In case you haven’t seen it yet, credit to Mike Lombardi for coming up with a new system to rank teams in which he uses blue and red chips to rank elite level talent, with the ultimate purpose of coming up with a better team ranking than the age-old who’s hot who’s not power rankings.
In his ranking system, Lombardi ranks the Jets 5th overall in the league based on their level of elite “red chip” and “blue chip” players.
5. NEW YORK JETS (70 points)
A talented team with other talented players (Antonio Cromartie, Braylon Edwards and Shonn Greene) who are not yet at blue- or red-chip status, but could become blue or red with a solid season. The Jets are like the Ravens in the sense that they will need at least red-chip play from their young quarterback, Mark Sanchez, to be an elite team.
The way it’s phrased sounds off out of context, but go read the article and it will make more sense. Seeing him rate the Jets where they are, helps me to validate my assessment that I really do believe that the level of talent on this team is better than I can remember on the Jets team for a long time. Lombardi’s also right about Sanchez. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a sophomore player, but the truth is that the defense (assuming Revis shows up) will be top five, and should be able to do it in a sustainable way. The offense has more weapons than I can remember in a long time and while the team will run the ball, Sanchez is going to have to keep teams honest, and avoid the costly mistakes we saw in the middle of the season.
This team definitely has star power. Not only do they have 70 in his rankings, he even said on the BS report (Bill Simmons’ podcast) that Shonn Greene could possibly be a red chip (not experienced enough to get it yet, and he’s completely correct about that, he played much less than a season), and mentioned that Jim Leonhard is a very good player who just wasn’t quite good enough to make the list. Also, Holmes was moved to the red as his last move (placing Megatron in the blue), costing the Jets 2.5 points. And there’s a lot of volatility in these.
So basically, don’t take the exact rankings to heart. They basically say the Saints, Steelers, Ravens, Pats, Jets, Vikings, Chargers, and Boys have the most stars in the league, but the order is volatile.
A very good read BTW.
OFF TOPIC
mortreport
Terernce Cody not passing Ravens’ conditioning test for training camp…. stunning development – not!
Adam_Schefter
Not a good start in Baltimore. RT @duffstar: Ravens CB Walt Harris and rookie DT Terrence Cody didn’t pass conditioning test.
if you take away the 10 (bull****) points that the Pats, Saints, and Steelers got for head coaching, the Ravens and Jets are the two best teams in the league.
Innovative rating programs are always welcome. Unfortunately, every attempt to quantify the predicted performance of a team is flawed. The time-tested method of objectively watching every team play several games is the closest accurate method of figuring where teams stand. And you can’t do this until around 4 games into the season.
As for this method, evaluating a team based on the number of elite and near elite players fails to take into consideration the balance of the starters and the value of the bench. However, it does provide interesting conversation. If Lombardi professes that this system is the best or constitutes an insightful system, I suggest he bet on the teams on top and Vegas will line up to take his money.
any article you read from now until the season opener will have the same six or seven teams on top, the orders only varying based on personal opinion.
bottom line is we know anything short of a repeat AFC title game appearance would be a huge disappointment.
I’ll know more in 2 weeks, once Madden 2011 arives and I can simulate the season. After that, we’ll have all the answers!
Is this new? I could’ve sworn he did this last year and we were all complaining about how he underrated all our best players.
In fact, no, I remember, he was talking about it with Simmons on their season preview podcast last year…obviously the idea at that time was in his infancy. They concluded that the Pats had the most blue and red chip players and that this was the best way to determine who had the best team. They mentioned every team in the NFL apart from the Jets, who at the time had more returning Pro Bowlers than anyone in the league and never entertained the possibility that the Jets might be good because they obviously have a lot of talent.
Glad to see him do this properly and give the Jets their due. Let’s hope it’s a good theory.
For ease of reference:
Holmes – 5
Ferguson – 10
Mangold – 7.5
Keller – 5
Moore – 5
Jenkins – 7.5
Pace – 10
Harris – 7.5
Revis – 7.5
Scott – 5
Is Holmes lower because of suspension? He’s a top 10-15 WR talent in the NFL.
Moore a 5? He’s one of the best RG’s in football. I’m glad I held firm with my boycott of Lombardi and didn’t bother clicking the link.
Revis 7.5, hah.
Brendan – you misunderstand. Moore and Holmes are not rated as 5 out of 10, they are rated as third tier prospects and therefore assigned 5 points under his ranking system. In other words, anyone not listed is considered a below third-tier prospect. I assume the top tier is for the elite, the next is for star players and the third are guys he considers very good. Anything below that, I guess, is not a difference maker.
Understood.
Then, uhhh, how is Revis not top tier (almost universally seen as the best non-QB in the league)?
Whatever. The embargo continues.
it’s not science. at best it’s a loose reference system for which teams have the most talent on their rosters. and i mean loose. it’s no surprise that the jets have talent on their team.
If you actually read the article you would see that there isn’t a single cornerback with higher than a 7.5.
I guess I’ll repeat myself:
“uhhh, how is Revis not top tier (almost universally seen as the best non-QB in the league)?”
Best.Non-QB.In.Football.
That’s top tier, IMO.
I guess he’s saying that a CB cannot be as much of a difference maker as a LT, QB, RB or whatever. Same reason CBs don’t generally go in the top three and that no CB deserves 15m a year.
In other words, the best CB in the NFL is less valuable than the top five QBs. True, n’est pas?
Nailed it.
Oh, so he has assigned value to each level. So, like any other ranking, this one is dumb as well.
I finally clicked, saw his system, and realized that he’s still an idiot.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/don_banks/07/27/precamp.1/index.html?eref=sihp
Wow check out where SI put the Jets in their power rankings. I can’t see too many Jets fans complaining!
He fell asleep with the assignment for coaching. 5 coaches get 10 and no other coaches are atleast second tier? Rex has a great resume as a DC, led his team to #1 D, and did a great job coaching a 4-6 team to the AFC title game. Give the guys who won the SB 10 if you want but you can’t tell me Rex isn’t worth 5-10 points to his team. If this is measuring star talent it’s hard to argue Rex is not a star.
The other thing, Lombardi repeatedly has said the Jets aren’t ranked this high yet his system says they are…interesting.
JETSon – Yeah, as I mentioned above, in the Simmons podcast this time last year, they talked about the best teams in the league AND this being a good system to work out who was in that group and failed to even mention the Jets in passing, whereas if they had, there is no way that they could have come to any other conclusion than the Jets have a lot of talent and therefore should be pretty good.
I assumed that omission was deliberate because far be it for either of them two to credit the Jets for anything.
I like Simmons…except when he’s talking about a NY sports team.
He won’t even give the Knicks credit for having a good offseason.
But he and Lombardi are noted Jet-haters. Let ‘em hate.
Brendan, that is in no way dumb, not every position impacts the game the same amount. Of course across the league QB’s have more impact on the game than CB’s, that’s not even debatable, so why wouldn’t a ranking system value them differently?
Not my point. Pigeonhole-ing positions is wrong. On average, sure, QBs are more important than CBs, I would never dispute that.
But not EVERY player at a certain positions should be valued equally. I realize it’s just another way to try and rank teams, and no single way is perfect, but I don’t think you can rank Big Ben and Peyton Manning as “10″.
Why in the world can you not rate those guys as 10? Peyton Manning may end his career as the best QB to ever play the game, and Big Ben already has two superbowls. This is just more Jets-homer crap. Just because Revis had one great season everyone wants to label him the greatest man to ever walk the earth and completely throw away anyone elses achievements. Somebody had to be a 10, who better than Peyton Manning? Who would you put as a 10 in Peyton Manning’s place?
Isn’t he just saying that Big Ben and Manning shouldn’t have the SAME rating?
juunit,
It has nothign to do with Revis. He was my initial example. Does anyone think that Big Ben is as good as Manning? I sure hope not.
My point is you can’t just say “these X amount of players at X position are all really good, so they’re worth an equal amount”.
I was saying Manning is on another level. He’s a 10. Brees and Brady are 10s. No other QB is on their level, so why assign 7 or whatever other QBs the same value?
One of the other key faults of this system is it doesn t allow for key contributors to a team that are solid and necessary. A third tier is needed. The jets get nowhere without JCo and Ellis. Garcon and Collie for the Colts. The best teams are the best because of a wealth at that third tier. How many times have when seen teams languish with no solid players around their stars?
The whole thing isn’t meant to be some infallible exercise to find the best team. All he’s trying to do is figure out which team has the most top-end starpower. Giving different value to different positions is definitely a fine way to do so.
And g.JETSon, the exercise isn’t about that. Again, it’s not meant to find the best team, it’s meant to look at which teams have the most top end talent. So it isn’t meant to find the solid contributors, that’s not the point of it.
cmart – I agree, it isn’t and shouldn’t be, but when he and Simmons were first talking about this idea, they were saying “and that will tell us who has the best team”. Maybe it was Simmons who thought that, or maybe Lombardi had a rethink (or saw how high the Jets ranked and thought “we can’t have that”.)
The whole idea strikes me as flawed if it was going to identify the best team. Look at Mangold, Moore and Brick and the difference between when the Jets had Faneca and Woody as compared with Clarke and Clement. A team with 5 great players and no bad ones will always beat a team with 10 great players and holes all over the place. That’s why the Raiders, Cowboys and Redskins have underachieved for so long.
Sorry I didn’t understand your wording. But I think the issue is those three guys would really be 12′s while all the others are 10′s. I think he felt like he couldn’t give those guys a 7.5 just because they weren’t on a legendary level. They are still excellent QB’s. I think he rated them each individually instead of saying they weren’t future members of the HOF so they weren’t worthy of the top grade.
I think we’re more or less all on the same page.