Unless you left the country this weekend, you probably heard about CBS Sports releasing their annual top 50 players in the NFL. Ultimately these kind of lists don't mean a single thing and are basically compiled to incite conversation (mission accomplished). If you haven't looked over the list, take a look and give me your thoughts. For what it's worth here are the Cardinals players who made the list and my beefs with some of the guys who made it and some of the guys who didn't.
31. Larry Fitzgerald, WR, Arizona Cardinals: The Cardinals gave him a new contract in March because he's their go-to guy. He teams with Anquan Boldin to form one of the top receiving duos.
Just missed: Adrian Wilson, S, Arizona Cardinals
Now, there's only guy I can make a legitimate case for who should be on this list , Anquan Boldin. I'd have a much bigger case if there were more receivers on the list but there were only nine: Moss (4th), Owens (13th), Steve Smith (21st), Wayne (22nd), Andre Johnson (26th), Ocho Cinco (28th), Fitz (31st), Braylon Edwards (34th) and Wes Welker (48th). Of the guys on that list, I'd personally put Boldin ahead of Welker considering that Q has three seasons that were as good as or better than Welker's sole standout season. I guess that's what happens when you play for a media darling like the Patriots versus playing in the desert.
Other head scratchers:
Quarterback: Is Carson Palmer really the 8th best player in the entire league and 3rd best quarterback? Before you answer consider this:
QB1 - 61 games, 64.1 completion %, a combined QB rating of 90.1 and per game numbers of 244 yards, 1.71 TDs and1.03 INTs
QB2 - 93 games, 65.1 completion %, a combined QB rating of 93.2 and per game numbers of 258 yards, 1.63 TDs and 1.07 INTs
In case anyone is wondering QB1 is Palmer and QB2 is Kurt Warner. Now I'm not in any manner trying to say that Warner deserves to be on this list or that he's a better quarterback than Palmer, but I am trying to say that Palmer is highly overrated if he's considered anywhere close to a top 10 player in the NFL.
Tight End: First I'll go ahead and state that this is possibly my favorite position (partly because that's where I played in school) so I always try and follow the better tight ends in the league. The tight ends who made the list were Gates (24th), Kellen Winslow (44th) and Tony G (46th), but the name that jumps out to me that is missing is Jason Witten. I'd personally take Witten over either Winlsow or Gonzalez because he's the not only an excellent receiver, but also a good blocker (which Winslow isn't) and he's still young (which Gonzalez isn't) at just 26 years old.
A couple of other things that rubbed me the wrong way:
- Where's Jason Taylor? Sure he's 33 years old and his best days are behind him, but to think that a guy that's averaged over 12.5 sacks the past eight seasons isn't even in the top 50 is ridiculous.
- Please don't show this list to Darnell Dockett. He likes to compare himself to Tommie Harris and Harris was ranked 36th.
So what do you guys think of the list? What tweaks would you make and who deserves to be on here that isn't and who would you boot off?