Here's the deal. This is the All-NFL team by positional group, where each division gets one positional group. It's not necessarily going to be the group they're best at, but rather the group that contributes the most to the overall talent of the team. Basically we don't want any positional group to be really bad. Except Special Teams. We don't care about Special Teams.
Here are the positional groups: QBs, Backs (RBs/FBs), Receivers (WRs/TEs), OL, DL (4 total), LB (4 total), Secondary (CB/FS/SS), and Special Teams (K/P). The divisions are, naturally, North, South, East, and West for each of the NFC and AFC.
Let's begin.
QBs: NFC South.
- QB: Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Jameis Winston
Surprisingly one of the positional groups I had the least strong opinion on. (NFCN was my first choice but they were needed elsewhere.) I would have been fine with going with a bunch of different divisions here (any but AFCS would do okay) so this was actually one of the last groups I decided. Brees is a great QB who's near the end of his career, at which point presumably Ryan or Newton will take over for a while until Jameis is either ready to be a star (neither Ryan nor Newton has that potential) or busts out. This is also probably the deepest division at QB, which is nice. Depth counts.
Backs: AFC North.
- RB: Le'Veon Bell, Justin Forsett, Jeremy Hill, Giovani Bernard
- FB: Kyle Juszczyk
To answer your question: YOOZ-check. It kinda makes sense if you look at it as Jusz-czyk, where the J sounds as a Y and the czyk is basically Czech. Anyway. AFCN is super deep at RB and has two examples of stud #1 backs, which are rare, plus two solid backs in Cincinnati, one of whom is arguably approaching studhood and both of whom are good enough to make this roster. (Cleveland is the first team with no representative on this list. Haha.)
Receivers: NFC North.
- WR1: Calvin Johnson, Randall Cobb, Mike Wallace
- WR2: Jordy Nelson, Alshon Jeffery, Kevin White
- WR3: Golden Tate, Eddie Royal
- TE: Martellus Bennett, Zach Miller, Brandon Pettigrew, Kyle Rudolph
We're going for HELLA depth on this team. Putting Tate in the slot is weird because he's not actually a slot receiver, but he'll do fine. There are so many studs at this positional group it's insane. I'd be happy starting Wallace, but he's our SIXTH string (behind Tate, ahead of Royal and White). There's a rookie because we're forward thinkers who plan for the future. Rudolph the purple failure is our prospect for if he ever gets healthy. (At least I assume he's missing games with injuries. Anyone paying attention to this guy?) Someone remind me how the hell he made a Pro Bowl. I mean, I remember him doing well in it, but it's a Pro Bowl.
OL: NFC East.
- LT: Tyron Smith, Trent Williams
- LG: Evan Mathis, Ronald Leary
- C: Travis Frederick, Jason Kelce
- RG: Zack Martin, Chris Chester
- RT: Jason Peters, Lane Johnson
This is one of the most stacked positional groups on the team. Smith is All-Pro and Williams is a Pro Bowl-level backup; Mathis is all-everything; Frederick is elite and Kelce is, again, a Pro Bowl-level backup; Martin is the poster child for drafting left tackles and moving them to guard (and oh yeah also an All-Pro); Peters is an elite left tackle who's playing at right tackle because he's not quite as elite as our other left tackle; and Johnson is a PFF All-Pro right tackle sitting on the bench behind our second-best All-Pro left tackle. So yeah. Stacked. (The Giants are unrepresented. Losers. Hahaha.)
DL: AFC East.
- DE1: Mario Williams, Rob Ninkovich, Chandler Jones
- DE2: Cameron Wake, Jerry Hughes, Olivier Vernon
- NT: Marcell Dareus, Damon Harrison
- DT: Kyle Williams, Muhammad Wilkerson, Sheldon Richardson
Again, the AFCE wasn't my first choice here; I wanted the NFCW, because St. Louis alone has a line that's legit comparable (albeit worse) to this one, and Seattle and Arizona add a good amount of talent themselves. (San Francisco is sad because all their good players retired all at once.) But the AFCE will do fine. Williams and Wake are studs, and Dareus and Williams are also studs. Just a bunch of studs on this team. Wilkerson and Richardson are two of the very good 3-4 DEs who barely get acknowledged because they're so vastly overshadowed by J.J. Watt, whose AFCS would be the DL division if they had any talent besides Watt.
LBs: AFC West.
- OLB1: Justin Houston, Tamba Hali
- OLB2: Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware
- ILB1: Khalil Mack, Curtis Lofton
- ILB2: Derrick Johnson, Danny Trevathan
Our OLBs are all pass-rushing gods, which is what you want for a 3-4 OLB (okay, so a 4-4 OLB). Miller's also easily versatile enough to fit in in a 4-3 (in which case Houston would probably hit the bench or play situational pass-rusher, Mack would move to the other OLB spot, and Johnson would hold down the middle). Seriously OLB is so stacked at this position that I had to move Mack inside, which is good because he's an absolute god against the run. The bad thing about the AFC West's linebackers (which could have been averted if we had used the NFCW, which we didn't) is that they don't really have very many good ILBs. Another reason to play Mack inside. San Diego goes unrepresented, which is weird because they're a good team, but even as bad as the ILBs were for this squad, Manti Te'o was not gonna make the roster.
Secondary: NFC West.
- CB1: Richard Sherman, Cary Williams, Janoris Jenkins
- CB2: Patrick Peterson, EJ Gaines, Trumaine Johnson
- FS: Earl Thomas, Rodney McLeod
- SS: Kam Chancellor, T.J. McDonald
I know, surprisingly bad corners, right? I was tempted, up until literally as I was writing this article, to switch the NFCW to DL and the AFCE to Secondary. The reason I didn't is basically safeties. The AFCE has really bad safeties. Well, that's not even fair; they're just really bad when compared to the NFCW safeties (read: Seahawks safeties). I couldn't, in good conscience, send my young budding team out into the world with the inexplicably overrated Devin McCourty and the not-really-rated Reshad Jones at the safety spots when I could have just as easily used Thomas and Chancellor, who are--for those of you keeping track at home--probably the best safety duo ever. That being said, Revis/Cromartie and Grimes/McKelvin with Skrine/McCain at the nickel spot would have had the slight edge to the NFCW corners, but not enough to earn the positional group. (The NFCW DL is slightly better than the AFCE.) Anyway. Sherman is a god, Peterson is an overrated (maybe now properly-rated??) good player, Thomas and Chancellor are elite, and the depth on this squad is okay. I'd really love more depth at corner, but if it's not happening, it's not happening. The Niners are unrepresented because they're bad hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Special Teams: AFC South.
- K: Adam Vinatieri, Ryan Succop
- P: Pat McAfee
Yes, we have a backup kicker, and I'll tell you why. Despite being 42 years old this season, Vinatieri was a ridiculously good kicker. Not the best in the league, but distinctly better than everyone else in the division. But I had to make provisions for the future, so I stuck the young Succop in a backup spot. He's the backup kicker. The backup... kicker. McAfee is actually a pretty good punter and is young, so he gets the spot over the GOAT Lechler. Again, I don't really care about ST. I basically decided to put the AFCS there when I realized there wasn't a whole lot of talent in that division outside of one player on Houston's D-line. The Jags and Texans are unrepresented, bringing our total unrepresented teams to six.
And there you have it! A team which, if put together in real life, would confuse millions of people as to whose idea this was. I'm a shadow. I'm a ghost. I'm a god.
No comments:
Post a Comment