The Ringer NFL Show - Who Is the Best Player in Football? | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

Kevin is joined by The Ringer’s Danny Kelly and PFF’s Sam Monson to discuss how to identify the best player in the NFL and how a player's position factors into the conversation. Then, they each offer up their selections for the best player in the league, best quarterback, and best player not in the conversation this year who will be next year. Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Kelly and Sam Monson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by the gurus of player evaluation, Mr. Danny Kelly from The Ringer.com, and Sam Monson from Pro Football Focus, one of my at least top 20 favorite pro football focus guys. I'm happy I made it that high, to be honest. Yeah, no, top 20 to 30 since we're ranking things. No, Sam's one of my favorite people. I read everything he writes.

I'm glad he is here. We are talking about something. thing very near and dear to his heart because he's the one who helps put out the PFF player rankings every year, which is who is the best player in football. That's what we want to talk about today. And there's some broader debate about what that means, especially in 2020. The sport is changing, positional value, all that stuff. But it all stems from the one big question, who is the best player in football. I want to start broadly. Sam, when you look at ranking players and ranking who the best player in football is, and we'll get to who we think that is in just a second, what

is the number one thing you look for? Is it a positional value? Is it just who makes the least amount of mistakes? If you just circle one thing where you can say, this is why this guy's the best player in football, what are those things that are important to you, Sam? I think honestly, starting with what it isn't is probably the best starting point, because the thing that's always irritated me about football generally and MVP specifically is the value element. Like in most sports, the MVP is the best player and it's simple. They go together and it's easy. You just and on to the next thing. But in football every year,

there's this like hysteria where everybody ties themselves and knots trying to quantify the value element of MVP. And it's also specifically unique because like quarterback is the most valuable position in probably all of sports.

Certainly like way more than any other sort of conventional team sport with a MVP. So if you were being true to that, it would only ever be a quarterback. And it wouldn't even be close to the next position. It would just be which quarterback do you want to award it to?

And that always just annoyed me as a concept. It's just, it's pointless, right? Why just make this as a quarterback award? So everything we've done from, you know, instead of MVP at the end of the seasons, we give out this Dwight Stevenson Award, just the best player, period. The 101 and then the PFF50 as well, it's all about like eradicating that advantage that quarterbacks have because they play the most important position. So then you get into, well, okay, if you're looking at the best player regardless of position, how do you identify that? And the first

answer is, you know, I think there's a few different ways you could do it. Obviously, the data analytics guys, the scientists, they've created this PFF war metric, which helps to sort of start to quantify some of the value elements. What I like is looking at how much better a guy is than the rest of his peers at his position. And starting from there, like, if you distance yourself from the players that are the most easy to compare to you, the guys to play the same position, and in theory, do much of the same thing, then you can start to compare, you know, each one of those guys to different positions and the stuff that's much more complicated to do.

Yeah, Danny, same question. When you're identifying this, what were your parameters and what did you look at? Yeah. I mean, I think I would echo a lot of what Sam said, especially in the, you know, the discussion about MVP. I think the MVP discussions are always so annoying. But I think like when you're talking about the best player, the first thing that I thought of was play-to-play dominance over opponents, like guys that are just absolutely dominant. And technical skill level, especially relative to the other players at a position,

that's pretty much exactly what Sam was just talking about, you know, how outstanding is this guy at his specific role, you know, because obviously every position has a different role. but sometimes it's just clear you know like Richard Sherman Derell Revis in their prime both kind of came to mind when I was talking about this like they're just absolutely opponent proof

you know they're their elite players play to play very very few mistakes very reliable consistent so I think those are kind of like the traits that came to mind but I think especially you know just I think you're looking at it relative

to the other guys at his position that's kind of a good place to start because I think every player in the NFL is good at football. So when you're talking about who's the best player, I think you have to kind of start there. Let's not go crazy.

Not every NFL player being good at football. I will say this, that using Derell Revis and Richard Sherman in the same sentence is going to anger both of those people. Immediately. Yes. As we know from a long and frankly surreal Twitter beef

between those two. gentlemen. Yeah, I agree with everything that you guys said. And I think that that's why it's so fascinating. I think that what's fascinating to me is how quickly things change in this sport, where I think that if you had just taken and there's obvious reasons for this, you know, I felt like Patrick Mahomes was was underrated last December because of the season he had. And obviously now he's properly rated. We'll get to that in a second. But, you know, the top 100 players the NFL does every year, which is voted on by players, Kolo Mac was. third on that list last year.

And Patrick Mahomes was fourth. And it only took 16 games, 16-Nagore season games and, you know, 19 overall games for that to completely turn on a set. Drew Brees was number two last year. Aaron Donald, obviously, who was number one, is still in the discussion. So I just think it's amazing, you know, NBA best players, that can be true for five, six, seven, eight years sometimes. And in football, it can, the conversation can change very quickly.

And that's why I think it's really good to do this exercise every year. and sort of just figure out who it is. And I also think that because there's so many arguments you made, I remember Ryan Rasola saying this last year, we were joking about it. It's just so if a guy has like eight elite games, people just say this guy is one of the best players in football. Because you can just sort of say whatever.

I mean, like, you can, if I think Ryan Ramchak's really good. And I saw someone the other day say he's one of the best players in football. And I was like, okay, yeah, you could make that argument because it's such a, there's so many different definitions, I guess. And that's why I think that this is helpful to go through. All right, without further ado, Sam, your best player in football right now is who? I think it's Aaron Donald. And it's been Aaron Donald for a number of years now.

And honestly, once you strip out the value component of the game, you know, and you level the playing field for quarterbacks, I don't think it's particularly close between Donald and any other human being. Like what he's doing is just absurd. So you had, PFF rather, had George, George Kettle number one for 2019. How much do you weigh, do you look at the last three years when you're making this determination? Is it just Donald is just still so elite and that Kittles only had one of these sort of best player

and football type years? How did you weigh that when determining that, Sam? Yeah, the one-on-one list is, it's very gray driven and it's very, it's over a specific period of time, right? So 2019, you know, George Kittle had the best grade we've ever given a tight end. So you look at our sort of year-by-year tight-end grades, it's basically a little. list of Bronx career and then Kittle at the top. So just for that alone, I think we had to give him that.

But if you're projecting into next year, you've got to start looking at sample size and how long guys have done it for. And that's where Donald puts himself at the top. I think last year was the first year in a few seasons where he didn't win or wasn't the top of the 101 list. But basically over any period of time, you stretch the grading out to, Donald is the number one guy on defense, probably the number one guy in the entire NFL. And again, when we start looking at sort of the difference between him and the next guy at his position, like, the difference

between Kiddell and Kelsey is still a debate. I think Kittle was a better player last year, but projecting it to this year, I'd say it's probably a coin flip. The difference between Donald and the next best guy at his position, I think, is larger than the difference between anybody and the next best player at their position. And it's such a yawning chasm. Like the difference between him and number two is as big as the difference between number two and like a rank average defensive tackle.

Like it's so massive that I think he has to be the top guy. Who is number two? We always do this debate with Aaron Donald. Always like he's so much better than the other guy. I never even hear a name because it's such a huge gulf. I never even hear a name for who number two is. There is no Travis Kelsey to Aaron Donald. Well, there is.

it just changes every year. It's like a rotating group of the best non-Aaron Donald interior player. It's been Fletcher Conks, I think in 2018. Last year, you can make a case. It's Chris Jones when healthy. I think there's a few guys that sort of take it in turns to be the second best guy. With Aaron Donald, I think, is an interesting question, which is how positional value affects it. We talked about that a second ago. But when I think about Aaron Donald and his impact on a game, obviously he's a game wrecker, obviously he's elite. One point that's been brought up to me by actually Sam, one of your bosses, Neil Hornsby,

was that there are ways to, you can't take him out of a game, but maybe mitigate his impact. The one example that Neil gave me a couple of years ago was that infamous golf tribisky game in prime time. The Bears essentially changed their offense to get rid of the ball in about one and a half seconds every time. Just an unbelievable change in game plan

and all of a sudden, Aaron Donald is still breaking double teams, still wrecking games, but you just sort of move the ball away from him. Whereas, and this was something that brought up, Bobby Wagner, who is also elite, you can't necessarily game plan him the same way because he's in past coverage, because he's all over the field, because he can move. And so it's a little bit different. When positional value gets put into this conversation, how does it change things?

I think as soon as you introduce positional value, into the discussion, it changes everything. The top 20 plus players would all be quarterbacks the second you do that. And Aaron Donald tumbles down the list as soon as you start talking about value because he's less valuable than most number one wide receivers in the NFL. He's probably less valuable than a lot of number one cornerbacks, even if he's playing consistently at a much higher level. Because as you said and Neil started off with the point that it's easier to take him

out of a game than it is a top cornerback. There's an argument that you can do the same thing to a number one corner. You just don't throw it in his direction. But I think it's harder or it has more of an impact if you're doing that. You can still execute a good offense by getting rid of the ball really quickly and Donald just never affects the play at all. Or when JJ Watt was in his palm, what happened to him at times as well, you know, teams would run away from him.

They would get the ball out quickly. You can get those guys. out of the game so they're not a factor. Now, they're still affecting it because you have to play the game a certain way to achieve that. But I think it has more of an impact when you're doing that to get away from a top cornerback, because you're either doing one of two things. If it's a guy that tracks a receiver like Revis, you're essentially electing to never throw at your best receiver for the entire game.

You're sacrificing that guy so that Revis doesn't affect the game. And then with a Sherman, he's staying on one side, so you're not doing that. but you're now like never targeting that side of the field. So those two things, I think, have a significant effect on what you're doing on offense in a way that just getting the ball out quicker doesn't necessarily have. All right. We can broaden this conversation, but Danny, let's get your best player in football. Yeah, so I guess I would say the, you know, the caveat that I said earlier

about how the MVP discussion is kind of annoying because the value question is certainly very different from like best overall. player. That all being said, I'm still, I think, going to go with Patrick Mahomes just because. So, and I thought about this a lot. And I think, you know, it's a very interesting discussion on how you separate value versus just overall quality, I guess, or like best, the superlative best player. But I look at it like this. He, number one, extremely consistent, very, very well-rounded skill set. when you think about the things that he can do that so few, if any quarterbacks in the NFL can do, I think that sort of separates him from the rest of the crowd. He is, to me, that much better.

I don't know if any other team, if any team in the NFL would choose a different quarterback, if they wanted a quarterback under center, regardless of their, like, position in their career, in terms of, like, how old they are or whatever. Like, is any team taking anyone else but Patrick Mahomes right now, like for any reason? No. I don't think. so yeah so like whether you want to win year one or have a like a long-term dynasty or whatever i think that to me kind of like separates him from from the rest of the players at his position um and then i also thought about this a little bit just when you when you said what's the who's the best player in the NFL i started thinking about the the word player and i started

thinking about the the different like what you have to do as a quarterback like read the field move around, throw the ball, like the physical, the actual physical difficulty to do all the things that he does, that kind of like weighed a little bit in my mind in terms of like he has the physical talent

to do all those things at an elite level. And so basically all those reasons combined, I think it's why I went with Mahomes, but Aaron Donald, you know, was a very close second for me. So I also went with Mahomes. And part of the reason is, Just the fact that he plays an aggressive style that lends itself with most mortal quarterbacks to mistakes, and he just doesn't make mistakes.

I remember a stat, I think PFF had it actually, that going into the Super Bowl, he was in the playoffs making a negative play on 4% of his passes. And during the regular season, the average quarterback made mistakes on 15% of his passes. And that Drew Brees led the NFL with 8% of negative plays. and Mahomes is able to have that when you are going up against the best competition. He's unbelievable. And it goes back to,

I had a discussion with Eric Bienami about this the week at the Super Bowl and the word he uses is auto corrects. Like the same technology that's, and I wrote this, but you know, the same technology that, you know, I can't spell restaurant.

I just can't do it. And so I just kind of do it, and then I get there and then the iPhone tells me how to spell restaurant. That was what Bianami says Mahomes does. And he's just, able to, if he knows, if something, if he knows something is wrong, he can fix it. And that's

something that I think we all wish we had the capability to do. And he can't. And I just think that, that Mahomes is, you know, I remember, listen, he had three pretty remarkable in the context, again, of a normal quarterback comebacks in the playoffs. And nobody cared. Like, when was the last time you, you heard anybody bring up the fact that he, he overcame 23, touchdown deficit, three and a half touchdown deficit to Houston, or he was down double digits to Tennessee pretty easily, down double digits to San Francisco, really late. It just seemed normal. I mean, I think at some point, the fact that he was doing all these extraordinary things,

and they all seem normal, makes you the best player in the NFL. You know, I remember something, the boxer Anthony Joshua said this, and I think about it all the time, that the true test, the true definition of mastery is you make a professional look like an amateur. And I would say that there's two guys right now at the quarterback position who do that. One of them is Patrick Mahomes. The other is Lamar Jackson. And I would just say after that playoff run this year and doing those extraordinary things that just all seemed so normal after a while, it has to be Patrick Mahomes. I'll expand this. You said Aaron Donald is your number two. Sam, you said Aaron Donald is your number one. I still can't shake the idea that Lamar Jackson is

anything other than number two for me. And it's still close. I mean, I just think you get into you get into the fact that he crosses the line of scrimmage at almost 14 miles per hour, and yet he's the third most efficient passer and led the NFL and touchdown passes. Let the NFL and touchdown pass from the pocket last year. That's not, that should not be considered normal. That's the reason he is so unbelievable. I saw Scott Barrett had this this week, that in 22 career starts, Lamar Jackson has 80 rushing yards per game.

Saquan Barkley and 29 starts has 79 rushing yards per game. And, okay, Sequin Berkeley does other things, but Lamar Jackson also just leads the NFL and touchdown passes. So I think Lamar Jackson's value is extraordinary, and I think he's a second best player in the NFL. All right. So that brings us to our next question, Sam. Who is the best quarterback in the NFL for you? I think it's Mahomes. I agree with that.

I think, you know, what he's doing, I think you made a good point, that he is sort of redefined. finding what you think is sensible for the quarterback position. Lamar is doing the same thing, but in a different way and for less time. So I think there's always this like caveat of we need to see it for a little bit longer before we're willing to buy into it. Lamar is also doing it with the benefit of a system that's built entirely around him. Now, it's a double-edged sword, right? Because he undoubtedly benefits from the fact that this system, makes him look as good as humanly possible. On the other hand, the system is only able to exist

because he has a unique skill set that nobody else has. So you can't build that offense around Russell Wilson because it won't look the same. So I think that cuts both ways. But anytime you even bring in the idea of a system being involved in this, you need to let it play out for a period of time to see if the NFL figures out how to deal with it. Because we've kind of seen that happen in the past

where, you know, certain systems have been incredibly destructive for a year, and then the NFL catches up, and they don't have staying power. So I think we'll put a pin in Lamar and kind of circle back, but Mahomes has already shown it for two years now, and he's shown pretty crazy things. And I think you can make the argument that there isn't that much difference between Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson, except that his team is willing to lean on him in a way that Wilson's isn't.

And when they lean on him, he gets better. Like you said, there was crazy deficits from miles behind. It doesn't matter. Like, you just let Mahomes go to work and you know it's going to come back eventually. I'm doing a lot of work at the moment on Joe Montana versus Steve Young. And it was kind of like the aura that Montana had built up, which is it doesn't matter how far down we are. Like, eventually Montana is going to click and then we'll come back and we'll win. That's what Patrick Mahomes has right now.

It doesn't matter how far down the chiefs get. Eventually, Mahomes is going to click, and at that point, it's game over. You can't stop it. The score takes care of itself, as Bill Walsh, like to say, about those Snyder's teams. You brought up a great point that I want to get Danny involved in. Danny, when you think about, because I want to talk about Russell Wilson a little bit later on one of our categories, but how much do you think about situation and coaching staff when you start talking but the best players in football.

Because, again, Patrick Mahomes had Andy Reid as well. So obviously there are situations where you can say, well, Patrick Mahomes put into football heaven as well. And the fact that John Harbaugh built this, this, you know, juggernaut around Lamar Jackson, or they were able to play bully ball and they had a great line and they had talent everywhere. I think that that's, this is all important in context.

How much do you look at situation, Danny? And how do you, I guess, figure out that a player who is elite is going to shine no matter what situation. Yeah, I mean, that's obviously, it's tough to separate the two things because I think, you know,

every quarterback is a system quarterback. I'm a pretty strong believer in that. Like, the best coaches to, like, design systems and implement systems around the players, specifically quarterbacks

because it's the most important position in sports around their skill set. And most good coaches try and design a system that's going to really work for them and, like, you know, accentuate all.

those skills. So I don't really, I don't discount like Lamar or Mahomes in terms of just because they're in good systems, you know, I think it's just a, if anything, it's a reflection on them, like they could run these systems so, so well. Like, we've never seen really an offense like the Kansas City offense with Mahomes. That doesn't mean, like Andy Reid's been running offenses his whole career. This just, one just is so, so good. It's a buzzsaw against everybody. And, you know, I'd say the same, you know, with with the Ravens too in terms of like, they just absolutely bought into Lamar and his skill set. And they decided to just absolutely go all in on him. And I, and I really, really love that. Now, Russell Wilson, I think, is a very,

he's an interesting case. And, you know, I feel like I'm probably not the best person to ask about this since I'm a Seahawks fan. And I've just had so much frustration over the years with them not turning Russell Wilson loose more. But at the same time, I mean, you know, maybe like this system where Russell Wilson is just it allows him to like be his best self because like, you know, his system at Wisconsin

actually was kind of similar. It was like really run heavy, deep shots. Let him be absolutely as efficient as possible. Let him take shots. But also like blend together that play action game with the run game. And kind of like, that's like, that's like where he really shined. And he's done that for the Seahawks.

You know, he's been one of the most incredibly efficient quarterbacks in the NFL during his time. And that's been in the Seahawks scheme. And of course the question is like if they turned him loose in like a Mahomes, like in a Kansas City style offense, what would he look like? I would love to say that. That was the question I would love to ask.

Sam, if you switched, if you traded Mahomes and Wilson right now, what happens? What does 2020 look like for both of those guys and both of those teams? It's a great question. And so I did a little bit of work on this because the narrative, at least that the Seahawks want to push, is that, you know, when Wilson has to pass at the same volume as Mahomes, he's not as good, right? And the way you get the best Russell Wilson out of him is by sort of reducing the amount you need him to do. And then he becomes this special,

amazing player. And on the surface, it's kind of hard to argue with it, because they've massively dialed down what they asked him to do the last couple of years. And that's when his PFF grade jumped up. That's when he's looked like this perfect quarterback that's the rival of a Mahomes. So on the surface, it's like, well, their plan is working. But I was curious, like, what happens. The system works. Right.

Like, I was curious what happens in games where he has had to throw more than that. Like, if you set a cutoff and you say, right, 40 plus dropbacks in his career, what has happened when Wilson has had to do that. And there's something to the idea, I think, that he hasn't necessarily been at with the very best quarterbacks in the league. So I kind of looked at all those games, every quarterback in the PFF era, and Wilson grades reasonably well on a really high percentage of those games. So up there with the best guys, but he grades very well less than those other quarterbacks. So the top, and it's actually a really interesting way of separating quarterbacks, because the top guys are exactly who you think they should be.

It's Tom Brady, it's Aaron Rogers, Peyton Manning, Drew Breeze. Patrick Mahomes is now in there as well. And then the bottom guy is like a who's who of disastrous quarterbacks and Dak Prescott. But Russell Wilson sort of puts himself somewhere towards getting towards the top end, but not up there with the very, very best guys. Now, one caveat to that is if you do work on the basis of the last two years, has been like a genuine sea change in his skill, he jumps back up into the top echelon. But the sample size starts to get crazy small.

So like one game either way takes him from being up with the best guys to being somewhere in the middle. I suspect that Russell Wilson is not able to do what Patrick Mahomes is able to do on a week-to-week basis if you flip them. I suspect that Patrick Mahomes is able to do what Russell Wilson is able to do if you flip them. So I think to an extent, that's why I would lean. towards Mahomes versus Wilson. I think that you've got to, you've just got to think there's something to this idea that he's at least helped by the fact that he is,

what they ask him to do is scale down. Danny, we can all see each other on the video. Danny is in his car driving to Cincinnati to beat you up. Incredible, incredible, incredible video right now. We can just see inside of his chief. He's driving through the forest of the Pacific Northwest. I think that's, that's obviously, it's obviously an incredibly educated answer.

And something that I think that it's the new, I mean, it's almost like Marino Montana this generation, where there's a couple of these great quarterbacks and what they would do with different situations or what Dan Marino would do with Bill Walsh or whatever. I mean, and it's all fascinating to map out.

Danny, you picked a quarterback as the best player in football. So who is your best non-quarterback, Aaron Donald? Yeah, I consider putting Aaron Donald as the best player over on it. And I agree basically with everything that Sam was saying. Just absolutely dominant, snap to snap. There's really nothing teams can do about it. Like even he splits double teams.

Like he's just so much better than any other player at his position by such a wide margin. It's just, it really fills you with awe. I mean, he's just, and it's funny because everyone was talking about how always, short coming into the NFL, you know? And it's like, he's just so, he's, he has the best leverage. He's so powerful. He's so quick. He's so skilled with his hands. You know, he practices in the offseason with knives, all that stuff. You know, I just think he's just an absolutely, absolutely dominant player. And, you know, again, like I said, relative to his other, you know, peers. And then also just repeatability, you know, reliability, consistent, consistent consistency.

and, you know, just overall talent level, skill level at what he does. It's just really, really hard to pick anyone else there. And I give you some numbers on Donald. I've got some numbers and I've got a cool analogy as well. So what I think makes Donald so special is he's the best pass rusher in the NFL. And usually when you say that and you're talking about an interior guy, you have to qualify like for his position or relative, you know, comparative edge rushers.

Because edge rushers get more pressure than interior guys. They're one-on-one. they've got space to work with. The quarterback doesn't see them coming half the time. So edge rushers just get a lot more pressure than interior players. But Donald leads the league in total pressures over the last five seasons by 40 odd. So he's by a reasonable amount. He has by far the highest win rate of any player in the NFL.

He's got one of the best pressure rates. He's basically just in pure terms, he's the best pass rusher. Relative to his position, he's. in a completely different stratosphere. And he does that from an interior alignment that should not be possible to achieve those numbers from. I've been trying to think of a way of quantifying what that means. And the way I said along was it would be like a tight end leading the NFL and receiving every single year, but doing it at a time when Julio Jones is in the NFL, right? Because Donald has been leading the league when Von Miller has been in it the entire time. And

Von Miller is one of the best past rushers in NFL history. And he can't match. the numbers that Aaron Donald has year on year. And, you know, we talk about potentially limiting him by getting rid of the ball quickly. One of our guys, Ben Stockwell, started pulling into, you know, going deep into the PFF database. And like generally players win and get pressure like 15% of their snaps, something like that. But he was saying, what happens like if you're one-on-one with Aaron Donald and the play goes longer than two and a half seconds? Donald wins like every other snap. legitimately unblockable when you leave him for that amount of time one-on-one. Like, you cannot block this guy.

And I think that's, you know, it's one of those things that gets thrown around as like as hyperbole, but it's as close to honest to God, Drew as Donald as it is for anybody. Wow. I mean, yeah, that's probably my pick as well. But because I knew that this would be top heavy with Donald and Mahomes, I want to throw out another candidate and that's Michael Thomas. And that's one of the things that, you know, I think that he's also eligible for another category that we're going to get to in a minute, which is who doesn't get talked about enough, only because of the situation he's put. Remember, I said Drew Breeze, the players ranked him the third best player overall last year.

Sean Payton is there. I feel like people kind of, if people look at Michael Thomas and although they recognize he's in a late receiver, I think that they say, okay, well, a lot of people could do that. And I just, I don't think that's necessarily true. Nick shook at NFL.com had some really good numbers a couple of weeks ago about Thomas. I think put this in context. First of all, 185 targets in 2019. And beyond that, he had about 13% more unlikely catches than anybody else in the NFL. He catches balls.

I think we think that Drew Breeze is some efficient passing machine, and he is. But I think we think that this is automatic. And it's not. He's making it automatic. There's a reason he has historic catch rates. There's a reason that he is essentially, I mean, this is, we always talk about pitch and catch or whatever. Drew Breeze and Michael Thomas, that is pitch and catch. As Drew Breeze gets older and starts to be less accurate and I don't know when the end is for Drew Breeze,

you know, Kevin Cole at PFF has done some great research on the fact that older quarterbacks tend to just fall off cliffs. That's coming at some point for Breeze, whether that's this year or next year or whatever. Michael Thomas is going to help mask that because he catches everything. And I think it's amazing for an elite receiver to get 28 more targets than any other player in the league as he did last year. And I think that's just going to continue. He is automatic and the Saints are smart enough to treat him as automatic. And I think one negative that gets thrown his way is that he doesn't have the deep numbers that guys like Julio Jones or some of these other guys have. but if you look at like a

he actually gets targeted a reasonable percentage when he does run deep routes and B, when he does get targeted, his numbers are good so the Saints just don't ask him to do that and it's not because he can't do it it's because that offense always has this designated deep threat it's been Ted Ginn you go bank it's Devery Henderson it's Robert Meacham like they have a specific

receiver that just gets those deep targets and Michael Thomas isn't that so he doesn't get them but it's not to say that he can't do it he just doesn't get the opportunity in that offense. Yeah, and he gets targeted on 31% of his routes. I mean, they could change how they do things in order to get him, as we said, a deeper average target than 8.1 yards, which is not that much.

George Kittle, by the way, is 5.7 air yards per target. It's a little more than that. But they could change how they do things, but that would just change his value. And I think you kind of leave well enough alone and let Michael Thomas be automatic and go from there. All right. next question. Who should be in this conversation and isn't? Sam,

we'll start with you. I think you can put Justin Tucker in this conversation. I thought about that. Whoa! Yes! For the same reason as Aaron Donald, which is the gulf between him and the next best player at his position,

honestly, it might be larger than the difference between Donald and the next best guy at his position, but Donald plays at least most of the game. Like literally the only thing I think that is keeping Justin Tucker from this conversation in a justifiable sense is the fact that the guy plays like seven snaps a game. And I think that's a real criticism. Like, you know, kickers and punters, they're people too, but they're not really.

They don't really play the same game as everybody else. They play, you know, this highly specialized subset of football that, you know, they get to share the same locker room and they wear the same uniform, but they're not really playing the same game. But Justin Tucker is like light years better than any other player in his position. And it's nuts. Yeah. I thought about putting him too, actually. I did not expect that. I didn't even think about that.

And I'm really glad you came up with that. I've spent some time with Justin Tucker. We've thought, I've talked to him about he has a quest to hit a 70 yard fuel goal. And he thinks he can do it. And I think he will at some point. And I think that it just comes down to having confidence, and have John Harbaugh, having confidence enough to do it. I mean, I think you have to have,

and this is something that we talked about, and I talked about with the special teams guys as well, which is it really depends on the situation. You don't want to start attempting a bunch of 70-yard field goals, and if you can't make it, it's great fuel position. And, you know, it'd have to be at the end of a half or the end of a game. It would have to be really the perfect storm,

but I really do think you can do that. I think that I agree with you, Justin Tucker, it's an inspired choice. Who is the second best kicker right now? Do we have any idea? No, because again, it's like it changes. There are no good kickers except Justin Tucker. Like, Justin Tucker is the only guy that is consistently good.

Everybody else has good spurts and then goes back to being just a replacement-level kicker. Is there any argument? I guess you may not know this, Sam, but as far as paying a kicker, is there a point where Justin Tucker stops being a value relative to other positions? How do you sort of view that as far as Justin Tucker work? a, you know, six or seven million dollar deal given the points he creates? I think he probably is, but I think he's the only one. Like I say, Timo Risk did some work on kickers. He was looking at the Jake Elliott contract with Philadelphia. And in all that research,

it was all just Justin Tucker numbers, you know? And it's, Justin Tucker is this one unicorn amongst kickers that is worth changing the conversation for. He, He makes 5.1 a year, which I think is about right. Yeah, and he'd be, so he'd be the one guy that starts to change contract numbers. He'd be the one guy that starts to change the Roberto Aguayo draft pick conversation. Like, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, Justin Tucker, it would be an interesting discussion. But, like, he's the one guy capable of changing the debate around any of that, whether it's

contract, whether it's value, whether it's, um, draft picks. But he's, he's literally this, this special case that doesn't exist anywhere else. amazing. Danny Kelly. Yeah, so a couple of guys came to mind on this. Vaughn Miller is one that we mentioned a little bit earlier. He had a down year in 2019 relative to, I guess, the rest of the season. And he's been in this discussion before.

Yeah. In certain year. Obviously, after the Super Bowl, he was in that discussion when his contract came up around the same time, he was in that discussion. But he should probably be in discussion more than he is on a yearly basis. Yeah, I mean, just his explosiveness, his ability to bend around the corner, his complete skill set, I think he's in the, the conversation. The other guy that

that I think will end up probably going down as one of the most underrated receivers in football is Julio Jones. It might only be because he doesn't score enough touchdowns, but otherwise he's just one of the most dominant receivers

of his era. There was a great stat from PFF actually where he led the NFL in yards per route run. The four seasons prior to last year, he didn't win last year, but he was still up there, you know, despite having a down year relative to the rest of his career. I mean, he's getting a little bit older now.

But I guess he might not at this point be in the conversation anymore, but I'd say like he probably should be still just because he's so dominant, so consistent, you know, such good hands, playmaker, everything. I think it's just the touchdowns thing is really kind of like holding back his reputation if that's, you know, if that's the only thing. The last five years, Julio Jones is almost half a yard per route run higher than any other receiver in the game. Like, half a yard for every route he runs is nuts. Yeah.

I mean, just he's everything you look for in a receiver. I mean, he's big, fast, strong, great hands, playmaker, you know, can contort in the air and do everything. Really consistent. So those are the two names that really came to mind when you're talking about like the best player in the NFL. And the third one that I just think it will never really be talked about. You could make the argument, Christian McCaffrey, but he's a running back. And there's just this such strong argument now with player value that he probably will never be talked about in that, I guess, that conversation. But I think, you know, Christian McCaffrey, what he did last year was really incredible.

Sam, I want to ask about that because obviously everyone is pretty much against over the top running back love at this. point in football's evolution, I guess you would say. But where does McCaffrey rank as far as being better than the second best guy? If we're just going on pure metrics and we're taking the running back part out of it, where is McCaffrey the best and is he kind of up there as far as being so much better than the second best guy? So the problem I had with that, I was thinking about this recently, that all of the data, it's not just that it's sort of anti-running back in terms of they don't matter as much. And what they do is they almost change the way you have to think about the position

because what it does is give you a list of things that are more important than the actual running back skill in determining the success of the running back. So whether it's offense, whether it's blocking, all of these various different components. And what that does is add to a list of things that now mask trying to actually differentiate the talent between them. right? So like how much like how much is is Zeke Elliott a really talented running back and how much did he just land in a juggernaut of the system that produce all these

crazy numbers and because he was the number four overall pick he got fed the ball a ton so opportunity went his way. And then, you know, so there's there's all these things and I'm left wondering like how do you even evaluate how good a running back is anymore because almost none of them are immune to a bad situation. Like Todd Gurley gets MVP hype and then the situation random falls to pieces. And then the question is, well, what's wrong with Todd Gurley? It's, you know, an arthritic knee. He's done. But it's the same with all these guys. So I think the only answer to that is if a guy can consistently overcome for a

period of time what is objectively a bad situation. And I think you can start to make that case for McCaffrey because he has not the best blocking in the world. He's also been an incredible part in the passing game, which is more sort of situation-proof. And he's been doing it in ways different to some of these other running backs. He does other things in terms of the passing game. So I think, I mean, McCaffrey was, I think, the number one running back on our list. I think you can definitely make the argument, but I think running back is this unique position now where it's, like, every position is dependent on other things.

It's impossible to sort of extract one guy from the environment he's in. but running back, I think, is the most dependent position to the point where it's becoming almost impossible to fairly extract them from their situation and even be able to accurately determine, like, how much is this guy better than the next guy or is he just in a better situation? Yeah, that's fascinating. So I was actually going to put Russell Wilson in this category, but we already talked about him, so we don't need to do that over again. I would say that in a weird way, even though he got so hyped up last year, I would say there's probably and not enough attention on the individual talents of Stefan Gilmore last year.

More touchdowns scored than touchdowns allowed, just dominant. I would say that anyone who plays defense for Belichick in general is going to get a tax put on them as far as, you know, it's a Belichick defense. And I just think that the fact they were historically good through the first half of last season and with the listen, they weren't a juggernaut. They weren't the Legion of Boom Seahawks last year. They were just a really well-coached team with a really dominant cornerback, who I think was just phenomenal.

So Gilmore, Russell Wilson. We've not yet talked about George Kittle, even though he was number one player on the PFF list, but obviously he is a top five player, in my opinion, just loves blocking. You know, just the fact that he's the best tight end and as a past catcher is almost incidental to him. He's, uh, he's amazing.

He breaks tackles at a historic rate. He gets more yards after catch than anybody in football and it's not particularly close. I think the NFL next chance stats had him as, uh, 1,826 yards after catch since 20, uh, since 2017 to 400 more than he should have gotten. So that's George Kittle for you. So he deserves to be in this conversation. Um,

Sam, George Kittle, if you were to rank just best players in football, even though he was number one graded on your list in PFS last year. If you're looking at the criteria that made Aaron Donald, number one, where is George Kittle for you? Yeah, I mean, I think Kittle is a case of wanting to see more of it. You know, last year he was phenomenal. And it's, I'm never sure how early to jump on, you know, with some of these guys that just have this dominant season. So I think Kittle is, I think he's somewhere in the 40s on our list in terms of the PFF 50 heading into it. But I want to see what he does this year because I don't think there's a huge difference between him and Kelsey. I think he's a better blocker than Kelsey.

I think they're both game-changing receivers. And obviously Kittle was so phenomenal last year. He's in the perfect system again, another guy who's aided to some extent by the system he's in. So I just want to see what he does next year. Yep. All right. Speaking of next year, category, the next category, the last category, who in 2021, when we do this pod this time next year and hopefully both you guys are back for it?

Who are we talking about in this conversation next year that we're not talking about this year? Who are the candidates to get into this conversation this year? We'll start with you, Danny Kelly. This is a tough one because I made a list. And Gilmore was on my list for that last category, too, Kevin. So I agree with that one. But I'm just looking at players, I think, are going to take that jump and take that jump into elite status.

First guy that came to mind for me was Miles Garrett of the Browns. I just think his overall skill set, athleticism, and basically the whole package, I think he has the ability to kind of make that jump next year. And then Derwin James, the church. Obviously, we didn't get to see him last year. unfortunately. But I think he has the

again, like the overall skill set and the overall just hybrid ability to play multiple positions, multiple different roles for that defense and do it at such a high level. Do so many things at such a high level that I think that kind of puts him into that tier where you can talk about,

again, like I was saying earlier in the pod, that just overall player, like the guy who's just so good at playing football, I think James has a potential to make that jump into that stratosphere next year. Danny, do you think the Chargers are going to be good this year? No, I don't think they'll, I think they'll probably be a middling team. Yeah, I'm just curious because I'm all over the map on the Chargers.

I mean, they have a good, I think they have a lot of talent on defense, and, you know, I'll be interested to see how it goes with Tyra Taylor at quarterback. I'm assuming he's going to start at least the beginning of the year. Who wins more games of the teams you just mentioned, the Browns and the Chargers? I probably would go with the Browns, but, the Browns are a complicated case, of course, because you can just never trust the Browns to do anything, but I would probably put the Chargers in the same category. But I'm going to go with the Browns on this one, just because I think, you know, overall they have more talent, the situation is better. And I'm still a believer in Baker Mayfield. Hopefully he proves me right on that one.

It's two franchises with a lot of letdowns on their resume. I'll say that. Sam, what are your thoughts on Darwin James and Miles Garrett in that category? And who's in your list here? I think those are two good suggestions. Miles Garrett was he, he, I think, had that breakthrough season this past season before he brained Mason Rudolph with his own helmet. Like he had the highest PFF pass

Russian grade in the league at the time, or at least it was tied up there with T.J. Watt, like he was in the midst of this breakout career year before it got derailed. I think that's a good call. The guys that I would, I mean, Kittle, we already mentioned, I think Lamar Jackson

another year at that level. And obviously, he's right up there in the conversation as the best player in the NFL period. For sure. And then one player that I have to mention that won't because it won't get the kudos because of his position, Quentin Nelson. Yeah. Yeah. Clinton Nelson is the rare unique case that brings everybody together, right?

Whether you just watch the numbers, whether you're a dots guy, whether you watch the tape, whether you're in the offensive line filming, getting excited about the pancakes. in the finishing, you know? Whatever you like, Quentin Nelson will bring you into the same cozy environment with everybody else who just thinks that he's phenomenal. And like, you know, when he was coming out, it was like this argument, just how soon did you see him? Like, when did you first see Quinn Nelson and decide that he was amazing? And it's kind of the same thing. Like, it took him like half of his rookie season to kind of get going in the NFL. And then from that point on, he's been as good as any guard in the league. I think he's still getting better. And, you know,

another year. Now he gets a quarterback that should be better for him in terms of getting rid of the ball, not hanging him out to dry as much. So I think he should look better next year, even if he doesn't play any better. So Quentin Nelson could immediately become like one of the best players, period. Yeah. That's somebody I didn't think about, but I should have. And that's a great, great point. And again, if the, if the Colts are good this year, and I think they are, if he helps Phillip Rivers become a turn back the clock guy, I think that we're definitely talking about Quentin Nelson in one of these categories next year. All right, I'll just flick at mine. I think that Nick Bosa has a real chance to take it the next step. Fifth in tackles for

loss is a rookie last year, four sacks in the playoffs alone. I think that Niners defense is only getting better, even though obviously they lost one of their big pieces in a trade this year. And I just, I just think he's really good. And that's talent wins when you're having these discussions. T.J. Watt, nearly 30 sacks the last two years. I think PFF had him is actually having more than that. I just think that he's just getting better and better. He's never going to be his brother. And I think that that's, for some reason, going to keep him out of conversations like this. But I think that he is one of the best front seven guys in the NFL, and that will only continue this year. And then Kyler Murray, I think he's hamstrung by the fact that I think he's

going to take a huge jump, huge jump. Here's the problem with that. Is that he's, he's a He's not going to make a jump to be better or as good as Omar Jackson, better or as good as Patrick Mahomes. That's just unattainable right now. I would also put Deshaun Watson in that category. I think even if he has a massive jump this year, a massive jump this year, he's still below the rest of the young quarterbacks. And that's why I'm putting him here as a qualifier and with a huge caveat, which is he might

play like a guy who's trying to get into the conversation for best player in the NFL, but to get on to that top young quarterback's list. is as hard as it has been and maybe ever. So that's where I'm out on those three guys. The one more name that I would not even put out there as a state, more of a question. I wonder if JJ Watt can get back into it because he hasn't been the same guy since all those injuries derailed what was effectively an Aaron Donald-esque start to his career. But he's getting closer.

Like he's edging step by step back towards where he once was. And like if he does get back to his very, very. best. It's only Aaron Donald. I think it's a better player than him right now. Yeah, that's, that's the fascinating X factor and how well that Texans team does this year. And I'm in trying, I'm really intrigued by by everything that goes on in Houston right now. The Andre Hopkins thing was a disaster, but I still think there's a lot of talent there. And I again, we've gotten to the point where part of this is my fault because I make such fun of him as a GM. But Bill O'Brien is not Matt Patricia here.

He's a good coach. He is a good actual coach. I wish he had a GM. I wish they had just actually either hired Nick Asario or not fired Rick Smith or whatever. Just kept it to where all he did was the X's and O's. Everything would be so much better there. And he didn't. That's a flaw in whatever streak he has that makes him grab power.

He probably shouldn't have. He would help him as a coach if he had a GM. but that's a discussion for another day. Having said that, I still think the Texans can be good. JJ Watt would be a fascinating case if he ever gets back to what he was, and I'm intrigued to see that.

Where do we put Deshawn Watson on this list, by the way? Yeah, Deshawn Watson, for me, is right. I mean, it's, again, he's on the cut. It's so hard to get to the Mahomes level because Mahomes is Mahomes. But I think Deshaun Watson, you can win a Super Bowl with him.

If the Houston Texans won the Super Bowl this year, I wouldn't be completely shy. They wrote 24 points on the Super Bowl champions. Like, Deshawn Watson's on my very, very short list of elite players. He reminds me a little bit of Russell Wilson in terms of the thing that used to separate Russell Wilson from the best quarterbacks in the NFL was every now and again, he'd have a stinking game. Like, he'd be awful randomly. And I think this is one of the reasons that the Seahawks kind of pull things back from

and pivoted towards this like run-heavy system where they don't ask as much of him from the outset because they believe that those games were the ones where he had to do too much. Now, statistically, that isn't true, but that's what they, I think, thought. But I think, I think Watson is the same thing in that like 80% of the time, he is Mahomes. It's just that 20% of the time he has those terrible games that he hasn't yet gotten out of his system. I don't know if he ever will, but there's at least like a case study of a guy that did that. Like, Wilson over the last two years hasn't really had those games. And that's what has taken him to being like MVP level, you know, as good as right up there with Mahomes just separated

by different offenses. Like if Watson can find whatever that was where he just eliminates those negative games and you get what is his like best play all the time, then I think he's like he's right on the cusp. He's in that discussion of, you know, nipping on the heels of Mahomes of Russell Wilson of Lamar Jackson. Yeah, I agree with you. Danny, the reason that I didn't bring him up, actually, is because I thought he already was in this conversation. And he just happens to be in this weird zone where I'm not going to name four or five quarterbacks. And again, because Lamar Jackson won the MVP last year, Mahomes is my best player in football, he just happens to be in the wrong batch right now, which is a good young quarterback in a time of elite elite. And he's one of them.

Again, I think he might end this season as the third or fourth best quarterback in the NFL. But I just think it's really hard to get into the top two right now. Yeah, I agree with that for sure. Yep. All right, guys, now we know what the best players of football are. Thanks for stopping by. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network.