The Updated Ultimate 53-man Roster

Let's update this thing for this season. I'll be competing against last year's picks (although obviously the prices have changed so one of us is presumably at a disadvantage).

QB: Russell Wilson, Teddy Bridgewater.
Why I got better: Wilson is obviously still Wilson, although this version is a little better and a lot more expensive. He's still worth it. Bridgewater-vs-Foles is difficult to define. He had one inexplicably transcendent season in 2013 that will always have a place in the annals of history as not only one of the greatest passing seasons ever, but also as probably the biggest single-season fluke in NFL history. But given that he immediately regressed, it's hard to call him better than Bridgewater, who has yet to sniff anything like what Foles achieved in '13, but who also has shown a higher baseline performance, which is really what we want from a backup. (I'm also not sure whether I should take Foles's '13 performance into account here or just try to judge where he was as a player when I selected him; I'm doing the latter.) Bridgewater is also probably a better fit for the system, not because of mobility--he's not mobile--but because of his accuracy. His worst seasonal cmp% is better than Foles's best.

RB: Thomas Rawls, Le'Veon Bell, Devonta Freeman, Kyle Juszczyk.
Why I got better: Assuming Rawls comes back strong, which he will, we have a LOT more top-shelf talent here than on last year's team. Morris was pretty good, but Woodhead was never that great and Lacy is good-but-not-great exemplified. Meanwhile Rawls has looked godly, Bell might be the best RB in the league when healthy, and Freeman has established himself as a dominant dual-threat (rushing and receiving) this season. Also Juszczyk is better than Miller so we win there.

WR: Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Allen Robinson, Odell Beckham, Jr., Alshon Jeffery, Tyler Lockett.
Why I got better: It's not totally clear that I did. My depth is better, no doubt. Lockett is my return threat, and Beckham and Jeffery are a step up from Hilton, Allen, and Kearse. But Calvin-Green-Dez vs. Brown-Hopkins-Robinson isn't that clear. Those first three guys are ridiculously talented, but Brown is beginning to look like he might potentially be the best wide receiver since Randy Moss (although it's still Calvin at the moment) and Hopkins and Robinson are having phenomenal seasons. Beckham also has the potential to ascend to elite levels, although I'm not convinced that he's quite as good as everyone says. That said, I'm not totally convinced in the ability of these guys (besides Brown) to maintain this level of success, so I'd say '14 has a slight advantage.

TE: Rob Gronkowski, Zach Ertz, Travis Kelce.
Why I got better: I got Gronkowski. I've been saying for a while that Gronk is the best tight end I've ever seen and very probably the best tight end ever, but not everyone has believed me. What more does he need to do? He gets manhandled every play and still dominates more than any tight end ever has. His numbers speak for themselves, but even they fail to represent his blocking, which is the best in the league. Consider this: Most tight ends are very good at either receiving or blocking, and are competent at the other. They're extremely different skills, so being competent in both is uncommon, and being good in one and not the other is enough to make you a strong starter. Gronkowski is the best in the league in both, and it's not all that close. Eat your heart out, Tony Gonzalez. You never played like this.

OL: Tyron Smith, Richie Incognito, Travis Frederick, Zack Martin, Ryan Schraeder, Terron Armstead, Joe Berger, Trai Turner, Mitchell Schwartz.
Why I got better: I honestly don't know. I've all but given up on offensive line evaluation. I have no idea what makes lines work. I have some suspicions--I think having a great left tackle and center is far more important than any other position; I think playing LTs out of position at the guard spots is a great strategy; and I think the performance of an O-line is directly related to how many games they've played together--but I'm not confident enough to make any comparisons between this very talented group of players and last year's very talented group of players. They'll both probably be extremely good lines.

DL: J.J. Watt, Damon Harrison, Aaron Donald, Fletcher Cox, Brandon Williams, Muhammad Wilkerson, Kawann Short.
Why I got better: Aaron Donald. He's better than any player (besides Watt) on last year's roster, and he's closer to Watt this year than anyone has ever been. Sure, Watt's seen competition before: Geno Atkins in 2012, Robert Quinn in '13, Von Miller in '12, and Ndamukong Suh (to a lesser extent) in '14 all came closer to Watt than the rest of the league, but none of them really challenged him. I want you to realize that I consider Watt the best defensive player I've ever seen when I say the following: Aaron Donald might be the best defensive player in the league this year. Will he maintain that? I doubt it; all those other guys fell back to Earth in the following years. But Donald might currently be having the best non-Watt defensive season I've ever seen. (That also might be totally wrong. I saw '08 Ed Reed, '05-'06 Urlacher, '08 Ray Lewis, '08 and '10 James Harrison, '07 Bob Sanders--which is underrated but deserves mention--'09 Revis, '13 Sherman, '06 Champ Bailey, etc., etc. I'm pretty sure the four best defensive seasons I've ever seen are '12 Watt, '13 Watt, '14 Watt, and '09 Revis, in some order. I'm just not sure who's #5.)

ILB: Jamie Collins, Luke Kuechly, Danny Trevathan, Brandon Marshall, Jasper Brinkley.
Why I got better: I didn't. David, Willis, and Wagner are a whole lot better than Kuechly, Collins, and Trevathan. In fact Kuechly, the best player on this year's squad, might be worse than all three of the studs from last year's team. Or he might beat out Wagner. Doesn't really matter.

OLB: Khalil Mack, Von Miller, Olivier Vernon, Kevin Pierre-Louis.
Why I got better: This one really depends on whether you believe Houston and Quinn were actually as great as they looked at the time I wrote my article. (I think Quinn was and Houston wasn't, even though Houston had a better season after I wrote that article.) Whereas Miller is the real deal and Mack is having an incredible season (he's the clear third-best defensive player in the league right now, behind Watt and Donald and ahead of Kuechly). I honestly give these guys the edge here. But it's slight.

CB: Josh Norman, Tyrann Mathieu, Logan Ryan, Desmond Trufant, Trumaine Johnson, Ronald Darby.
Why I got better: Yeah, I didn't. At all. Sherman and Revis trash this unit. But alas, contracts catch up to everyone eventually. I actually love my depth here a lot more than last year's team, but elite talent counts for a lot at cornerback and it's lacking here.

S: Harrison Smith, Kurt Coleman, Husain Abdullah, Deshawn Shead.
Why I got better: Again, I didn't. Smith is having a good season, but Thomas and Chancellor are just better. And once again... contracts.

ST: Brandon McManus, Ryan Quigley, Clint Gresham.
Why I got better: I didn't. Yikes. How do you get worse at special teams?

Total: $143.24 million out of $143.28, leaving me with $40,000 to spend, which I (obviously) can't spend anywhere.

Summary: The big changes here are an improved Wilson at QB; a better group of RBs; a big jump at TE; a great addition to the DL; significant regression at ILB; and a much worse secondary. Our offense is going to be fantastic, and our DL is the best of the modern era (barely beating the St. Louis Rams), but losing our linebacking edge and our entire secondary hurts a lot. If the two teams played one another, 2014's advantage in the secondary might be the deciding factor. Or maybe 2015's superior offense and better pass rush would make up for it. It's close. But given that I spent an extra $11 million this year and didn't get significantly better probably gives the win to last year's team.

Why? It's obvious: Seattle paid their players. Wilson, Wagner, Sherman, Thomas, and Chancellor are all on big contracts now (some already were but most weren't), making them a lot harder to get on this team. And yes, Seattle is good enough to make this much of a difference in the overall talent of the team. Think about it: a cheap Sherman/Thomas/Chancellor/Wagner completely patches the holes in this roster, and a cheap Wilson obviously opens up a lot of money to spend. It's sad to say, but other teams just aren't producing the kind of quality talent for cheap prices that Seattle is.

And no, this doesn't mean Seattle won't be able to keep our good players. We already signed literally everyone who matters. I figured out exactly how this would happen like three years ago. There was never any risk of any of our core players walking.

Is Wilson Having The Best Five-Game Stretch Ever?

Over the first nine games of the season, Russell Wilson played pretty well, albeit not up to his usual standards. He completed 65.8% of his passes for an average of 7.96 yards, and threw 10 TDs to 7 interceptions. His passer rating was a decent-but-not-great 91.7.

Over the last five games, however, Wilson has not only regained his past level of performance, but he has in fact exceeded it. Wait, let me rephrase: Russell Wilson's last five games might be the best five-game stretch of any quarterback in NFL history.

Over the past five games, Wilson has completed 110 of his 148 passes for a 74.3% completion rate, 1420 yards, 19 TDs (!!), 0 interceptions, 9.59 yards per attempt, and a 143.6 passer rating.

We already know Wilson's currently putting up the best numbers ever over games 10-14. But there's no reason we should limit five-game stretches to those particular five games. Any stretch, from 1-5 to 12-16, should be admissible. For this, I'm including every five-game stretch in which the QB attempted at least 100 passes and played all five games.

Here's the leaderboard, top 25 all-time, independent of which 5-week stretch we look at:

1. Warner '99 (144.8)
2. Wilson '15 (143.6)
3. Brady '07 (137.4)
4. Brady '07 (137.0)
5. Manning '13 (136.4)
6. Rodgers '11 (136.4)
7. Rodgers '11 (135.9)
8. Rodgers '11 (134.9)
9. Warner '99 (134.4)
10. Rodgers '11 (134.3)
11. Wilson '15 (133.5)
12. Brady '10 (133.3)
13. Foles '13 (133.2)
14. Brady '07 (132.5)
15. Brady '10 (132.5)
16. Warner '99 (131.4)
17. Vince Ferragamo '80 (131.1)
18. Dave Krieg '86 (131.0)
19. Young '93 (131.0)
20. Young '94 (130.5)
21. Manning '04 (130.3)
22. Brady '10 (130.2)
23. Manning '04 (130.2)
24. Rodgers '14 (129.9)
25. Romo '14 (129.0)
26. Bubby Brister '90 (129.0)

Few notes.

First of all, holy shit. Wilson just put up the second-best five-game stretch in NFL history, and only one person (Kurt Warner) is particularly close. What's more, Wilson also put up the #11 all-time five-game stretch earlier this season. And this list is almost exclusively made up of some of the greatest passing seasons of all time. That's unbelievable.

For the record, during Warner's stretch, he completed 76.3% of his passes for 10.36 Y/A, 15 TDs, and 1 int. In other words, Warner's completion percentage is slightly higher, his Y/A is significantly better, his TD% is very slightly worse, and his int% is worse as well (although one pick in 118 attempts isn't exactly bad).

It's probably worth noting a few more things: First, Warner's Rams scored 38 PPG over this stretch (the Seahawks have averaged 34.2). And second, Warner was playing with the Greatest Show on Turf, which included such future Hall-of-Famers as Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace, and of course Warner himself. Wilson has done almost exactly as well while playing with Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse, Russell Okung, and (for most of the stretch) Thomas Rawls. As much as I love the Seahawks, that's a massive talent gap. There's absolutely an argument to be made that Wilson has been better, considering.

Second. Excluding Wilson, since this season is still in progress, every player in the top 12 of this list won MVP. Foles, at #13, lost MVP to another player on this list (Manning); same with Romo at #25. (This means that every player in the top 16 either won MVP or lost it to someone else on this list.) The only players on this list who lost MVP to someone not on this list are Vince Ferragamo, Dave Krieg, Bubby Brister, and Steve Young in '93. The first three are understandable because those stretches were just crazy flukes. The fourth was just a terrible choice. In total, of the 26 entries on this list, 18 of them came as part of an MVP season.

Now consider seasons with multiple entries on the list (i.e. seasons with multiple all-time-great five-game stretches). These are Warner '99, Wilson '15, Brady '07, Rodgers '11 (four times!!), Brady '10, and Manning '04. Every one of those seasons won MVP.

Finally, let's look at the players who made the list multiple times. These are Warner, Wilson, Brady, Manning, Rodgers, Young, and that's it. No Joe Montana, no Drew Brees, no Johnny Unitas or Dan Marino. Just those six.

Oh, and if you're concerned by the fact that we're just looking at five-game stretches, don't be. He's having the best second half of a season ever. And the tenth-best season of all time. And this isn't a fluke; notice, on that first list, that Wilson's 2012 season, his rookie year, had what was at the time the sixth-best second half ever (now 11th). Wilson's been keeping historic company for a while now; this is just the first time the rest of the world is starting to notice.

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An interesting thing I noticed in my research is that Wilson tends to play much better in the second half of the season than the first half. I decided to compare his numbers from each of his seasons:

2012 games 1-8: 82.4 PR

2012 games 9-16: 120.3 PR

Difference: +37.9 PR

2013 games 1-8: 99.0 PR

2013 games 9-16: 103.3 PR

Difference: +4.3 PR

2014 games 1-8: 93.1 PR

2014 games 9-16: 97.0 PR

Difference: +3.9 PR

2015 games 1-8: 95.0 PR

2015 games 9-14*: 132.6 PR

Difference: +37.6 PR

* in progress

Games 1-8 average PR: 92.4

Games 9-16 average PR: 113.3

Average difference: +20.9 PR

That's insane. In both 2012 and this year, Wilson improved by nearly 40 points of passer rating. Even averaging in the much closer '13 and '14 numbers, that's an average difference of 20.9 points from the first half of the season to the second half. Prorated to a full year, that's the difference between Rich Gannon and Brett Favre at #206 (lol) and #6 outright, behind only Rodgers, Manning, Foles, Brady, and Manning again.

Read that again. Wilson's average passer rating over the second half of the season, for his career, is equivalent to the 6th-best passing season ever. If you're wondering how he came to be the second-highest rated passer ever, that's how.

One other thing that I noticed: In all those games 1-8 combined (32 total), Wilson's Seahawks went 20-12 for a 62.5% winrate. In the games 9-16 (30 total), they went 25-5 for an 83.3% winrate. As Wilson goes, so go the Seahawks. #MVP

The Curious Case of the NFL MVP

The 2015 NFL regular season has three weeks left. About a month after the season winds to a close, the NFL will announce the winner of the NFL MVP: Cam Newton. Unfortunately, this choice will be the wrong one.

Let me note a few things: First, MVP is an ill-defined award. Is it the most valuable player, as in the player with the most delta-wins? Presumably--it's clearly not the best player relative to position¹. But how are delta-wins defined? If I take an average quarterback off a team with a very bad backup (or no backup at all), they might experience a greater loss than taking a great quarterback off a team that has an extremely promising backup (e.g. Aaron Rodgers or Steve Young). Does that mean the average quarterback is better than the great quarterback? Of course not, but he's technically more valuable.

We could resolve this problem (to an extent) by establishing a "replacement level" for a backup quarterback and ignoring the real-life backup situation on any given team. Thus we can expect the difference in play between the elite QB and the replacement-level QB, and the difference between the average QB and the replacement-level QB, to accurately reflect the two starters' relative talent gap.

Of course this brings in other complications: A great quarterback playing on a talented team is necessarily less valuable than a slightly worse quarterback playing on a very bad team (even assuming both backups are equally good). If both starting quarterbacks were to get injured, the talented team would have a much better chance to succeed than the bad team, simply because of the talent of the other players. This is true even if the talent in question had no impact on the QB's performance².

And yet, even though a quarterback on a great team has inherently less value than one on a bad team, the MVP award voters tend to vote much more heavily for quarterbacks on talented teams than those on worse teams. This is because the voters imagine that a very good QB can "carry" his team to the top of the league each year. Of course this is false; Drew Brees is by any measure an elite QB and his teams have fluctuated between mediocrity and eliteness over his career. If a team is at the top of the league, it is fair to say that the team has a lot of talent at multiple positions, not just QB. Similarly, it's obvious that a team can be very successful without having a good QB at all; does no one remember the Jets' back-to-back runs to the AFC championship, while being quarterbacked by the immortal Mark Sanchez?

That being said, I'll concede that the majority of very good teams in any given year probably have very good quarterbacks. That's true this year; of the top 10 QBs by Passer Rating, only one (Brees) has a losing record, and six have won at least eight games already this season. Meanwhile of the bottom ten, all but Teddy Bridgewater and Peyton Manning are playing on losing teams.

The correlation between Passer Rating and team wins is no surprise; it's been shown many times that Passer Rating Differential (i.e. team's passer rating minus opponent's passer rating) is a very good predictor of success³. Basically, if your passing game is much more efficient than your opponent's, you have a really good chance of winning. And since a quarterback has no control over his team's defensive efficiency (see the second footnote again if you're unsure about this), the best thing a QB can do for his team is pass efficiently.

The sports media has some basic understanding of this concept; of the 25 QB seasons that have won MVP since 1980, 14 of them led the league in passer rating⁴. Of course, this means that 11 didn't. Some of these are reasonable--Jim Harbaugh (yeah, that Jim Harbaugh) led the league in passer rating in '95, while MVP Brett Favre finished a very close second in PR while throwing for substantially higher volume⁵, playing on a better team, and being a much higher-profile player. Some are mistakes, but are at least understandable mistakes--there's only so many MVPs you can give to Steve Young (although this limit doesn't seem to exist for Peyton). And some are huge, obvious, how-do-you-mess-up-that-bad mistakes, like 1987 John Elway (scroll down to Part IV).

So here's where we stand: It's reasonable to focus on the quarterbacks of good teams for our MVP discussions, and the best way to evaluate a QB's contributions to his team's success is through his passer rating. So how do this year's passer stack up?

#1 is Russell Wilson, who deserves MVP consideration but won't get it because the media mistakenly thinks he was bad weeks 1-8 (he had a passer rating of 95.0 to Cam's 78.1; more on this in a bit).

#2 is Carson Palmer, who isn't getting as much MVP consideration as he deserves, and I have no idea why. The Cardinals are at least as good a team as the Panthers, and Palmer is playing far better than Newton.

#3 is Andy Dalton, whose injury will probably remove him from MVP consideration, but who also very much deserves (deserved?) to be in the conversation.

#4 is Tom Brady, who led the conversation until recently, because voters have short memories and don't realize that Brady's early-season success isn't any less valuable than Cam's late-season success (and Brady's been better across the whole season).

#5-8 will not get consideration, which is reasonable; if you're this far down the list, odds are someone above you has been playing better.

#9 is Cam Newton.

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Q-and-A. Let's go.

Q: But running.
A: Cam is, of course, a very effective runner. But how much value does his running add to his team, and--more importantly--is it enough to make up for his lackluster passing? FootballOutsiders, as of this week, has Cam ranked 15th and 16th respectively in DVOA and DYAR⁶, their two big metrics. His rushing production is also tied for first, with Wilson, among quarterbacks.

If we add all the quarterbacks' rushing contributions to their passing numbers, Cam moves up by an appreciable amount--the value of his rushing is about 25% the value of his passing. But given that his passing wasn't all that valuable to begin with, the result is uninspiring: he still ranks only 15th in DYAR, jumping only Matt Stafford. (I can't speculate as to where his DVOA would end up, but given that his rushing DVOA is only 23rd in the league, I doubt it would move up that much.) Meanwhile Wilson moves into 4th place, jumping Roethlisberger and trailing only Palmer, Brady, and Dalton.

Now, it may be fair to say that not all the value Cam's legs bring to the table is encapsulated by DVOA/DYAR. And yes, the touchdowns are nice, although I'm somewhat unimpressed by short-yardage rushing scores (any QB can do that, but most just prefer to hand off; the fact that it's Cam running it and not Mike Tolbert doesn't actually add much value). But the idea that Cam's rushing is so much more valuable than anyone else's that it overcomes the massive gap in passing efficiency is absurd to me.


Q: Cam's playing with bad, drop-happy receivers. Ted Ginn Jr. is his #1, for crying out loud. And didn't you see his numbers throwing to all his receivers besides Ginn and Olsen? Clearly, he's being held back by his receivers.
A: It's true that the Panthers have a worse-than average drop rate, but it's not as bad as Panthers fans make it out to be (and notably better than the Patriots'). Their rate of 4.8% is about 1.1% worse than the average of 3.7%. That's a difference of about four passes of Cam's that got dropped over the course of the entire season. Four passes. Is that really enough to make up the difference in efficiency?⁷

It's also worth noting that the Panthers' high drop rate is almost exclusively due to Ginn, who is tied for second in the league in drops and is 12th in the league in drop percentage (among receivers with 10+ receptions). The Panthers' second most drop-happy receiver is Greg Olson, who is tied for 38th in the league and has dropped only 3 of the 108 balls thrown at him. That's about as much consistency as you can ask for.

As for the stat about Cam's numbers when not throwing to Ginn or Olsen: Newton overwhelmingly targets those two receivers. They have 80 and 108 targets, respectively; no one else has more than 50. In fact, nearly half of Newton's attempts, completions, passing yardage, and touchdowns come from those two players. It shouldn't be surprising that opposing defenses hone in on them. Besides, if Ginn and Olsen are so terrible and his other receivers are so much better, why in the world doesn't Cam simply throw to them? Answer: Because Ginn and Olsen are very good receivers. Ginn is a huge deep threat, and his 17.4 yards per reception ranks 6th in the league. And Olsen's 65 receptions are t-3rd in the league for tight ends, and his 969 receiving yards are second among TEs and 13th overall.


Q: The Panthers are winning games. Cam's the quarterback of the best team in the NFL. Why is this so hard to understand?
A: First of all, there is some disagreement on the point of the Panthers being the best team in the league. But I won't bother arguing that here. Second, and more to the point, we've already established that a team can be successful despite having a non-elite quarterback, or mediocre despite having an elite one. Cam doesn't get the award just for playing on the best team. Yes, the only time we saw a 16-0 season it was (partially) because Tom Brady was having an all-time great year. That doesn't necessarily mean that every 16-0 season must feature a QB having an all-time great year (obviously; Cam isn't, and the Panthers definitely might go 16-0).

Third, every quarterback I've talked about so far is playing for a Super Bowl contender. The fact that the Panthers have a couple more wins (or, in the case of the Seahawks, quite a few more wins) than the rest of the teams isn't necessarily attributable to Cam's performance. Which is also obvious, because Cam is barely a top-10 passer this year⁸ (and maybe not even that, if you trust FootballOutsiders, which you should). If he's not carrying the Panthers with his arm, and he's not doing it with his running, then what exactly is he doing so much better than every other quarterback to allow his team to go undefeated?


Q: Cam's been more consistent than Wilson, or anyone else, this year. That's why the Panthers have gone undefeated. And that's why he should win MVP.
A: Good point. Except it's completely wrong. Over the first eight weeks of the season, Cam put up a passer rating of 78.1, to go with his 1523 passing yards, 11 touchdowns, and 8 interceptions. The only impressive thing here is that the Panthers were able to go undefeated over that stretch despite Cam's mediocre play. (Notice how much better the Seahawks started playing when Wilson improved his game. That's value.)

Wilson, on the other hand, put up a 95.0 passer rating over the first eight weeks of the season. He threw for 1878 yards, 9 TDs, and 6 interceptions. And although Cam had more rushing touchdowns⁹, Wilson had more rushing yards and rush yards per attempt. But really, if this doesn't convince you that Cam didn't carry his team over the first eight weeks of the season, nothing will.

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If at this stage you're still on the Cam-wagon, there's probably nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. And as I said to begin the article, unless something dramatic happens, Cam Newton will win the MVP. He just won't deserve it.

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1) Ideally, MVP should be the best player relative to their position. An MVP which can only be won by quarterbacks is a stupid award (unless it's like the Cy Young and there's also a separate MVP award. Some people say that's what OPOY does in the NFL, but OPOY is also massively biased towards QBs and RBs, going to a player at any other position twice [both times it was Jerry Rice]). But if we're going to be literal, MVP should have gone to a QB every year of the modern era. Which, of course, it also hasn't; Alan Page, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Moseley, and 18 RBs have won the award. And while Page and Taylor are maybe the two greatest defensive players ever, they still weren't as valuable as a great quarterback (although to be perfectly honest Page might have been). (I'm pretty sure Moseley won as a joke.) As for the RBs: the value of an elite RB is massively overstated in the league today. First of all, the vast majority of RBs, including and especially elite ones, are a product of their offensive lines; look at Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson, Shaun Alexander, DeMarco Murray, Emmitt Smith, and every other running back not named Barry Sanders or Marshawn Lynch. And second of all, an elite running back on a bad team can't actually carry the team (despite what the 2012 MVP voters thought). Of the seven players who have rushed for 2000 yards in a season, exactly one of them was on a team that won more than 10 games (Terrell Davis, on the '98 Broncos). Meanwhile Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have a combined three seasons of single-digit wins (out of 29). That's the value of a QB versus a running back.

2) A quarterback's performance is tied, to some extent, to the quality of his receiving talent, and to the quality of his offensive line. All available data shows that a quarterback's performance is not related to the performance of his running game or defense, despite common belief to the contrary.

3) 36% of NFL champions (since 1940) finished first in PRD, 60% finished top three, and 95% finished top ten. It's kind of amazing that this holds true even back in the days before passing was a big part of the NFL, but it does.

4) In reverse chronological order: '11 Rodgers, '10 Brady, '07 Brady, '04 Manning, '03 McNair, '01 and '99 Warner, '94 and '92 Young, '89 Montana, '88 Esiason, '84 Marino, '81 Anderson, and '80 Sipe.

5) I'll be the first person to tell you that volume is not the be-all, end-all of passing stats. In fact, it's usually massively overrated (see here and here). The ONE exception is that if two players are playing at comparably high levels of efficiency and one has significantly more volume, it's reasonable to say that he's contributed more overall value to his team. This does NOT apply if there's a big gap in efficiency or if the passers in question have low efficiency.

6) Essentially, DVOA is per-play value added, while DYAR is total value added. But--and this is important--DYAR is still based on efficiency. Higher volume with less efficiency produces a lower DYAR, while relatively small volume with very high efficiency can produce a high DYAR. This is also why high volume at low efficiency is not a good thing, but high volume at high efficiency is (see footnote 5).

7) Of course not.

8) In fact, the only passing stats in which Cam ranks top-5 on the season are TDs, TD%, and Yards per completion, all of which, I'd argue, are due at least in part to--are you ready?--Ted Ginn. Having a deep threat like Ginn improves your performance in exactly those areas (as well as the yards-per-attempt stats, where Cam is top-10 but not top-5). Maybe that's the thread linking the '07 Patriots and the '15 Panthers! I have goosebumps. (Just kidding.)

9) For the record, I'm not at all convinced that Cam's rushing touchdowns are all that valuable. The Panthers have one of the best short-yardage backs in the league in Mike Tolbert and one of the better surviving (non-injured) RBs in the league in Jonathan Stewart. Is running the ball at the goal-line with Newton really that much better than running with Tolbert or Stewart? Surely the benefit isn't big enough to overcome Cam's weaknesses. This all stems from the idea of duplicability, which asks the question: "If Cam didn't rush for that touchdown, would the Panthers have gotten it?" In most cases, I think the answer is yes. Whereas if you ask the analogous question about Wilson ("If Wilson didn't make that throw, would the Seahawks have scored?"), I suspect the answer would be no in almost every case. This is actually a great way to assess value, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to do in the NFL.

Redrafting for the Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders suck at drafting. This isn't entirely their fault; up until recently they enjoyed some of the worst ownership and front office management in NFL history. The Raiders aren't the worst franchise in NFL history, and as recently as 2002 they even made the Super Bowl, losing to the immortal Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their groundbreaking cover-2 defensive scheme. This makes it okay to make fun of them. In this article, I'm going to go back through each NFL draft since 2003 (the year after the Raiders' Super Bowl loss) and look at some of the picks they COULD have made which, in all likelihood, would have kept their franchise at the top of the league for that entire span. I can do this because of hindsight and because I'm a better GM than whoever the Raiders' GM has been for the past 12 years.

2003 NFL Draft:

• 1.31: Nnamdi Asomugha -> Nnamdi Asomugha. No change. I actually think this was a pretty good pick. Nnamdi was a great corner for a number of years.
• 1.32: Tyler Brayton -> Lance Briggs. I know, Tyler who? Haha. Stupid Raiders.
• 2.63: Teyo Johnson -> Jason Witten. This probably woulda helped.
• 3.83: (Expansion) Sam Williams -> Asante Samuel. Who? Oh, just a four-time Pro Bowler and future All Pro. And two-time Super Bowl winner. Stupid dumb Raiders.
• 3.96: Justin Fargas -> Dan Koppen. Koppen is one of the best centers of the era and the Raiders would have benefited hugely from him.
• 4.129: Shurron Pierson -> Robert Mathis. Durrrr.
• 5.167: Doug Gabriel -> Cato June. Not that great a player. Still a Pro Bowler. Unlike Gabriel. Lmao.
• 6.204: Dustin Rykert -> Yeremiah Bell. Decent safety. Also, did you know that David Tyree was drafted in 2003? That seems really early. But then again, his big play was in 2007. That's only four years. Time moves hella fast.
• 7.246: Siddeeq Shabazz -> Kevin Walter. It's entirely possible some other player at the bottom of the draft is better. I don't recognize any of their names.
• 7.262: Ryan Hoag -> Ryan Hoag. Not because he's good. He's just the last player in the draft. I guess they could have taken Tony Romo, Kris Dielman, or Antonio Gates, all of whom went undrafted............. But that would just make this whole thing unfair. (Ha.)

2004 NFL Draft: (Now it gets fun!)

• 1.2: Robert Gallery -> Larry Fitzgerald. Oakland had the second overall pick in a draft which sent seven of its first eight picks, and ten of its first 14, to the Pro Bowl. Guess which team in the top eight whiffed on their selection? Say it with me, folks: That's so Raiders!
• 2.45: Jake Grove -> Darnell Dockett. ...How is this the Raiders' next selection? I really wanted to catch Bob Sanders at 2.44, but noooo. Also wow the Cardinals killed it in '04.
• 3.67: Stuart Schweigert -> Matt Schaub. I know. But by now Rich Gannon is old as fuck/retired and we need someone better than Kerry Collins to step in eventually. In real life, the Raiders never found that quarterback. In fake life, Schaub can be a placeholder.
• 4.99: Carlos Francis -> Jared Allen. Hell yes. One of the greatest DEs ever (yes, really) in the 4th? I'll take it!
• 5.134: Johnnie Morant -> Michael Turner. A franchise RB in the fifth? Hell yes. Unless he learned everything he knows from playing behind LaDainian Tomlinson (and alongside Lorenzo Neal and Darren Sproles in what was, with Philip Rivers, the greatest backfield of all time).
• 6.166: Shawn Johnson -> Andy Lee. Yeah, the punter. We're going to draft a lot of punters in this article, basically on principle. He's still a better football player than Johnson (who went on to win a few gold medals in gymnastics in 2008). Still a little surprised she got drafted.
• 6.182: Cody Spencer -> Patrick Crayton. Maybe. Idk.
• 7.245: Courtney Anderson -> Scott Wells. Yep, another Pro Bowl center. CUZ THEY NEED MORE.
• 7.255: Andre Sommersell -> Andre Sommersell. You guessed it! Mr. Irrelevant. I guess the Raiders are just the best at being--okay I can't even finish that joke. Wait, yes I can. Irrelevant.

2005 NFL Draft: (and now it gets sad.)

• 1.23: Fabian Washington -> Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. One pick off. Fabian started 45 games for the Raiders. Rodgers has won two MVPs and will be a Hall of Famer one day.
• 2.38: Stanford Routt -> Vincent Jackson. Because Fitzgerald isn't enough. (I know, I need to draft more offensive linemen.)
• 3.69: Andrew Walter -> Justin Tuck. Yeah.
• 3.78: Kirk Morrison -> Evan Mathis. Yeeeaaah.
• 6.175: Anttaj Hawthorne -> Chris Myers. I guess.
• 6.212: Ryan Riddle -> Derek Anderson. I guess again. So now our QB depth chart goes Rodgers -> Schaub -> Anderson -> Collins. I guessssss.
• 6.214: Pete McMahon -> Jay Ratliff. Who was somehow really good from 2008-2011, but I don't remember him at all???

2006 NFL Draft: (and it keeps getting sadder...)

• 1.7: Michael Huff -> Haloti Ngata. No comment.
• 2.38: Thomas Howard -> Devin Hester. Why yes I did just draft a kick and punt returner over Greg Jennings, Andrew Whitworth, and Tim Jennings.
• 3.69: Paul McQuistan -> Jahri Evans. Slight upgrade at OL here.
• 4.101: Darnell Bing (hahahahaha) -> Brandon Marshall. Because Rodgers throwing to Fitzgerald and Vincent Jackson wasn't enough.
• 6.176: Kevin Boothe -> Antoine Bethea. Cuz when I have this offense who needs a line right?
• 7.214: Chris Morris -> Cortland Finnegan. More like Cortland innegan. (If you don't get this joke it's because Andre Johnson beat the F out of him.)
• 7.255: Kevin McMahan -> Kevin McMahan. Yep. Mr. Irrelevant. Insert my joke that I already made.

2007 NFL Draft: (the sadness, seemingly, crests...)

• 1.1: JaMarcus Russell -> Patrick Willis. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ohhh HAHAHAHAHAH ahhhhahaahHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem. So JaMarcus Russell was--hahahem--a bust. Willis, on the other hand, is a future Hall of Famer. So yeah. This is happening.
• 2.38: Zach Miller -> Ryan Kalil. Miller was actually a decent pick, but Kalil is just better. I apparently never draft tackles. I didn't want to draft Joe Thomas because Willis is way better. So.
• 3.65: Quentin Moses -> Marshal Yanda. Who is a guard. Yep. (We're gonna play him at tackle shhhh don't tell.)
• 3.91: Mario Henderson -> Jermon Bushrod
• 3.99: Johnnie Lee Higgins -> Dashon Goldson
• 4.100: Michael Bush -> Le'Ron McClain
• 4.110: John Bowie -> Corey Graham. This is the last good player in this draft.
• 5.138: Jay Richardson -> C.J. Ah You. Literally just for his name.
• 5.165: Eric Frampton -> Brandon Fields. The punter.
• 6.175: Oren O'Neal -> Nick Folk. The kicker.
• 7.254: Jonathan Holland -> Ramzee Robinson. Two players left in the draft. They chose the wrong one.

2008 NFL Draft:

• 1.4: Darren McFadden -> Ryan Clady. Let's finally, finally give ARod the great left tackle he's always deserved and never gotten.
• 4.100: Tyvon Branch -> Josh Sitton. And let's go ahead and throw in an All-Pro level guard to go with him. Also, how the hell did the Raiders not have a single pick between 4th and 100th overall in this draft?? What a terrible franchise.
• 4.125: Arman Shields -> Carl Nicks. Because this is the year we're drafting all our offensive linemen. (Also let me point out that we now have five--count them, five--All-Pro offensive guards on this roster. Fuck yesssss.)
• 6.169: Trevor Scott -> Pierre Garcon. I guess. Uh.
• 7.226: Chaz Schilens -> Justin Forsett. In case Turner burns out and needs a replacement. (He will.)

2009 NFL Draft:

• 1.7: Darrius Heyward-Bey -> Clay Matthews. Whoops.
• 2.47: Michael Mitchell -> LeSean McCoy. You can't have too many talented offensive weapons. Although we do have kind of a lot.
• 3.71: Matt Shaughnessy -> Louis Vasquez. Kinda hoping you can't have too many elite offensive linemen either. (We're playing him at RT.)
• 4.124: Louis Murphy -> Thomas Morstead. Because punters. Why not.
• 4.126: Slade Norris -> Zach Miller. Just to fuck with people.
• 6.199: Stryker Sulak -> Pat McAfee. The year of the punter.
• 6.202: Brandon Myers -> Julian Edelman. There is not much talent in this draft.

2010 NFL Draft:

• 1.8: Rolando McClain -> Earl Thomas. Hold on tight, folks. This might be a rough one.
• 2.44: Lamarr Houston -> NaVorro Bowman. We just hit the iceberg. The Titanic is going down.
• 3.69: Jared Veldheer -> Jimmy Graham. Leo DiCaprio is drowing.
• 4.106: Bruce Campbell -> Aaron Hernandez. Different application this time, but inarguably true, say it with me, That's so Raiders!
• 4.108: Jacoby Ford -> Kam Chancellor. Cuz he's totally more valuable than Geno Atkins, right??
• 5.138: Walter McFadden -> Greg Hardy. I have a bug bite on my arm and it fucking itches. What is this bullshit? I thought I lived in a temperate (albeit wet) city, not the fucking woods.
• 6.190: Travis Goethel -> Antonio Brown. NEAR, FAR, WHEREVER YOU ARE
• 7.215: Jeremy Ware -> Marc Mariani. This guy made a Pro Bowl. Who knew?
• 7.251: Stevie Brown -> Tim Toone. Just cuz I want the Raiders to have more Mr. Irrelevants. It just seems so... uh... applicable.

2011 NFL Draft: (Rapidly approaching the present)

• 2.48: Stefen Wisniewski -> Justin Houston. This one was actually a good pick. I mean, Houston's one of the ten best defensive players in the league today (or at least he was when I wrote this), so obviously we're picking him, but still. Credit where credit's due. Which, for the Raiders, is really, really infrequently.
• 3.81: DeMarcus Van Dyke -> Jordan Cameron
• 3.92: Joseph Barksdale -> Julius Thomas
• 4.113: Chimdi Chekwa -> Richard Sherman. No big deal, just an all-time great corner slipping past while you take Chimdi freaking Chekwa.
• 4.125: Taiwan Jones -> Jason Kelce. And a dude named Taiwan Jones. Literally a villain from a kung fu flick. Well, not literally.
• 5.148: Denarius Moore -> Byron Maxwell. Now we're going to play the "drafting Seahawks defensive players" game.
• 6.181: Richard Gordon -> Bruce Miller. And also this. #stillTheBestDraftInRaidersHistory
• 7.241: David Ausberry -> Malcolm Smith. And the SUPER BOWL MVP!! Remember when people who don't really watch the Seahawks thought Smith was actually an integral part of our defense, and not just a substitute linebacker who got a few lucky plays in the Super Bowl? And then they didn't figure it out until he was not starting the next year and we let him walk the year after that? Yeah. Sports media are stupid (except this blog!).

2012 NFL Draft:

• 3.95: Tony Bergstrom -> Kirk Cousins. Hahahahaha holy shit the Raiders didn't actually have a single pick before Russell Wilson, the biggest QB draft steal since Tom fucking Brady, went at #75. They failed to have a top-75 pick the ONE YEAR it could have saved their franchise. Note that they did, in fact, have a pick higher than #95: they sacrificed a 3rd rounder to pick Terrell Pryor. The best part? Even that wouldn't have been early enough to take Wilson! And once they spent it on Pryor? They couldn't have even taken Nick Foles! The deepest QB draft in YEARS, and the Raiders completely blank it! So I gave them Kirk Cousins. The guy who backed up the biggest disappointment in this draft. Because this, all of this, every word of it... Well, That's so Raiders!
• 4.129: Miles Burris -> Josh Norman. He's overrated but on the Raiders he's correctly rated.
• 5.158: Jack Crawford -> Blair Walsh. We're taking a kicker in the fifth.
• 5.168: Juron Criner -> Justin Bethel. We're also taking a special teams player in the fifth.
• 6.189: Christo Bilukidi -> J.R. Sweezy. Let's take the two Seahawks big people who I used to get confused back in 2012.
• 7.230: Nathan Stupar -> Greg Scruggs. The sad part is that none of my joke selections are actually any worse than the Raiders' real selections. I've been following football religiously for a decade, and I haven't heard of a single player the Raiders drafted in 2012. But that doesn't include Terrell Pryor, because he's a Seahawk for life.

2013 NFL Draft:

• 1.12: D.J. Hayden -> DeAndre Hopkins. Silly Raiders. Taking a second consecutive player named D.J. (after Fluker at 1.11) instead of taking the Next Big Thing at wide receiver. That's pretty Raiders. But not quite Raiders enough to earn a bold. It's insufficiently Raiders.
• 2.42: Menelik Watson -> Le'Veon Bell. We're drafting running backs now.
• 3.66: Sio Moore -> J.J. Wilcox. Whoops, wrong player with the initials J.J.W. [The right pick here is Tyrann Mathieu, but I wanted to make this joke.]
• 4.112: Tyler Wilson -> Kyle Juszczyk. Aaand they picked the wrong player with the last name of Wilson. So instead I'm giving them a player whose name they can't pronounce (but you can lol: yooz-check) as punishment.
• 6.172: Nick Kasa -> Andre Ellington. The ass end of this draft sucks. Literally gonna fill in the next few spots with whatever names I happen to recognize. #sportswriting
• 6.181: Latavius Murray -> Spencer Ware.
• 6.184: Mychal Rivera -> Demetrius McCray. Don't ask me how I know this name.
• 6.205: Stacy McGee -> Charles Johnson. Totally.
• 7.209: Brice Butler -> Ryan Seymour. Kinda sounds like Richard Seymour.
• 7.233: David Bass -> B.J. Daniels. Rodgers's heir apparent, apparently.

2014 NFL Draft:

• 1.5: Khalil Mack -> Aaron Donald. Wait, what? The Raiders make their first really, really good draft pick since... uh... Steve Wisniewski in 2011, and I'm taking it away? Well, yes. Because as good as Mack has been, Donald has been better. Haha. Raiders.
• 2.36: Derek Carr -> Derek Carr. Sure. Why the fuck not.
• 3.81: Gabe Jackson -> Chris Watt. Through the powers of Chris Watt and J.J. Wilcox combined, the Raiders have drafted... Chris Wilcox! [The right pick here is Devonta Freeman, but I needed to make this joke.]
• 4.107: Justin Ellis -> Cassius Marsh. Working off my theory that all athletes named Cassius are amazing. And my alternate theory that I won't recognize any non-Seahawks for the remainder of this draft.
• 4.116: Keith McGill -> Kevin Pierre-Louis. In three years y'all are gonna be saying "Holy shit, who saw KPL's massive breakout coming?" The answer is me. Just wait.
• 7.219: Travis Carrie -> Brandon Watts. Still desperately trying to draft JJ Watt.
• 7.235: Shelby Harris -> Will Smith. Hahaha.
• 7.247: Jonathan Dowling -> Michael Sam. Yeah I did.

2015 NFL Draft:

• 1.4: Amari Cooper -> Amari Cooper. Fine.
• 2.35: Mario Edwards, Jr. -> Frank Clark.
• 3.68: Clive Walford -> Tyler Lockett. Seriously? Drafting a football player named Clive the pick before the all-time great Tyler Lockett?
• 4.128: Jon Feliciano -> Stefon Diggs.
• 5.140: Ben Heeney -> J.J. Nelson. This close.
• 5.161: Neiron Ball -> Michael Bennett. Not that Michael Bennett.
• 6.179: Max Valles -> Kristjan Sokoli. The revolution is here.
• 7.218: Anthony Morris -> Bobby Hart.
• 7.221: Andre Debose -> Ryan Murphy.
• 7.242: Dexter McDonald -> Xzavier Dickson. I'm not completely convinced that this name isn't the product of Wikipedia vandalism.

Final Roster: (just the good players, and assuming 100% talent retention, which should be easy with a genius GM like me):

QB: Aaron Rodgers, Matt Schaub, Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins
RB: LeVeon Bell, LeSean McCoy, Michael Turner, Justin Forsett
FB: Le’Ron McClain, Kyle Juszczyk, Bruce Miller
WR: Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshall, Antonio Brown, Vincent Jackson, DeAndre Hopkins
TE: Jason Witten, Jimmy Graham, Aaron Hernandez, Julius Thomas
OT: Ryan Clady, Marshal Yanda, Louis Vasquez
OG: Evan Mathis, Jahri Evans, Josh Sitton, Carl Nicks
C: Dan Koppen, Jason Kelce, Ryan Kalil
DE: Jared Allen, Robert Mathis, Justin Tuck, Greg Hardy
DT: Haloti Ngata, Aaron Donald, Jay Ratliff, Darnell Dockett,
OLB: Justin Houston, Lance Briggs, Clay Matthews
MLB: Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman
CB: Richard Sherman, Nnamdi Asomugha, Asante Samuel, Cortland Finnegan, Josh Norman, Byron Maxwell
S: Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Antoine Bethea, Dashon Goldson
K: Blair Walsh
P: Andy Lee
KR/PR: Devin Hester
ST: Justin Bethel