the RG3 mix, someone else like Seattle or a mystery team (Denver? Kansas City? Philadelphia? New Orleans?) would be interested.  Let’s say Miami makes no acquisitions and that the end up being the third player in this game.

I’m not ruling out an aggressive move from the Seahawks, I just don’t think it’s likely.  So if the Rams are certain to trade the second pick to a team to take RG3, as Lombardi suggests, either the Dolphins are going to need to get really desperate (which is probably more likely than them not getting desperate in free agency first — this is where understanding game theory comes in), or there needs to be a Cleveland-Washington competition for RG3.

But if free agency eliminates all teams but Washington and Cleveland for Griffin (Flynn to Seattle; Manning to Miami; Alex Smith and Mark Sanchez stay), I don’t see how Lombardi’s position looks likely.

Let’s assume that Lombardi is completely correct, and Cleveland and Washington have both been hiding plans to give up an entire draft to the Rams and get RG3.  Well, now St. Louis opens the bidding at multiple first round picks plus a second and a third.  Neither franchise wants to pay that price and it’s an easy bluff to call.  Cleveland is (still hypothetically) willing to package both first round picks for RG3, and possibly throw in their third rounder.  That is both 1) a higher price than the Redskins can or will match, and 2) still significantly overpaying the market.  So Cleveland wins the bidding for Griffin.  That means the Rams get that price for Griffin, right?

Well, sure, according to Lombardi.  But unless Cleveland is wreckless, why would they overpay the market by so much?  There are no other bidders at that price.  The Rams cannot execute a trade if they don’t have any other offers.

If Cleveland holds out to not put the third rounder in, what collateral would they have that would allow them to hold the Rams hostage as the clock winds down?  Well, they have this: the Vikings pick third, and Cleveland picks fourth.  If Roger Goodell was to suddenly outlaw draft pick trading, there is a very high probability that Cleveland would be able to select Griffin at fourth overall.  That is the mock draft consensus.  And in actuality, that’s is the “true pre-draft” value, of Robert Griffin.  Competition can drive that price up, but as we’ve seen, free agency is going to limit the price of competition.

Back to the Rams.  Now let’s say Cleveland, knowing all of the above, is willing to fork over their two first rounders — no more — for RG3.  The Rams have three strategic plays: accept Cleveland’s deal, decline Cleveland’s deal and use the draft pick, or decline Cleveland’s deal and trade the pick to someone else.  Washington is probably willing to offer their first round pick next year (remember: the assumption is they really value the chance to pick RG3), but that by itself isn’t better than the price Cleveland will play.  The Redskins can probably throw in an additional 2012 pick to go over the top of Cleveland.  But ultimately, you’re looking at a couple versions of the same value for the pick, and declining Cleveland’s best offer to take someone else’s best offer is probably more spiteful than rational.

To be honest, if St. Louis can actually get both of Cleveland’s first round picks to move from second to fourth, I expect them to do it.  It would make the current talk of two first rounders and two thirds (or a second and a third) seem like hot air, but it is.  I just happen to think that two first rounders is a high water mark for what the second overall pick is worth to teams.  There won’t be fierce competition for it, and like every trade up in recent memory, the buyer is going to be able to name their price.

The biggest problem from the Rams perspective is that all of the analysis above is predicated on acceptance of Lombardi’s assertion that teams are truly willing to get the no. 2 pick and spend it on Robert Griffin.  If that’s not informed speculation, they have no actual trade offers for the second pick, and will just be using the pick on best available player.

The Minnesota Vikings are reportedly willing to trade the third overall pick, and that is incredibly problematic for the Rams.  If Cleveland was willing to trade two firsts for the second overall pick, and the Vikings are willing to give the third pick to them for just a first and a second rounder (or maybe a first and a third), then all they have to do in order to ensure getting RG3 is to make sure that they always have best offer for the no. 2 pick, and that the Rams can’t do business with someone else, in this case the Redskins.  They have a huge advantage there picking inside the top four.  The Rams, obviously, want the 4th overall pick, but can’t afford to part with the second pick without being adequately compensated for their trade down.  So the Rams want to do business with the Browns more than any other team.

But the Browns don’t want to actually trade anything of value to the Rams unless the Rams get a solid offer on the table that makes sense to them.  Right now, they don’t have such an offer.  And so the Browns, not the Rams, are in the driver’s seat on RG3.  If the Browns make a trade with the Vikings after the Rams pick Justin Blackmon, Matt Kalil, or whoever, then they are on the clock to take Griffin.  If they don’t trade, they are still the team best positioned to take Griffin.  Mike Mayock said in a conference call today that the Rams should be “thrilled” to get a package of the 4th and 27th overall picks for the second pick, which means they are unlikely to receive that.

In fact, the more digging into the situation you do, the more you realize that the entire plan for the Rams and the Vikings to trade down is predicated on two things: the Washington Redskins being interested, and competition from a desperate team somewhere else in the draft.  If one of those things doesn’t occur, then the highest Robert Griffin can go is 4th to either the Browns, or whoever the Browns select as their trading partner.  It is, actually, very safe to pencil Robert Griffin in as the 4th overall pick in the 2012 draft, because if the Browns do not take him, they will likely trade the pick to someone who will.  The Browns hold the key to who gets Robert Griffin (because the Browns hold all the cards and the first crack at him), but the Redskins are the team that determines how much the second and third picks are worth.

Lets do this exercise again with one assumption: let’s say that the Redskins have an identical grade on Robert Griffin and Ryan Tannehill, and therefore will give up nothing to go up from sixth overall, and would flip a coin to determine which to take at sixth.  In this exercise, we don’t assume the Browns will take him at fourth overall, but we know that the Browns determine who will get him.  This is just an example to show how the Redskins lack of interest would affect the value of picks 2 and 3 in this draft.

Without the Redskins, the ability to land two first round picks for pick no. 2 becomes something of a pipe dream for St. Louis.  Just like the last scenario, enough desperation from Miami could create a scenario like the one suggested by Lombardi where Griffin is definitely going to go second overall, and then it is just about weighing the value of Cleveland’s offer against Miami’s, but that desperation was always possible.  In the absence of a competitive trade offer from the Redskins, Cleveland’s pick at 4th remains the most viable landing spot for Griffin.  And Cleveland can let the board come to them, knowing that if the get overbid, they conceded the price to another suitor.

But now, without Washington trying to position itself in front of Cleveland, the Vikings and Rams are in direct competition for the right to field offers to jump Cleveland.  Without Washington involved, there is no reason for anyone but Cleveland to pay market rate to move up.  If St. Louis is being unreasonable, you can try to acquire Minnesota’s pick.  Or vice versa.  If St. Louis bows out, and takes Blackmon, Cleveland is still going to get action on RG3 at the 4th pick.  Minnesota might be able to leverage a cheap swap of picks and pick up a third or fourth rounder for their troubles, but with Washington out, it’s Cleveland’s show.  A one team show.

There’s still a good chance Robert Griffin winds up with someone else besides Cleveland.  It just means that teams that are going to jump Cleveland in order to get RG3 aren’t going to be able to do so on their own merits, because Cleveland can offer so much more.  The fact that teams are already negotiating trade up terms relative to what Cleveland can offer means that since the cost of RG3 is roughly equal to what Cleveland is willing to pay for him, it’s more cost efficient to cut out the middle man and assume that with Griffin likely to slide out of the top two or three picks, the most direct trade you can make is to compensate the Browns for not having Griffin on their team.  Essentially, the game theory suggests that whatever RG3 is worth to the Browns, teams will let the board come to them, and then any team can opt to pay the Browns THAT PRICE, and use the fourth overall pick on RG3.

The Browns hold all the cards anyway, and the Rams and Vikings have no choice but to involve the Redskins.  Griffin is likely to be the 4th overall pick in the draft.  It is anyone’s guess who will actually hand the card to Mr. Goodell with Griffin’s name on it.  But we can establish even two months out that Griffin isn’t likely to go until fourth overall, and that any team willing to trade a first rounder to jump the Browns in the 2012 draft is probably willing to give that price to the Browns as a means to the same end.

In a very half-assed super bowl preview, I wrote these two paragraphs to sum up the historical context of the game for the New York Giants:

There is a lot more at stake here for the leaders of the New York Giants — Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin — than there is at stake for the rest of the team.  Both Manning and Coughlin are at an age where a trip back to another super bowl is unlikely.  Manning will likely play for six to seven more years, and will likely win the NFC East one, two, or maybe even three more times in his career.  But when you look at how loaded the NFC North and NFC South are with young quarterback talent (where everyone has one), the days of the NFC East sending two teams to the playoffs consistently (or three teams to the playoffs ever) are in the past.  As talented as Eli Manning is, he is not Peyton Manning, and the Giants are more likely to miss the playoffs in any given year than they are to make them.

By winning this game, Manning and Coughlin, even if they are not ever back in another super bowl as a coach-quarterback tandem, put them in position to be judged among the highest rated of their peers, even if they can’t compete with Brady and Belichick over the remainder of their careers.  For Manning and Coughlin, their entire case to be considered all-time greats comes down to this one game.  For the rest of the Giants, what they already accomplished in 2007 (for those who were there in 2007 at least) already speaks for itself.  This is the difference between being one-time and two-time super bowl champions.  Significant, sure.  But no more significant than the simple idea that when you’ve managed to keep your season alive for 22 weeks, it becomes your only goal to pay off your efforts with a super bowl title.  There is no historical context to this game as far as Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, or Victor Cruz are concerned: just a ring

It sure seemed like I was trying to write off the New York Giants under Coughlin and Manning even before they played this game.  I might have been doing that to try to frame the significance of the game for those two people, but even then, I was guilty of empty musing on the future of two people I don’t know.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the game, I don’t feel any differently about the Giants.  The Giants never make it look easy in the regular season, and there’s no reason to expect things to be different next year when their head coach is 66 and their starting quarterback is 32 and his two backfield mates are 28 (Bradshaw) and 30 (Jacobs).  They were 9-7 this year, making the playoffs in the weak NFC East, the year before that they went 10-6 and missed the playoffs, the year before that they went 8-8 and missed the playoffs.  This is who the Giants are, and their competition is only going to get harder as the year go on.  In fact, my experience with working the numbers tells me that the Giants aren’t even likely to open as favorites in the NFC East next year, as that will be the Philadelphia Eagles.

And as I said on Wednesday: have you seen the NFC North and South lately?  Unless we’re looking at the team that dropped a home game to Vince Young’s Eagles, and twice last year to Rex Grossman’s Redskins and picking them to win the NFC East again, the reason the Giants won’t repeat as Super Bowl Champs is because they aren’t likely to be in the playoffs even if they manage 9-7 again.  The Saints and Packers aren’t going to be easier to beat next year.  The gap between the Giants and those teams figures to grow.  And not in favor of the Giants.

But as an actual team, there is no obvious reason for the 9-7 Giants to regress.  My ‘prediction’ — if you want to call it that — that the Giants are unlikely to be in the playoffs next year is based almost exclusively on the fact that they almost didn’t make the playoffs this year, despite getting a lot of breaks with the way the seasons of the Cowboys and Eagles fell apart and with the way the Redskins spent the month of October as the second best team in the DC metro media market, behind Virginia Tech.  Eli will be back and he’s a top five fantasy quarterback next year.  Victor Cruz is the real deal.  If Hakeem Nicks can stay healthy, he will be a force to defend.  They have the whole off season to add more offensive weapons, which they need badly.

Nothing from Super Bowl 46 did anything to change my opinion of the Giants as an organization.  That’s not something I could say about the Patriots.  On Wednesday:

This game means hardly anything for the legacies of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.  That story would be different if the Patriots had lost in 2001.  If Brady and Belichick were simply two time super bowl champs, and hadn’t won it all in seven years, they would be facing a coach-quarterback duo in Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin who would be seen as the greatest coach-QB duo of their generation if they could just win this game over the other great coach-QB duo.  As it is, Brady and Belichick have little to lose in this game because they have both already achieved success unparalleled in the history of the NFL.  In fact, that past success may be one of the only reasons people expect the Patriots to find a way to pull this game out.

Unless you were previously delusional about who Bill Belichick and Tom Brady were heading into this game, your opinion of them probably isn’t different now.  They had lost the last two times they played the Giants; if you didn’t believe before that the Giants were the virtual equal of the Patriots as an organization, maybe you do now.

There was nothing particularly special about this version of the New England Patriots.  They got very close to winning the super bowl, which says more about their organization than this year’s team.  The 2007 and 2010 Patriots set all sorts of records.  The 2003 and 2004 Patriot teams were the best in the league.  It would not have made anyone bat an eye if those teams won the super bowl.  Two of those teams did.  The 2001 Patriots were special because they came from oblivion.  The 2011 Patriots?  Well, like the 2006, 2008, and 2009 teams, they were just kind of there.

The 2006 New England Patriots are remembered for a couple of things: blowing a huge lead in the AFC Championship game to the Indianapolis Colts, and forcing the organization to evolve into what became the 2007 16-0 Patriots.  Five years later, the Patriots find themselves at the same crossroads.  For the first time in five years, the Patriots are heading into an offseason as an underdog to get back to the Super Bowl next year.

But the bigger problem for the Pats is something I did not touch on on Wednesday because — in part because of my game pick — I did not see this coming.  But as clean as the Patriots’ run to Super Bowl 46 was (they famously did not beat a winning team before the Ravens in the AFC Championship), it is hard to see the Patriots competing on the same field as the Saints, Packers, Steelers, or Giants at this point.

And what exactly can the Patriots do to stop it?  In 2007, they shifted their organizational philosophy, took a chance on a trouble child in Randy Moss, traded a second rounder for Wes Welker, and spent the next five years spreading teams thin and posing problems for any defense that had been built through traditional methods.  The Patriots were so good, that they got copied.  The Packers, the Eagles, and the Steelers are all base 3 or 4 receiver teams now.  The Colts were a spread team even before the Pats were.

But the proliferation of the spread offense began to create defenses that could stop it: the 2010 Packers, the 2011 Ravens, the 2011 Giants.  Even the Steelers, who had long been haunted in the playoffs and regular season by Brady, got into the fun of shutting down the Pats offense.  It created a defensive position.  The slot safety.  And now with no M0ss, with a guy in Welker who worked through an ACL injury in the middle of his five year contract, a trade for Chad Ochocinco, 2,000+ combined receiving yards from their tight ends, the Pats have exhausted every possible advantage of the spread offense beyond simply having superior talent.  And it becomes a legitimate question whether Bill Belichick is willing to go back to the drawing board and try to get another championship through a new idea.

The bigger problem for the Patriots is this list.  That is the list of best seasons (min. 3,700 passing yards) ever by an age 35 quarterback.  There is a number of really good seasons in there by Hall of Famers.  But that is not recent history: that list is inclusive of every 3,700 yard passing season by an NFL QB age 35 or older.  The fact that Brady declined from 2010 to 2011 is not itself indicative of a trend, but Brady’s 2010 was one of the great QB seasons ever.  It far surpasses everything on this list.  It seems silly, but when you were watching Eli Manning outplay Tom Brady in the playoffs, it is a legitimate question to wonder what Brady is still capable of.  Is he Brett Favre or Warren Moon, capable of having 4,200 yard passing seasons in 2015 and 2016?  Is he Roger Staubach?  Is he Rich Gannon, capable of winning the league MVP at age 37?  Possibly.

But what if Tom Brady is more like every other player in the history of the NFL than those four guys?  What if he is more like, dare we say Peyton Manning?  What if at age 35, Brady cannot reasonably be expected to carry a team anymore?  Brady has thrown 36 and 39 TD passes the last two years.  The most ever thrown after age 35 by Favre or Moon was 33.  The regression with Brady, even if he is still a pro bowl level player in 2012, seems inevitable.

The Patriots have their work cut out for them in 2012 even if they could count on Brady to carry them into the future.  If they are going to have to manage Brady’s workload at the end of next season, the Pats could be looking at 8-8 next year.  Furthermore, Deion Branch and Wes Welker are free agents.  BenJarvus Green-Ellis is a free agent.  Danny Woodhead is a RFA.  Matt Light is close to the end of the road (though the Nate Solder pick was clearly made with him in mind).  Brian Waters was brought into be a stop gap for Dan Connolly, but Connolly was forced into every week duty by the Week 1 injury to C Dan Koppen, who is also an aging free agent.  One of two defensive pro bowlers on the Pats, Andre Carter, will be 34 and coming off major knee surgery.

If Belichick returns to the Patriots next year, he’s coming back to that.  It’s not quite a rebuilding project, but it is close.  The phase of Tom Brady’s career where he is an elite NFL quarterback is probably over.  Brady can be quarterback of the Patriots for the next five to six years provided health, but the Patriots are going to be forced to move that responsibility around a bit.

The AFC East doesn’t look daunting next year.  The Patriots will be the easy favorite, but it’s a different playoff field if San Diego and the New York Jets make it next year instead of the Cincinnati Bengals and Denver Broncos.  And unlike in the last five years, it’s not the Patriots who are most likely to represent the AFC out of that group.  We may have just seen the last hurrah for the Patriots as the dynasty we know them as.

The 2012 Pro Football Hall of Fame class isn’t going to be known as an all-time great class.  It did not elect a first ballot player, though two players who were overlooked with last year’s class will be receiving their Hall Calls rather shortly.  Which is nice.

What follows is a quick, dirty analysis of the job the Hall voters did this year.  It’s not really meant to pass judgement on the careers of some players I have little memory of.  But the Hall of Fame should have standards, and it’s those standards that will be in the crosshairs of this article.

Chris Doleman

Doleman has been eligible since 2005, and really should have been a first ballot hall of famer.  It did not help that he was a bit of a mercinary, playing for three different teams in the last five years of his career.  Of Doleman’s 150 career sacks, he didn’t quite get 100 with the Minnesota Vikings, and split 44 sacks between the 49ers and Falcons.

What often gets lost is Doleman was a long time centerpiece on some really excellent defensive units, whether those be San Francisco’s, or Atlanta’s, or Minnesota’s.  Wherever he went, great defense followed.  And that’s a better framing of his career than his 150 career sacks which by no means should be an automatic number.  Doleman was almost certainly a better player than contemporary Mark Gastineau, who may have played home games in New York.

Doleman’s career was longer, though as is the nature of pass rushing, the sack totals weren’t always consistent.  There are probably too many pass rushing ends in the hall of fame already, but that doesn’t mean that Doleman having to wait seven years to get into Canton wasn’t a huge oversight.

Willie Roaf

Willie Roaf is somewhat fortunate his credentials in a relatively short Hall of Fame career met minimum standards for a left tackle because if he had played a little longer at a declining rate, Roaf could have easily gotten backlogged with guys like Walter Jones and Orlando Pace who have changed the standards for induction as we know it for OTs.  Roaf’s career was closer to Gary Zimmerman’s than it was to Jones or Pace.  Remember that when trying to figure out why exactly Jason Whitlock accused Peter King of irritating Jason Whitlock racism or whatever that was.

Roaf had a hall of fame level career, at least by the established standards, but we should remember his election in eight years when we’re complaining about how there were too many pedestrian offensive tackles in the Hall of Fame.  Roaf’s career was anything but pedestrian, but by becoming the 26th offensive tackle in the Hall — a number that can reach 30 within four years — he is a nice reminder that the easiest way to be remembered as an all time great football player between 1952 and 2002 was to have played the selfless position of offensive tackle.

Curtis Martin

I guess what I don’t understand is who could have possibly bumped Curtis Martin from last year’s ballot.  Martin retired with 14,101 rushing yards, and it’s not like he did something like hanging on too long in order to get there.  He pretty much lit it up into his mid thirties, then left the game with his best days not all that far in the rear view mirror.  He retired with more rushing yards than all but three players in NFL history.  He played part of his career in Boston, the rest of his career in New York.  This was an easy election.

The electorate has always had high standards for running backs, or at least they did until they elected Floyd Little — who was the Terrell Davis of his day, except was not nearly as good as TD.  What’s interesting now is whether or not Tiki Barber, who had pretty much the same career as Martin, will get enough support to get in.  He played in New York, which always helps, but a lot of his career value is more hidden in terms of receiving yards than Martin, who was the more obvious pick of the two.  Tiki was eligible this season, but I have no doubt that because he unofficially un-retired before the vote, he probably hurt his hall of fame chances significantly by doing so.

Cortez Kennedy

The Hall of Fame now has two…Seahawks?!  Yes!

Cortez Kennedy was going to need a year on the ballot like this in order to get in.  John Randle getting in really helped Kennedy because Randle was a much better player.  Furthermore, Kennedy needed to get in this time around because a year from now, Warren Sapp becomes eligible and if there was any doubt about Warren Sapp’s hall of fame credentials, this election should end that.

The far more interesting case is how much this benefits Bryant Young.  Young will also be eligible next year and while he’s certainly not going to go in front of Sapp, he’s arguably has the best career of all non-Sapp eligible defensive tackles, and pretty in-arguably has the best remaining case among DTs who aren’t eligible to be elected by the veteran’s committee, this side of Warren Sapp.  Also eligible in 2013: Ted Washington.  I don’t know if anyone thinks of Ted Washington as a Hall of Famer, but his case looks a lot better with Cortez Kennedy in.

Jack Butler

Was a defensive back for the horrid Steeler teams of the fifties.  At the end of his career, he performed a minor miracle and helped the Steelers achieve winning records in back to back seasons.  As far as typically questionable veteran committee picks go, Butler is actually a departure from the norm.  He was by all accounts a really good defensive player on an awful team.  His career ended prematurely because of a knee injury, or he probably would have been elected a lot sooner.

The discussion about Butler really can’t be separated at this point from the final member of the class, so I’ll end it here and move on to…

Dermontti Dawson

Do you remember when electing lineman for the pro bowl became an exercise in taking the starter from last year, and electing him again the following year?  That trend was started by Dermontti Dawson.

That may sound harsh, but it is not intended to be.  When you speak of great interior offensive lineman of the 1990′s you can’t forget Dermontti Dawson.  But this is not as small of a group as maybe it sounds like.  Dawson is the third interior offensive lineman elected to Canton from this group.  Dawson did not get the call as quickly as either Bruce Matthews or Randall McDaniel.  The reason for this?  Matthews and McDaniel were much better players.

But the thing that really makes Al Davis turn in his grave is that one of his own players — who no one really ever made a public hall of fame case for — likely had a better career than Dermontti Dawson.  I’m talking about Steve Wisnewski.  You could make the argument either way as to who had the greater career, but as much as Davis’ rants about how ridiculous it is that Cliff Branch and Ray Guy are continually overlooked by the voters, but at least he’s not going to have to wake up tomorrow in a world where Dermontti Dawson is a Hall of Famer.

The bigger issue here is that Dawson’s election does nothing to dispel the notion that the simplest way to get elected to Canton and Hall of Fame immortality is to at some point have played football for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  This is why the discussion of Jack Butler, Hall of Famer, is unavoidable considering that 1/3 of this class played every snap in their career for the Steelers.  Furthermore, if you selected an all-NFL team from only the 1990′s, I’m pretty sure Dawson would have been at best second team.  I mean, at the risk of being crass on an analysis blog, you might want to start fitting Maurkice Pouncey for that gold jacket right now.  After all, it’s tough to find stuff in his size.

The only proposed solution I have to the inherent biases in the voting process would be to turn over the entire electorate every four to six years or so.  It’s not to slight the current electorate or to say they don’t generally take their job seriously enough (they do), but there’s no valor in having a single member of the committee vote for 18 straight years.

Other Complaints

The other issue is clearly, we have to figure out what the standards of a hall of fame receiver are.  Since the 1980′s, passing stats have exploded.  And since 2004, the voters have inducted just three receivers, somehow: Michael Irvin, Art Monk, and Jerry Rice.  Cris Carter, Andre Reed, and Tim Brown apparently do not make the cut, but thankfully we have decided that Dermontti Dawson, Floyd Little, and Charlie Sanders are all worthy of induction.  Turning over the electorate is a very simple solution and would justify a decision to be made on a guy like Cris Carter one year, and then have the complete opposite decision made the next year and put in a worthy Hall of Famer.

Overall, this was a class without a slam dunk inductee, and the electorate and veterans committee put in some of the better players in pro football history.  There’s not too much to complain about, and I’ve said my peace.  Hopefully we’ll get Sapp, Carter, Brown, and Reed in next year so we can finally move past this silly standard with wide receivers that no one can understand.

This Super Bowl 46 edition of Friday Night Quarterback focuses on the Hall of Fame standard for quarterbacks.  There are 25 quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame.  I made an off-handed remark the other day that Eli Manning is certainly going to end his career as one of the 25 greatest quarterbacks of all time if only because there are fewer all-time great quarterbacks than it seems like.  When I have done some deeper digging, that may not be entirely accurate.

Eli Manning is certainly a better quarterback than some who are in the Hall of Fame already, but to be one of the 25 best ever to play the game, Eli might need to rank better than some of his peers in the modern game.  Ben Roethlisberger is not going to retire as one of the 25 best ever to play.  There’s an argument to be made for Eli over Big Ben, but not such a convincing one that Eli Manning can easily be placed among the top 25 QBs of all time, while Roethlisberger is given no chance to someday make that list.

Quickly now, I want to sort out the already Hall-of-Famers to determine the quickest path into the brotherhood of hall of fame passers:

The Group of Peyton Manning/Tom Brady comparables is as follows: Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana.  It seems for certain that at the end of their careers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will make this a list of seven (maybe eight, when Drew Brees is done) of the greatest passers of all time.

The top half Hall-of-Famers is a group that really isn’t realistically in the conversation of “greatest to ever play”, but clearly is a step above the rest.  Dan Fouts and Steve Young are right at the top: they could go in the next group up if they had any case — beyond the outdated passer rating statistic — of being the G.O.A.T.  Then after that, Norm Van Brocklin and John Elway come up, along with Sonny Jurgensen, Sid Luckman, Roger Staubach, and Fran Tarkenton.  Finally, I’ll put Len Dawson here because he doesn’t fit neatly into any classification with other Hall of Fame quarterbacks.  Brett Favre, when he is finally eligible, belongs in this group.  Philip Rivers will likely someday belong with this group as well.  To make a case for a non-active player in the Hall of Fame, they really have to be able to neatly fit in this group to be considered a true “oversight.”  Kenny Anderson is close to this group, but hasn’t been able to get in.

The legacy picks might be the easiest way for a guy like Big Ben Roethlisberger or Eli Manning to get into the Hall of Fame: win multiple super bowls.  It worked for Terry Bradshaw and for Troy Aikman, who headline this group, though Jim Plunkett is still waiting on his hall-call.  Joe Namath belongs in this group.  Bart Starr belongs here.  Y.A. Tittle was good at football for a very long time, and should get the nod here.  And Bob Griese definitely belongs with this group, though he might have been the best quarterback of the four.  Bob Waterfield belongs here because of the era he played in: he was no better a quarterback than Daryle Lamonica was 20 years later, but helped revolutionize the position.  The fifth and final member of the legacy picks class is Warren Moon, the most recent inductee of the group.  Warren’s statistical totals at the end of his career were largely unmatched, as is Warren Moon, nine-time pro bowler.  Moon’s rate stats though say “consistently above average for the better part of 20 years.”  I don’t see how that is any different from Namath though.  This is the group where Donovan McNabb or Kurt Warner has their best case for the Hall of Fame.

Timing picks: Bobby Layne and Jim Kelly strike me as two guys who made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of fortunate timing.  Both were excellent players in their time, and multiple time pro bowlers, but I think if they had come eligible in other years, they easily could have been subjected to more of a debate, and then who knows what would have happened to their cases.  Kelly went in on the first ballot.  Len Dawson was on the ballot for seven years before he got in.   Then there is the case of George Blanda, who is by far the least qualified quarterback in the Hall of Fame.  If he had come eligible this year, he’s not even a finalist.

So the breakdown of 25 HoF quartebacks is as such, according to me: 5 in the discussion for greatest ever, 9 in the “top-half”, 8 in perhaps more on their historical legacies than their statistical accomplishments or performance levels, and 3 who might not have been famous or accomplished enough to make it in in a present day vote.  Not a perfectly normal distribution, but it is close.

And while Brady ranks first or second on anyone’s active QB list (for career value), Eli Manning doesn’t rank higher than fifth or sixth on most people’s lists of active players with Hall of Fame cases.  In fact, there are people who — if he fails to win on Sunday — would put him behind guys with no legitimate case such as Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck, and Tony Romo.  To make the Hall of Fame, Eli is going to have to separate from guys like Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Schaub, and maybe Aaron Rodgers, and spend the next three years along with Philip Rivers and Drew Brees and Brady as the game’s elite quarterbacks.  If Eli can retire a top ten quarterback in some meaningful statistical categories, then two (or even one) super bowl titles is enough to give him a solid Hall of Fame case.

This post is more concerned with him as one of the 20 to 25 greatest quarterbacks ever.  There are 18 quarterbacks, either active or recently retired, who would qualify as all-time greats, a distinction that separates quarterbacks from merely being Hall of Famers or many-time super bowl winners.  John Elway and Brett Favre are considered by the authorities of this blog to be all-time greats.  Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman are hall-of-fame greats, at least in part to the seasons they had that resulted in titles.  There is a distinction to be made.

Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Aaron Rodgers are clearly not yet all-time greats of the game the way Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady already are.  But can the be considered among the greatest 25 quarterbacks in the history of the NFL?  That is a little bit hazier.  Let’s continue this activity with a couple of blind resumes.  In all cases, the comparison is between one of the group of four quarterbacks above, and someone from the list of Hall of Fame quarterbacks.

Parenthesis represent a figure relative to league average

Group 1

Player A 7 twenty TD seasons, 58.4% career completion percentage, 5.9 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 4.7% career sack rate, 2 years QB rating > 90, 4 years QB rating > 80

Player B 6 twenty TD seasons, 56.9% career completion percentage, 5.6 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 6.6% career sack rate, 2 years QB Rating> 90, 7 years QB rating > 80

Group 2

Player C 7 twenty TD seasons, 60.1% career completion percentage, 5.9 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 6.3% career sack rate, 2 years QB rating > 90, 8 years QB rating > 80

Player D 3 twenty TD seasons, 63.1% career completion percentage, 6.4 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 8.7% career sack rate, 6 years QB rating > 90, 7 years QB rating > 80

Group 3

Player F 4 twenty TD seasons, 65.4% career completion percentage, 7.6 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 7.0% career sack rate,  4 years QB rating > 90

Player G 3 twenty TD seasons, 57.0% career completion percentage, 5.7 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 9.6% career sack rate, 3 years QB rating > 90, 5 years QB rating > 80

Group 4

Player H 6 twenty TD seasons, 63.5% career completion percentage, 7.2 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 5.3% career sack rate,  4 seasons QB rating > 90, 6 seasons QB rating > 80

Player J 1 twenty TD season, 61.5% career completion percentage, 5.7 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 5.2% career sack rate, 2 seasons QB rating > 90, 8 seasons QB rating > 80

***answers below the jump*** Read more…

Perhaps it would be an understatement to say that the city of Indianapolis is ready to host this year’s super bowl.  It makes sense to put the game in cold weather cities.  The idea should be to have a week where the players, coaches, and game is the center of the entire week, and while you generally get this in San Diego or Tampa, having the game in Indianapolis, Detroit, or even Cleveland makes a lot of sense.  The problem is that the smaller the town and the colder the climate for the super bowl, the more resistance it meets in the voting stage.

I am not particularly against the idea of the super bowl being hosted by New York/East Rutherford, and I even understand the allure for the NFL league offices to be able to stay at home when planning events for the big game.  But the problem with New York as a hosting site (and to a lesser extent, someplace like Chicago) is that the focal point for most of the week will drift away from the two teams it belongs on, and to the venue.  Indianapolis really is the neutral site for a football game, and the idea that the Super Bowl is “too big” to bring to a climate such as Indianapolis is not a line of thinking I agree with.

With that out of the way, I want to examine the profile of the two teams who will compete for the 46th version of the Lombardi Trophy.  There’s something to be said that New York and Boston having once again put teams in the big game.

The New England Patriots

The Patriots spent all year playing second fiddle to the Green Bay Packers.  If you get caught up in the moment, it would be easy to forget how long the Patriots have been this good.  With the exception of about the first nine or so Matt Cassel starts, the Patriots have pretty much been the same team for three and a half years now.  And it’s somewhat remarkable that they have only been to one super bowl over that timeframe.

This Patriots team is not quite what the 2010 Pats were, and they sit alongside the 2009 Pats as maybe the fifth or sixth best Pats team of the last decade.  Worse Pats teams have won the super bowl (2001), but better Pats teams (2010) have lost in the first round of the playoffs.  The formula to beat the Patriots was exposed around midseason, but unlike last season, the Patriots saved their best performances for the New York Jets, got themselves deep into the playoffs, and were able to leverage homefield advantage, which they had earned to get to the super bowl when they were very questionably the best team in the AFC.

The Patriots still have those questions to answer as we head into Super Bowl Weekend.  It says a lot about Bill Belichick and Tom Brady if a Patriots team that is perhaps not among the five best of the last decade proves itself to be the best in the NFL this season.  But if the Patriots drop the Super Bowl by 10 points, then we’re looking at a very different legacy.  While talk radio personalities might be quick to try to make it a referendum on the Hall of Fame careers of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.  It should not be.  But through the prism of a second Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants, a lot of things would make more sense.

Since Brady emerged as the franchise quarterback of the Patriots late in the 2003 season — basically, when it became clear that the Pats were set at QB for the next ten years — the Patriots followed a very similar path to the championship.  They were the best team in football in 2003 and 2004 with an emerging if perhaps a bit overrated offense to support an excellent year in and year out defense.  The Pats were the class of the AFC back when the NFC was incredibly weak.  The true super bowls in those days came down to Colts vs. Patriots, match-ups that were always won by the team playing at home.  Those were great Patriots teams that had blowout wins over other great teams, maybe none more impressive than their two touchdown victory over the Steelers on the road in the 2004 AFC Championship.

But there is a difference between playing the 2003 Panthers and 2004 Eagles in the super bowl, and playing the New York Giants.  And if the Giants win again, it adds a pretty big “yeah, but” to the Patriots super bowl victories.  Yeah, the Patriots were a great team back in the day, but as soon as the NFC started bringing elite teams to the party, the Patriots didn’t fare so great.  A victory on Sunday kills that line of thinking: the Patriots can handle elite teams in big games still.  Their ability to do so may not have died in 2004.

This game means hardly anything for the legacies of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.  That story would be different if the Patriots had lost in 2001.  If Brady and Belichick were simply two time super bowl champs, and hadn’t won it all in seven years, they would be facing a coach-quarterback duo in Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin who would be seen as the greatest coach-QB duo of their generation if they could just win this game over the other great coach-QB duo.  As it is, Brady and Belichick have little to lose in this game because they have both already achieved success unparalleled in the history of the NFL.  In fact, that past success may be one of the only reasons people expect the Patriots to find a way to pull this game out.

The New York Giants

There is a lot more at stake here for the leaders of the New York Giants — Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin — than there is at stake for the rest of the team.  Both Manning and Coughlin are at an age where a trip back to another super bowl is unlikely.  Manning will likely play for six to seven more years, and will likely win the NFC East one, two, or maybe even three more times in his career.  But when you look at how loaded the NFC North and NFC South are with young quarterback talent (where everyone has one), the days of the NFC East sending two teams to the playoffs consistently (or three teams to the playoffs ever) are in the past.  As talented as Eli Manning is, he is not Peyton Manning, and the Giants are more likely to miss the playoffs in any given year than they are to make them.

By winning this game, Manning and Coughlin, even if they are not ever back in another super bowl as a coach-quarterback tandem, put them in position to be judged among the highest rated of their peers, even if they can’t compete with Brady and Belichick over the remainder of their careers.  For Manning and Coughlin, their entire case to be considered all-time greats comes down to this one game.  For the rest of the Giants, what they already accomplished in 2007 (for those who were there in 2007 at least) already speaks for itself.  This is the difference between being one-time and two-time super bowl champions.  Significant, sure.  But no more significant than the simple idea that when you’ve managed to keep your season alive for 22 weeks, it becomes your only goal to pay off your efforts with a super bowl title.  There is no historical context to this game as far as Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, or Victor Cruz are concerned: just a ring.

The bigger issue for the Giants is how to win this one game and pay off their super bowl run.  The Giants slammed both Green Bay and Atlanta and looked great in doing so.  But against San Francisco in the NFC Championship game, they played like a team that would have gotten killed by the Patriots in the super bowl.  The Patriots don’t have the 49ers defense to frustrate Eli Manning, but they can use a lot of similar techniques if Giant first downs are going to be so few and far between.  And after that game, I’m not sure the Giants are a great bet to put up even 20 points against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

I think, in defense of the Giants, that the chances that Brady struggles against the Giants defense are every bit as good as the chances that the Pats defense can handle Eli Manning.  And all the numbers and trends from both sides push towards an offensive explosion in the super bowl.  It only the nature of the super bowl game itself that makes me hesitant to pick the over.

I am not hesitant to pick the Patriots to win though.  The Giants looked like one team during the entire regular season, and then we saw that same team rear its head last week against the 49ers.  Those wins against the Cowboys, Falcons, and Packers were great wins and are a significant part of the story of the 2011 NFL season.  But even in Week 9 when the Patriots were struggling to score as much as any team, the Giants needed a last second drive to win the game.  I think the Patriots will be up one more score in the fourth quarter of this one, and a ten point lead with four minutes to go should be enough to hold against the Giants.