Greatest Player From Each Team (1 Viewer)

[The Man With No Name]

I remember watching Namath as a kid. Lived in CT and with the blackout rules I didn’t have any other choice. He was very good early in his career and not very good past his first five years. His numbers overall aren’t that great. Losing record, 50% completion rate, almost 50 more INTs than TDs. I get that passing totals were way lower than today, but is he really the best the Jets have to offer?

Greatest and best are two different things. 

 

[doowain]

Cincinatti  Cincinnati = Charlie Joyner Joiner

Fixed your spellings. 

And a guy that had 1400 yards across 3.5 seasons should be in the conversation?

You are now the 2nd person to say Joiner for the Bengals.  I thought he made his bones with the Chargers.  What am I missing?

 

[Anarchy99]

Fixed your spellings. 

And a guy that had 1400 yards across 3.5 seasons should be in the conversation?

You are now the 2nd person to say Joiner for the Bengals.  I thought he made his bones with the Chargers.  What am I missing?

Joiner ranks T-160 in terms of approximate value to the Bengals.  He ranks 10th in terms of value to the Chargers. 

 

[travdogg]

CAR Julius Peppers Steve Smith Cam Newton

Smitty has to be number one.  Kuechley was far more dominant at his position than Peppers.  Lastly, CMac is a much stronger challenger than Newton.

I'd have Kuechly #1 for the Panthers. Played 8 years, and was in the best LB in the NFL conversation for 7 of them. 

Non-skill position players didn't get a fair shake with this at all.

 

[Biabreakable]

Fixed your spellings. 

And a guy that had 1400 yards across 3.5 seasons should be in the conversation?

You are now the 2nd person to say Joiner for the Bengals.  I thought he made his bones with the Chargers.  What am I missing?

I guess not.

I was struggling to find a Bengal to list there. Joyner isn't a player I am familiar with. 

 

[Anarchy99]

Here is the list ranking players by Approximately Value for that specific team with a score of 150 or more.

Tom Brady NEP 280
Brett Favre GBP 222
Ray Lewis BAL 221
Peyton Manning IND 219
Drew Brees NOS 218
Dan Marino MIA 216
Jerry Rice SFO 215
Bruce Matthews TEN 210
Philip Rivers LAC 204
John Elway DEN 203
Bruce Smith BUF 194
Derrick Brooks TBB 191
Roethlisberger PIT 186
Aaron Rodgers GBP 184
Lawrence Taylor NYG 182
Matt Ryan ATL 179
Walter Payton CHI 168
Carl Eller MIN 165
Eli Manning NYG 165
Anthony Munoz CIN 164
Emmitt Smith DAL 163
Dan Fouts LAC 162
Mike Webster PIT 162
Marvin Harrison IND 161
Fran Tarkenton MIN 161
Junior Seau LAC 160
Merlin Olsen LAR 160
Michael Strahan NYG 160
Mike Singletary CHI 159
Steve Young SFO 158
Will Shields KCC 157
Jim Marshall MIN 157
Reggie Wayne IND 155
Alan Page MIN 155
Jim Otto OAK 154
Tim Brown OAK 151
Terrell Suggs BAL 150
Brian Urlacher CHI 150
Barry Sanders DET 150
Ronde Barber TBB 150


The Vikings are the only team to have had 4 players with an AV score of 150 or more for an individual team. Obviously, playing for a long time with the same team leads to a higher score. Interesting that Joe Montana does not make the list, yet Steve Young does for the Niners. By comparison, this list has 40 players on it. The CareerAV list of players with a score of 150 or more has 60 players on it. 

 

[doowain]

Fixed your spellings. 

And a guy that had 1400 yards across 3.5 seasons should be in the conversation?

You are now the 2nd person to say Joiner for the Bengals.  I thought he made his bones with the Chargers.  What am I missing?

I guess not.

I was struggling to find a Bengal to list there. Joyner isn't a player I am familiar with. 

Ken Anderson or Chad Johnson would be 2nd on my list to Munoz.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

For Buffalo, I strongly agree with the selection of Thurman Thomas even if I know I'm probably in the minority on that one.  He was the guy who really made their offense.  

 

[efactor]

Ken Anderson or Chad Johnson would be 2nd on my list to Munoz.

Chad Johnson officially changed his name prior to the 2008 season and his career spiraled down after that.  Maybe it was coincidence and he just dropped off at age 30 (although had a decent season in 2009).  Always seemed to me that he kind of became an entertainer instead of a football player after the name change and lost his focus.  Unfortunate, as he was a fun guy to watch.  Watched a lot of Bengal games on the ticket when he and TJ were lighting it up with Palmer. 

 

[travdogg]

Ken Anderson or Chad Johnson would be 2nd on my list to Munoz.

Willie Anderson perhaps? 

 

[Anarchy99]

OJ Simpson is not only not-#1? But is intentionally left out?

OJ ranks 6th in Approximate Value as a Bills player.

 

[Anarchy99]

Ken Anderson or Chad Johnson would be 2nd on my list to Munoz.

Top 10 Bengals based on Approximate Value:

01 - Anthony Munoz - 174
02 - Ken Anderson 161
03 - Ken Riley 127
04 - Willie Anderson 108
05 - Boomer Esiason 106
06 - Geno Atkins 104
07 - Andrew Whitworth 104
08 - Reggie Williams 103
09 - Chad Johnson 101
10 - Andy Dalton 98

 

[doowain]

Ken Anderson or Chad Johnson would be 2nd on my list to Munoz.

Top 10 Bengals based on Approximate Value:

01 - Anthony Munoz - 174
02 - Ken Anderson 161
03 - Ken Riley 127
04 - Willie Anderson 108
05 - Boomer Esiason 106
06 - Geno Atkins 104
07 - Andrew Whitworth 104
08 - Reggie Williams 103
09 - Chad Johnson 101
10 - Andy Dalton 98

Willie was a beast.  Surprised I forgot about him.  Probably best RT in the NFL during his playing days.

Awesome to see Geno that high up.  

 

[doowain]

For Buffalo, I strongly agree with the selection of Thurman Thomas even if I know I'm probably in the minority on that one.  He was the guy who really made their offense.  

He was next level on Super Tecmo Bowl.

 

[TheWinz]

Top 10 Bengals based on Approximate Value:

01 - Anthony Munoz - 174
02 - Ken Anderson 161
03 - Ken Riley 127
04 - Willie Anderson 108
05 - Boomer Esiason 106
06 - Geno Atkins 104
07 - Andrew Whitworth 104
08 - Reggie Williams 103
09 - Chad Johnson 101
10 - Andy Dalton 98

How is AV calculated?

 

[Anarchy99]

How is AV calculated?

I believe it is one of the unspoken disciplines of magic and the dark arts. 
There is some basic info here (which includes links to the logic and the methodology from there).

LINK

 

[ZWK]

Approximate Value gives players too much credit for longevity, since it just adds up each season's AV. The longer your career, the more it compiles.

(At least that's true of the version used in this thread. Sometimes the PFR folks use a different way of calculating career AV which is less subject to this problem, but the numbers in this thread are just the sum of each season's AV with that team.)

 

[barackdhouse]

Top 10 Bengals based on Approximate Value:

01 - Anthony Munoz - 174
02 - Ken Anderson 161
03 - Ken Riley 127
04 - Willie Anderson 108
05 - Boomer Esiason 106
06 - Geno Atkins 104
07 - Andrew Whitworth 104
08 - Reggie Williams 103
09 - Chad Johnson 101
10 - Andy Dalton 98

How far back is AJ Green?

 

[barackdhouse]

Or Chris Collinsworth for that matter. Played in two Super Bowls and put up some numbers.

 

[Anarchy99]

Green is 15. Collinsworth is 21.

LINK

 

[Biabreakable]

Approximate Value gives players too much credit for longevity, since it just adds up each season's AV. The longer your career, the more it compiles.

(At least that's true of the version used in this thread. Sometimes the PFR folks use a different way of calculating career AV which is less subject to this problem, but the numbers in this thread are just the sum of each season's AV with that team.)

Since we are talking about players entire careers longevity is an important part of that no?

What would be a better way to measure the greatest player from each team if not career AV?

 

[TheWinz]

Approximate Value gives players too much credit for longevity, since it just adds up each season's AV. The longer your career, the more it compiles.

(At least that's true of the version used in this thread. Sometimes the PFR folks use a different way of calculating career AV which is less subject to this problem, but the numbers in this thread are just the sum of each season's AV with that team.)

Yeah, I went to PFR and read all about Drinen's AV.  Although it's a starting point, it really has little to do with the title of this thread.  Based on AV...

- Kellen Winslow Sr. is the 24th greatest Charger?  Yeah, sure.  Rivers is also greater than Gates & Winslow combined.
- Vinny Testaverde is greater than Steve Largent
- Reggie Wayne is greater than Barry Sanders
- Frank Gore is greater than Jim Brown

 

[TheWinz]

Greatness is in the eye of the beholder.  I can say Peyton Barber is the greatest NFL player ever, and I can't be proven wrong.  Well, maybe with him I can, but you get my point.

 

[menobrown]

This topic is good off-season discussion but honestly it makes my head hurt. As an almost 40 year fan of the Steelers I can't even agree with myself on them and it's even more complicated because I did not start watching football until 1980 when most of the 70's era Steelers were getting a bit old. I got my favorites for sure, but so hard for me to quantify who is the best. Would probably be easier if I grew up a Bengals fan or something.

 

[travdogg]

Since we are talking about players entire careers longevity is an important part of that no?

What would be a better way to measure the greatest player from each team if not career AV?

I tend to favor peak greatness, over prolonged goodness. A player who was elite for 3-4 years is worth more than a guy who was good for 7+. For example, Priest Holmes>Frank Gore, or Rob Gronkowski>Jason Witten.

1st team all-pro selections is a good starting point, as it also works across eras a lot better than raw stats because it puts you against your peers, and only has 1-2 guys per position. Its biggest flaw is cross referencing positional value. For example only 1 QB gets a 1st team all-pro, but QB is the most valuable position.

Times leading the league in a valuable category is another useful measure, though that is a lot tougher with non-skill postions.

AV to me is a useful tool, but more of a "don't forget about this guy" type of tool. Almost more of a tiebreaker. Pro Bowls are similar, as somewhat useful, but also not something to base a decision off of. Maybe peak AV would be more valuable like only rate a players top 3-5 seasons?

Playoff performance is also a nice tiebreaker, though I imagine some factor it higher. Unfortunately, many of the league's all-time greats never really played in the playoffs much. 

There is more to it than that(obviously) but I think that is a good starting point, especially when factoring players you didn't personally see.

 

[ZWK]

Since we are talking about players entire careers longevity is an important part of that no?

What would be a better way to measure the greatest player from each team if not career AV?

Longevity is important but peak is too, and adding up AV gives too much credit for longevity. For example, this year Darren Sproles passed Terrell Davis in AV. Some options that are better:

Number of Pro Bowls + number of first-team All Pros with that team.

Total AV over his best 6 seasons with that team.

Some kind of weighted AV (such as 100% of his highest season AV with that team + 99% of his second highest AV + 96% of his third highest AV + 91% of fourth + 84% of fifth + 75% of sixth + 64% of seventh + 51% of eighth + 36% of ninth + 19% of tenth)

HOF Monitor score, limited to seasons with that team.

 

[Anarchy99]

There certainly is a lot of grey zone in one defines “greatest” in terms of contribution to a team. Part of the issue is there may have been someone that was an elite performer for say 7 years (Randy Moss as an example). But there also could have been a consistently good player for 12 or 13 years as a lineman. Moss may have been a better player and had more of an impact in the short term, but that may not mean he had more of a total impact on a team. There is no right or wrong answer on this one. As others have mentioned, a HOF Monitor Score might show more of the impact a player had, but for players that were on multiple teams it is hard to extract the contributions of just one of  my he teams. 

 

[Tau837]

Ogden who is legitimately in the discussion as one of the best Tackles of all time

Agree on Lewis and Reed, but I can think of at least 5 OTs better than Ogden IMO (in no particular order): Munoz, Shell, Mix, Gregg, and Thomas. IMO Lewis and Reed are definitely ahead of Ogden for all-time Ravens.

Kellen Winslow was on the NFL100 team, Gates was not, so arguably, Gates isn't even the best TE in Chargers history

That is because the NFL 100 voters specifically attempted to spread players across eras. Winslow was a different era than Gates. I don't agree with their choice, IMO Gates is clearly one of the greatest 5 Chargers of all time, ahead of Winslow. IMO the greatest tier of Chargers is a group of 8 guys (in no particular order): Rivers, Fouts, Tomlinson, Alworth, Gates, Winslow, Mix, Seau.

 

[Tau837]

Since we are talking about players entire careers longevity is an important part of that no?

What would be a better way to measure the greatest player from each team if not career AV?

AV is flawed, and thus so is HOF Monitor, which uses AV. Just read about the methodology at PFR. I think David linked it above. Drinen created it and admits several flaws in it. It is a crude approximation tool. Nothing wrong with using it for crude approximations, as long as you understand its flaws.

There is also a weighted AV metric, which might better address what @ZWK was getting at.

 

[Tau837]

Longevity is important but peak is too, and adding up AV gives too much credit for longevity. For example, this year Darren Sproles passed Terrell Davis in AV. Some options that are better:

Number of Pro Bowls + number of first-team All Pros with that team.

Total AV over his best 6 seasons with that team.

Some kind of weighted AV (such as 100% of his highest season AV with that team + 99% of his second highest AV + 96% of his third highest AV + 91% of fourth + 84% of fifth + 75% of sixth + 64% of seventh + 51% of eighth + 36% of ninth + 19% of tenth)

HOF Monitor score, limited to seasons with that team.

Career Weighted AV

May not be what you would prefer, but it is closer to what you  are talking about than straight AV.

 

[Biabreakable]

Longevity is important but peak is too, and adding up AV gives too much credit for longevity. For example, this year Darren Sproles passed Terrell Davis in AV. Some options that are better:

Number of Pro Bowls + number of first-team All Pros with that team.

Unless I am mistaken AV already incorporates pro bowls and all pro years into its metric.

Now this is likely the most flawed part of AV. We all know the pro bowls do not mean much. Seems like a strange thing to focus on as an improvement over AV.

Total AV over his best 6 seasons with that team.

Some kind of weighted AV (such as 100% of his highest season AV with that team + 99% of his second highest AV + 96% of his third highest AV + 91% of fourth + 84% of fifth + 75% of sixth + 64% of seventh + 51% of eighth + 36% of ninth + 19% of tenth)

Maybe this would be an improvement on AV I am not sure.

I am going to just throw this out there as a general observation; people have been deriding counting stats and players who they charecterize as compilers of statistics over a long period of time compared to players who had a season or maybe more than one season of better performance, but not their whole career, such as your TD vs Sproles example.

Well we are already talking about players who are HoF caliber talents. Most of them have been at or very near the top of their positions at least once or twice during their careers. I don;t think the measure of those peak seasons should overshadow a player who can maintain that for a longer period of time.

The beautiful thing about AV is it considers things like return yardage. It values the players entire skill set contribution to a team, not just one aspect of that. Starting games is the signle most important thing here and while TD was great for a few years and maybe would have been great for longer than that if he hadn't been injured, he was injured and he wasn't able to keep playing at a high level for nearly as long as Sproles did, nor did he contribute on special teams the way Sproles did, or as a receiver in the way that Sproles did.

So it isn't just more seasons that makes Sproles close or better than TD but also these other contributions over that longer time period.

As far as your suggestion of an improved metric according to this the career AV is already using something similar to what you describe for the same reasons.

CarAV - career approximate value. See the entry on AV. The Career AV is computed by summing 100% of the player's best-season AV, 95% of his second-best-season AV, 90% of his third best, and so on. The idea is that the Career AV rating should weight peak seasons slightly more than "compiler"-type seasons.

So you cant improve on something that was already done by doing it again.

 

[Biabreakable]

AV is flawed, and thus so is HOF Monitor, which uses AV. Just read about the methodology at PFR. I think David linked it above. Drinen created it and admits several flaws in it. It is a crude approximation tool. Nothing wrong with using it for crude approximations, as long as you understand its flaws.

There is also a weighted AV metric, which might better address what @ZWK was getting at.

I never said it was flawless. It uses pro bowls as part of it for goodness sake.

I asked if something was better and I haven't heard anything. What you are talking about was already done for the career AV values I suggested to David as perhaps being the best metric for this type of exercise.

 

[Iceman03]

Steelers fans would have a lot to argue about... I still would say Troy Polamalu is the best player the Steelers have had. I never watched any of the old timers but Troy will always be the first player out of my mouth when asked this question for my NFL history.

 

[Bri]

The Titans one is off because they have hall of fame linemen and they should be the best. Munchak was a hall of fame lineman and then became one of the best OL coaches. 

Henry isn't there yet. I'd go with Casey who is always singled out by an opposing coach, player or former player- recently Bruce Smith.

Michael Roos maybe. He played at a difficult time to be a LT and get noticed so oddly enough he only has one probowl yet three all pros. On the flip side, if you think of who he beat for writers to name him all-pro, it's very impressive

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

NOS Drew Brees Willie Roaf

I know Roaf as runner up isn’t wrong but I think most Saints fans would say Rickey Jackson and I would too. 
The lousy thing is that for so many of the Saints “greats” (and seriously it’s not a lot and great is arguable) the franchise was so awful they ended up playing elsewhere at some point. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

TEN Steve McNair Eddie George Derrick Henry

1 Earl Campbell, 2 Elvin Bethea. 

 

[Anarchy99]

I know Roaf as runner up isn’t wrong but I think most Saints fans would say Rickey Jackson and I would too. 
The lousy thing is that for so many of the Saints “greats” (and seriously it’s not a lot and great is arguable) the franchise was so awful they ended up playing elsewhere at some point. 

Based on AV, Brees is first and Jackson is second for the Saints. The next three are Evans, Brock, and Jordan. 

 

[travdogg]

Based on AV, Brees is first and Jackson is second for the Saints. The next three are Evans, Brock, and Jordan. 

Jahri Evans might be the most underrated player of the last 20 years. He was probably the best G in the NFL from 2009-2014. He gets forgotten somewhat because he overlaps a bit with Hutchinson, who was better in his overall career, but was also nearing the end during that time frame. 

Anyway, Evans is a HOF'er in my eyes, but then again, the HOF has been really weird in recent years as far as who has and has not made it. I still can't believe how many guys go in over Zach Thomas and Alan Faneca every year.

 

[Anarchy99]

Jahri Evans might be the most underrated player of the last 20 years. He was probably the best G in the NFL from 2009-2014. He gets forgotten somewhat because he overlaps a bit with Hutchinson, who was better in his overall career, but was also nearing the end during that time frame. 

Anyway, Evans is a HOF'er in my eyes, but then again, the HOF has been really weird in recent years as far as who has and has not made it. I still can't believe how many guys go in over Zach Thomas and Alan Faneca every year.

As duly noted earlier, HOF Monitor Scores are a work in progress and needs some fine tuning. But here are the scores for the guys you mentioned.

Evans 76.63 (average score for HOF guards: 103.9)
Hutchinson 118.53 (average score for HOF guards: 103.9)
Faneca 143.93 (average score for HOF guards: 103.9)
Thomas 112.20 (average score for HOF ILB: 115.63)

 

[Brunell4MVP]

All iI know is the Washington Redskins.   I won't argue with Baugh.  Nobody is left alive that saw him play. 

But I will argue with Riggins.  He's rarely listed in the top 10 Skins players. by locals.  He had only 1 all pro season

Chris Hanburger (9 pro bowls and a Def POY), Charley Taylor, (8 pro bowls and retired as all time leading WR in yards), Darrell Green (7 pro bowls), and Kenny Houston (7 pro bowls) were all better players and more important to the team.