Cowboys Positional Rankings: Comparing Cowboys Players To Their NFL Peers

[RS12]

Positional rankings give the best player in the league at his position 100 positional value points and the worst at his position gets zero points. Want to see where the Cowboys players rank in such a comparison? Read on.

The Cowboys are fast approaching the halfway point of their season, and with seven games played, now is a good time to see how the individual Cowboys players have performed relative to the other players at their position in the NFL. To do that, we'll look at their positional rankings over the first seven weeks.

The idea behind positional rankings is to find a metric that makes all players in the league comparable. Currently, the only service that offers a metric for every single player in the league is Pro Football Focus (PFF), but instead of looking at the grades (I'll try to keep the grades out of this post as much as I can) they assign to the players, I'm going to look at where a given player is ranked at his position.

Example: PFF has ranked the inside linebackers by the cumulative grade they have received so far this season. That ranking lists all 50 ILBs who played at least 25% of the snaps for their team this year. Sean Lee is ranked as the 5th best ILB on that list, Bruce Carter is 16th.

http://www.lockerpulse.com/News/Dall...Dallas-Cowboys

[Wolfpack]

Sad that Nate Livings is the best rated OL and that your #2 & 3 WR are in the BAD category.

[RS12]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

Sad that Nate Livings is the best rated OL and that your #2 & 3 WR are in the BAD category.

Without getting into the validity of PFF I agree. Dez had dreadful grades, and just from the eye ball test he hasnt been stellar.

[muck4doo]

Link goes to another article

[RS12]

Originally Posted by muck4doo

Link goes to another article

Try this.

http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2012/...heir-nfl-peers

[Diogenes]

I've tried to tell people who wanted to argue that Livings has been playing well and for all the grief that Spencer gets from Cowboy fans...

[muck4doo]

Originally Posted by RS12

Try this.

http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2012/...heir-nfl-peers

Thank you.

[perrykemp]

Ugh.

This is a damning list if I've ever seen one, even if you fall into the "PFF sucks" camp. Look at the ranking of the following 5 offensive starters:

Doug Free is the 62nd ranked OT?
Tyrone Smith is the 46th ranked OT?
Mackenzy Bernadeau is the 55th ranked?
Dez Bryant 88th ranked WR?
Ogletree is the 97 ranked WR?

You wonder why the Cowboy's offense is hovering at the bottom of the league -- the performance of those guys has a lot to do with it.

In particular, you'd hope the Cowboys 1st round drafts picks from 2010 (Dez) and 2011 (Smith) would be playing better.

[Sarge]

Originally Posted by perrykemp

Ugh.

This is a damning list if I've ever seen one, even if you fall into the "PFF sucks" camp. Look at the ranking of the following 5 offensive starters:

Doug Free is the 62nd ranked OT?
Tyrone Smith is the 46th ranked OT?
Mackenzy Bernadeau is the 55th ranked?
Dez Bryant 88th ranked WR?
Ogletree is the 97 ranked WR?

You wonder why the Cowboy's offense is hovering at the bottom of the league -- the performance of those guys has a lot to do with it.

In particular, you'd hope the Cowboys 1st round drafts picks from 2010 (Dez) and 2011 (Smith) would be playing better.

Yet some continue to say the OL is "improving." Uh........how can they not?

[blackbull]

I think Tyron has been playing well.

[perrykemp]

Originally Posted by blackbull

I think Tyron has been playing well.

I think he has been part of the problem in the running game. In fact, I suspect his performance run blocking is why PFF has him ranked so low.

[burmafrd]

Originally Posted by perrykemp

I think he has been part of the problem in the running game. In fact, I suspect his performance run blocking is why PFF has him ranked so low.

his personal problems have probably not helped either.

[burmafrd]

However I think that anyone that takes PFF seriously would look at these positional rankings and laugh

Deware #6?

And despite his problems I have a hard time seeing Dez as #88 in the NFL.

Sorry I do not buy that there are 87 better WRs.

[Deep_Freeze]

Originally Posted by perrykemp

Ugh.

This is a damning list if I've ever seen one, even if you fall into the "PFF sucks" camp. Look at the ranking of the following 5 offensive starters:

Doug Free is the 62nd ranked OT?
Tyrone Smith is the 46th ranked OT?
Mackenzy Bernadeau is the 55th ranked?
Dez Bryant 88th ranked WR?
Ogletree is the 97 ranked WR?

You wonder why the Cowboy's offense is hovering at the bottom of the league -- the performance of those guys has a lot to do with it.

In particular, you'd hope the Cowboys 1st round drafts picks from 2010 (Dez) and 2011 (Smith) would be playing better.

Yeah these rankings are obviously questionable, especially at DB where INTs seem to be a little bit too weighted. But the rankings aren't really surprising when you consider how bad the offense has really been, the only question is which parts are actually improving and which parts are the same or getting worse (probably the most important aspect of the OL at this point since it is the position that can improve the most as they play together).

[supercowboy8]

what about the other players in the NFL.
Like Loadholt.


Also this shows me how bad the secondary has gotten once Church went out.

Church and Sensabaugh will both be back next year but I think Dallas should still draft a replacement for Sensy. Sensy can play both positions and I think we should draft a guy like Shawn Williams or Vaccaro who can both also play SS and FS.


Looks like we need to find a true #2 WR and demote Dez to #3.

Ratliff is a bit surprising but he needs to be either a 4-3 DT or 3-4 DE now in his career.