Let me preface this by saying that almost every single word of what I’m about to write could potentially be incorrect. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Possibly the most reliable source I’ve used here is Wikipedia, if that tells you anything.

But you guys will help correct me if I say something really stupid, right?

It all starts with a message board post from a guy I don’t know that I saw linked from another message board.

Usain Bolt’s splits during the Olympic 100m race

RT 0.165
10m 1.85
20m 2.87 (1.02)
30m 3.78 (0.91)
40m 4.65 (0.87)
50m 5.50 (0.85)
60m 6.32 (0.82)
70m 7.14 (0.82)
80m 7.96 (0.82)
90m 8.79 (0.83)
100m 9.69 (0.90)

30m is 32.8084 yards. So he needs to cover 7.1916 more yards from there.

He ran from 30m to 40m in .87 seconds, or .087 seconds per meter, or .0795528 seconds per yard. But he wasn’t at top speed yet. So the first 7 yards of that would have been slightly slower than the average of the full ten meters, but faster than the .0832 seconds per yard at which he ran from meter 20 to meter 30. So let’s say he averaged a nice round .08 seconds per yard. Multiply that by 7.1916 and you get .575. Add that to his 30m split and you’re at 4.35 or 4.36.

So unless I’ve done something wrong, we have the following:

At 40 yards of the actual Olympic 100m race, Bolt was at 4.35 or 4.36

But wait…

His reaction time was .165. My understanding is that the combine 40 is timed from the runner’s actual start rather than from a gun. So if this were in an NFL combine setting, that reaction time would be gone and he’d be at 4.19.

But wait…

There are no starting blocks at the NFL combine. And my understanding is that this particular Olympic track is the fastest around. Those two things would push his NFL combine time up over 4.2, maybe up to 4.25 or even 4.3.

But wait…

If he were training specifically for the 40, he might be able to do some things somewhat differently to shave a few hundredths off.

I hereby declare that Bolt would run a 4.22 at the combine.

Chris Johnson ran a 4.24 at this year’s combine. Does that make my Bolt estimate seem too high? Or does it mean that the timing at the combine is inexact or inconsistent or just plain generous? Could be either one — or both — but I’m not totally sure the two figures are incompatible. It was around the halfway point that Bolt really blew everyone else away; I don’t even think he was leading at 40 yards. So it’s not clear to me that Chris Johnson couldn’t hang close to him for 40 yards.

In Parts 1 and 2, I attempted to figure out what a starting QB — an actual regular starting QB, not a placeholder like say Chris Redman — is worth to a team.

I came up with an empirical answer of 2.3 points per game, and I used a sort of thought experiment to convince myself that that is about right.

Ultimately, though, we don’t really care about the points. We care about the wins. So I translated the points into wins (just about exactly one win per season, it turned out). But another way to go would be to skip the points step and go straight to the wins. That is, instead of looking at how many points per game a team lost when forced to play its backup, look directly at how many “wins per game” they lost.

When I do that with the same data set as the previous study, I get an average drop of .038 in winning percentage, which comes out to 0.6 wins per season. That’s lower than the estimate based on points, which might indicate that, as some commenters speculated, the points go down due to a change to a more conservative game plan and/or possibly extra effort by the defense (though I checked, and defenses did not allow fewer points in games started by the backup.)

I then decided to make absolutely sure I wasn’t biasing the results toward the backups by intentionally trying to bias them toward the starters. In particular, I threw out all the teams whose starting QBs had a below-.500 record. So I was looking at all teams since 1990 whose game one starting QB started at least eight games and whose passing stats were at least league average and whose record was at least .500. That sample includes 31 teams. Using those teams, the average difference in winning percentage between starter and backups was .108, which would imply 1.7 wins per year.

Make of that what you will.

Another interesting comment from the previous threads is that perhaps a backup quarterback will do better in his first game or two than he will in later games when opposing defenses presumably have a better idea what to expect from him.

To test this, I ran a regression. I took each game involving the teams in the original sample and recorded the following bits of data about it.

1. The overall season-long offensive quality of the team, as measured by offensive SRS.

2. The quality of the defense they faced, as measured by defensive SRS.

3. Whether the starting quarterback was the starter or a backup.

4. If a backup, whether it was his first week starting or not.

[I should have included home field here, but just forgot.]

For the output variable, I used points scored (for that game) above the league average for the year.

Results:

1. The coefficient on the starting QB variable was 2.4 (points per game), which matches up very well with our estimate from yesterday. That’s reassuring.

2. The coefficient on the “first week starting” variable was -0.1 and was nowhere near being significant. So no evidence for a surprise effect.

Finally, I used a regression to get another estimate on the winning question.

Inputs:

1. offensive quality - defensive quality

2. starting QB or not

Output:

Win or loss

The best-fit formula is this:

Est. probability of winning =~ 1 / (1 + e^(.3083 - (pointdiff)*(.1649) - (starting QB?)*(.2842)))

So for example, if your offense was average and your opponent’s defense was 5 points better than average (pointdiff = -5), and you had your starting QB (starting QB = 1), your probability of winning would be about 30%. Against the same defense without your starting QB, your chance would be about 24%.

If your offense was average and your defense was average, then your probability of winning drops by about seven percentage points depending on whether your starter is playing or not.

Six or seven percentage points times 16 games yields, again, almost exactly one win per season. More verification of the prior estimates.

Yesterday I asked you to speculate on how many points per game teams have historically lost when their starting quarterback was replaced by a backup.

Before I tell you the results, let’s walk through a theoretical exercise….

If you take an average offensive team, let’s say the 2008 Redskins, and you assume that they lost ALL their offensive starters for the season, how many points do you think they’d score per game in 2008?

They’d be rolling with the likes of Todd Collins, Ladell Betts, Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, Fred Davis, and a backup offensive line. Arguably, you might give them the services of Antwaan Randle El instead of Kelly. They might go out and sign some veteran Shaun Alexander-type players off the street.

I’d say that offense scores about 12 points per game. They couldn’t be that much worse than last year’s Chiefs or 49ers, who averaged about 14 points per game. The last three expansion teams combined have averaged 16 points per game and all were above 13. Twelve points per game would be the second-lowest figure of the last seven seasons (thank you 2006 Raiders) and would have been last in the league in seven of the last ten years.

If you’re willing to buy 12 points per game, then you’ve just agreed that an entire average offensive starting eleven is worth about 9 or 10 points per game.

Now, what percentage of an average offense does the quarterback account for? 20%? 30%? 40%?

If you say 30%, then the other ten are worth a combined 70%, or 7% each on average. That makes the QB worth more than four times as much as a typical non-QB offensive player. Is the QB worth more than the two guards, the center, and the right tackle combined? Is he worth more than the tight end, both wide receivers, and the running back combined? I don’t think so.

I’m not sure how reliable the data accompanying these purty pictures are, but this link (and those that follow) give the average salaries by position as follows:

QB - 1.97 million
OL - 1.27 million
WR - 1.05 million
RB - .96 million
TE - .86 million

That would imply that 16% of the total salary paid to offensive players goes to quarterbacks. I believe that includes all players, not just starters, but I don’t see why the starting-eleven ratio would be too much different.

In short, if NFL General Managers believed that quarterbacks were worth (more than) four times more than wide receivers, why do they only allocate twice the resources to quarterbacks? And if NFL GMs don’t think quarterbacks are worth four times more than wide receivers, then why do you?

Anyway, if you don’t agree, fill in your own number and go with it. My number would be around 20% or 25%, which would make the QB worth about two-and-a-half to three times what a typical non-QB offensive starter is worth.

So a typical QB accounts for about 20% to 25% of the offense, and a typical starting eleven is worth about 10 points per game. Thus, a typical starting quarterback is worth around two to two-and-a-half points per game.

The result of the study I described yesterday is the empirical verification of the theoretical observations above. Actual teams who have replaced their starter with a backup have on average dropped off by 2.3 points per game.

As I mentioned yesterday, I tried lots of different variations on the definition of a starting quarterback. These tweaks made the sample sizes grow or shrink, and they made the “average starting quarterback” better or worse. But in virtually every case, the number was between 2 and 3.

How does that translate to wins?

A regression of Simple Rating System rating to wins says that adding one point per game will add about .45 wins over the course of a season. So a typical starting quarterback is worth 2.3 points per game, and 2.3 points per game is worth just about one win per season. (A Pythagorean calculation, by the way, would give a very similar result.)

If this still seems too low, let me rattle off some examples:

In 2007, the Texans scored more points with Sage Rosenfels starting than with Matt Schaub starting.

In 2006, the Eagles scored more points with backup Jeff Garcia than with Donovan McNabb.

In 2005, the Jags were better with backup David Garrard than with starter Byron Leftwich.

If you’re tempted to raise an objection on the grounds that David Garrard is too good a backup to be considered typical, I will overrule it. Part of the point of this is that sometimes, backups are better than you think they are. David Garrard was the very definition of a backup quarterback when he replaced Byron Leftwich in 2005. And Leftwich, who had an 8-3 record as a starter and a 15/5 TD/INT ratio, certainly looked like an above average starting quarterback.

The 2001 Vikings scored more points (per game) with Spergon Wynn and Todd Bouman than with Daunte Culpepper.

The 2000 Saints’ offense was much more productive with a young backup named Aaron Brooks than it was with veteran starter Jeff Blake, who had been having a fine season.

The 1998 Broncos scored more with Bubby Brister playing than with John Elway.

The 1996 Dolphins scored more with Craig Erickson than with Dan Marino.

And the list goes on.

There are, of course, lots of examples of the opposite thing happening. But when you add them all up, it comes out to an average of 2.3 points per game.

In closing, I’ll mention that you could run through the same exercise for a particular QB that we just did with an average QB. It’ll still just be conjecture, but it’ll be fun. Take Tom Brady for instance.

If the Patriots lost their entire starting eleven tomorrow, how many points would they score? I’m inclined to say maybe 16 per game, because Belichick is a genius and the Patriots do everything The Right Way and John Lynch would probably move to tight end and all that sort of thing. With their actual starting eleven, I’d go ahead and give them credit for the 36 points per game they scored last year. On one hand, they probably caught a bit of lightning in a bottle last season and can’t keep up that pace. But on the other hand, they weren’t playing with their actual starting eleven all season either. If they had all eleven guys for 16 games this season, they probably could match last season’s output. So I’ll estimate that the Patriots’ starting offense is worth 20 points.

Brady is probably a bigger part of the Patriots’ offense than a typical quarterback is to a typical offense, so maybe give him credit for a third of that. Then round up, and you’re at 7 points per game. That’s right around three wins. I believe Vegas is currently showing an over/under of 12 or 12.5 wins for New England, so the above says that the Patriots would be a 9- or 10-win team if they lost Brady tomorrow.

[EDIT: it just occurred to me that the Vegas lines have some probability of a Brady injury already built into them. If New England were assured of Brady's services for 16 games, the over/under would probably be 13 wins. Maybe 13.5, though I don't think it would go that high. So I think that means that my estimate is that New England would be a solid 10-win team (maybe 11) without Brady.]

Does that sound about right?

If Ben Roethlisberger or Drew Brees or David Garrard or Eli Manning or Jake Delhomme were to go down with an injury and be lost for the season, how much would it cost his team in the W column by the end of the year?

Here’s a quick study, made possible by the new QB start data.

The outline is this: take all teams who lost their starting QB for some games during the season, look at the team’s points per game with the starting QB compared to its points per game with the backup QB, and then average the differences. This will give a rough estimate of how many marginal points per game a typical starting QB adds compared to a typical backup QB.

Seems pretty straightforward. But as you might imagine, there are a lot of details to consider.

Mainly, what is “a starting QB” anyway? For the 2007 Atlanta Falcons, which QB — Harrington or Redman — goes in the starter column, and which goes in the backup column? The answer is neither of the above. For the purposes of this study, I want to throw out teams like the 07 Falcons altogether, and consider only teams that had a clear starter who was performing reasonably well, and were forced to replace him with his backup because of injury.

Because I don’t have historical injury info, I have to make some generalizations. So here are the teams I dug out of the database. I found all teams since 1990 satisfying the following:

1. the team’s week one starter started at least 8 games and was above the league average in terms of adjusted net passing yards per attempt.

2. the team had other QBs who started at least three games during the season, not counting the potentially garbage-time-infested 16th game.

This query isn’t perfect. I’m sure it will include a few teams I don’t want to include and exclude a few teams I don’t want to exclude, but I think it mostly hits the mark. In 2007, it gives us the Texans and Jaguars. Those are both teams we’d want to include. We also might have wanted to include the Rams, but the query doesn’t pick it up because Marc Bulger’s numbers were below average. If we relax the above average condition, we’ll end up pulling in teams like the Raiders and Falcons, and I don’t want to do that. If I’m asking how much a starting quarterback is worth, Josh McCown and Joey Harrington are not the starting quarterbacks I’m talking about.

In 2006, it gives us:

the Panthers, who were forced to replace Delhomme with Weinke for a few games.

the Redskins, who replaced Mark Brunell with Jason Campbell. It’s questionable whether this should be included or not, as the Redskins were not winning when they made the switch, though Brunell’s numbers were much more respectable than I remember them being.

the Eagles, who had a memorable several games with Jeff Garcia replacing Donovan McNabb. You might argue that Garcia is better than a typical backup, but that would be 100% revisionist. At the time, nobody thought the Eagles had a chance when McNabb went down. Nobody.

The point is, it’s tough crafting a query that will pick up exactly the teams you want. The alternative is to go through the list by hand and decide which teams to include. This will severely limit the sample size (I don’t remember exactly why Steve Pelleur replaced Steve Deberg in 1989) and will also introduce a lot of subjectivity into the process.

My solution is to use a rote query, but then try lots of different sets of parameters and see if they change the results. I tried using 110% of league average; I tried using 90% of league average; I tried requiring that the starter had a .500-or-better record in addition to above-average passing numbers; I tried requiring only seven games (instead of eight) for the starter and I tried requiring only 2+ games (instead of 3+) for the backup; I varied the minimum year. The results were surprisingly robust. The conclusions wouldn’t change at all.

OK, take a guess. What’s the number? How many points per game better is a team with its starting QB (as defined above) compared to its backup QB?

I’ll post the answer tomorrow.

On Tuesday, I looked at how the AFC franchises got their nicknames. The comments provided great information on some things I missed, and hopefully the local fans can provide inside info again today. Let’s take a look at the NFC.

Dallas Cowboys: The Cowboys entered the NFL in 1960 while the Oilers entered the AFL, giving Texas a pair of professional football teams. An earlier franchise had been called the Dallas Texans, but it folded after a year. Dallas nicknames in professional sports haven’t been very original — you’ve got the Rangers, Stars, Mavericks, and Cowboys. But before settling on ‘Cowboys’, the NFL franchise first picked Steers and then Rangers as the team nickname. Somehow I don’t think the Dallas Steers cheerleaders would have been very popular.

New York Giants: New York, like Pittsburgh, took the same team name that the popular baseball team used. While the New York baseball Giants went to San Francisco, the New York football Giants remained in New York. So how did the baseball team get their name? For two seasons, they operated as the New York Gothams. According to the San Francisco Giants website, the change to Giants occurred midway through the 1885 season. “On June 3, after a rousing extra-innings victory over Philadelphia, manager Jim Mutrie was so overcome with emotion that he supposedly blurted out a description of his team that immediately became the franchise’s new nickname. He called them his Giants.”

(Continued)

Since the 2008 season is almost here, I decided it would be good to teach my girlfriend about which teams are in which divisions, along with some NFL history. While I’m sure she got way more than she bargained for, she also asked me some questions that I really couldn’t answer. For one, she said, are there lots of Cardinals in Arizona? Showing off my knowledge, I was able to say “of course not, honey; the Cardinals actually started off in Chicago.” To which she replied “I don’t think there are many cardinals in Chicago, either.” Needless to say, I had no response to that. So we went to Wikipedia and this neat link from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I was surprised to read how many of the teams got their nicknames, and I thought some of the faithful PFR blog readers might be curious to hear about it, too.

Buffalo Bills: Buffalo had an NFL franchise as early as 1922, the Buffalo All-Americans. Two years later they were renamed the Buffalo Bisons, until the team folded during the Depression. When the AAFC was created, Buffalo was given a franchise, and in 1946 the AAFC’s Buffalo Bisons were born. The next year the team changed the nickname to ‘Bills’, and played until the league folded in 1949. There are two different stories to explain the change. According to Wikipedia, the team was given the name Bills after the (at the time) famous barbershop quartet that was formed in Buffalo. Yes, it may be that the original Buffalo Bills were named after an a capella group. According to the NFL, a fan contest was held to rename the team, and the winning entry was ‘Bills’, after he famous western frontiersman, Buffalo Bill Cody.

Whatever the origin, when Ralph Wilson was given an AFL team in Buffalo, he decided to take the old name from the AAFC franchise.

Miami Dolphins: Miami was one of the two AFL expansion franchises (Cincinnati was the other), and the first major professional sports team in the state. The AAFC did have the Miami Seahawks for a year, but a fan contest chose the name ‘Dolphins’ for the AFL club. Other finalists included the: Mariners, Marauders, Mustangs, Missiles, Moons, Sharks, and Suns. As you’ll continue to see, sports fans and NFL franchises seem to love alliteration. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, owner Joe Robbie said he liked the name because “the dolphin is one of the fastest and smartest creatures in the sea.”

(Continued)

If you go to a year page, like say 1973, you will now see a list of award winners for that year:

AP MVP                                  O.J. Simpson
Newspaper Ent. Assoc. MVP               O.J. Simpson
Bert Bell Award (Player of the Year)    O.J. Simpson
AP Offensive Player of the Year         O.J. Simpson
AP Defensive Player of the Year         Dick Anderson
Super Bowl MVP                          Larry Csonka
AP Offensive Rookie of the Year         Chuck Foreman
AP Defensive Rookie of the Year         Wally Chambers
Walter Payton Man of the Year           Len Dawson
AP Comeback Player of the Year          Roman Gabriel

And if you go to a player page, you’ll see his awards listed in the leaderboard box. Here’s Barry Sanders:

1989 NFL AP Offensive Rookie of the Year
1991 NFL Bert Bell Award (Player of the Year)
1994 NFL AP Offensive Player of the Year
1997 NFL AP MVP
1997 NFL PFWA MVP
1997 NFL Newspaper Ent. Assoc. MVP
1997 NFL Bert Bell Award (Player of the Year)
1997 NFL AP Offensive Player of the Year

Here is a master list of awards. We lack Coach of the Year. Aside from that, are there any other awards we should add?

In case you haven’t heard, the Jets traded for Brett Favre last night. While New York went just 4-12 last season, the Jets had arguably the most impressive off-season of any team in the NFL… and that was before adding Brett Favre. To recap, the Jets added Kris Jenkins at NT, Calvin Pace at OLB, and Vernon Gholston at OLB. On offense, New York signed G Alan Faneca, T Damien Woody and FB Tony Richardson, and drafted TE Dustin Keller. The Jets threw a ton of money at the big holes on the team — blocking, run stopping, and attacking the passer. Keller, who is in the mold of Dallas Clark and is more wide receiver than tight end, was supposed to be the big play threat the Jets needed. But after all these moves, the Jets biggest hole was still the one spot you can’t hide.

Until now. The addition of Favre instantly makes the Jets a legitimate playoff threat, and who knows what else. There are lots of things to talk about today, but here’s the first thing that came to mind: how often are teams led to the Super Bowl by new players? As it turns out, not that frequently. Here’s a look at five of the biggest moves:

• Marshal Faulk and Kurt Warner, 1999. Easily the two biggest acquisitions that any Super Bowl team has made, and it came in the same year. Faulk was picked up for a song in a trade with Indianapolis, and Kurt Warner came in just a few hops away from bagging groceries. We all know what happened here.

• Tony Dorsett, 1977. The Pitt Panther star became an instant hit in Dallas, ranking second in the league in rushing touchdowns and averaging 4.8 YPC. Dorsett chipped in four TDs in three post-season games, helping the ‘Boys get over the hump and win Super Bowl XII.

• Ronnie Lott, 1981. Like Dorsett four years earlier, Lott was an instant hit in the pros, and that was before he helped redefine the safety position. As a rookie he led the league in return touchdowns, and was named an All Pro at cornerback. In the playoffs, his fourth quarter interception iced the ‘Niners first playoff victory.

• Deion Sanders, 1994. After being named All Pro his last two seasons in Atlanta, Sanders was named to his third straight All Pro (and Pro Bowl) team in San Francisco. His 303 yards on interception returns still ranks as the third most in NFL history. Sanders won the Defensive Player of the Year award, and helped the 49ers end the Cowboys run as champions. The following year, Sanders went to Dallas, and won another Super Bowl.

• Sam Adams, 2000. Sure, Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson were the big names on that Ravens defense, but Sam Adams was the only other Pro Bowler for Baltimore that year. Adams’ huge body in the middle was a big reason why Lewis was able to be so dominant that season, and why the Ravens were able to win the Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer at quarterback.

What about QBs? Only three Super Bowl QBs were in their first year with their team — Trent Dilfer (2000), Kurt Warner (1999) and Earl Morrall (1972). In addition, Jim Plunkett (1980) and Roger Staubach (1971) both played just sparingly with their teams before guiding them to the Super Bowl in those years.

As for Favre’s age (he’s 38 now, and turns 39 in October), does history say Favre has a chance? The 38 year old Favre was terrific, so that’s probably the best sign that the 39 year old Favre will be very good. Warren Moon, John Elway, Phil Simms, Joe Montana, Craig Morton, Doug Flutie and Earl Morrall all had at least one very good year at 38 or older.

Thanks to some serious research by a blog reader named Scott K, we now have data on which quarterbacks started which games all the way back to 1960.

Even though I’m opposed to the oversimplification of crediting wins and losses to quarterbacks, QB win-loss records are by far the most frequent request I get. So I’ve added them to the player pages, the team pages, and various other pages.

There’s also no limit to the amount of database hot dogging I can do with this info in the database. For example…

(Continued)

In yesterday’s post I used a variety of metrics to determine which running back was most helped by his offensive line. All of them were lacking in one way or another, so I am going to make a more sophisticated effort with this post. Will it be a more accurate effort? I’ll let you decide.

First I used my Approximate Value method to construct an aging curve for offensive linemen. This topic is itself enough for a whole post or more, but for now I’ll skip it and just show you the curve.

Age  PctOfPeak
============
21 => 0.48
22 => 0.48
23 => 0.57
24 => 0.81
25 => 0.93
26 => 0.97
27 => 1.00
28 => 1.00
29 => 0.97
30 => 0.91
31 => 0.90
32 => 0.88
33 => 0.78
34 => 0.76
35 => 0.77
36 => 0.63
37 => 0.62
38 => 0.62
39 => 0.62
40 => 0.62

These numbers are fractions of peak AV. So according to this, a typical lineman has a pretty flat peak from age 26 to 29. He loses about 10% of that value by his age 30 season, and another 10ish percent by age 33. By age 40, if he’s still around, he’s about 60% of the player he was at his peak.

Next, I take every offensive lineman and define his Peak AV as the average of his three (not necessarily consecutive) best seasons.

Then, for each season, I multiply his peak AV by the appropriate age multiplier and assume that’s about how good he was in that year.

The idea here is to get an estimate for how good a lineman was in each year of his career without making it so directly tied to the quality of his team and the honors and awards that he happened to win in just that year.

Alright, so now we’ve got a quality estimate for every lineman for every year. And, for all its potential faults, I do think it successfully addresses some of the concerns of the metrics we used yesterday: Anthony Munoz is distinguished from Frank Winters; non-pro-bowlers are not counted as useless; a decrepit old Bruce Matthews is not counted as equal to a prime Bruce Matthews.

Below is the same list of 100 running backs from yesterday, this time sorted by the (carry-weighted) average estimated (as above) quality of all five starting offensive linemen on each team they played for:

Jim Brown            54.99
Calvin Hill          51.96
Jim Taylor           49.74
Mark van Eeghen      49.19
Chuck Foreman        48.32
Mike Garrett         47.52
Lenny Moore          47.13
Roger Craig          46.76
Larry Csonka         45.83

(Continued)

Following is a list of the top 100 rushers in the NFL/AFL since 1950, sorted by the average number of pro bowl offensive line teammates per season.

Jim Brown             2.26
Eric Dickerson        2.12
Clem Daniels          1.93
William Andrews       1.92
Robert Smith          1.88
Emmitt Smith          1.79
Jim Taylor            1.77
Priest Holmes         1.68
Bill Brown            1.65
Shaun Alexander       1.62
Lawrence McCutcheon   1.61

(Continued)

The AV formula for the seasons in the 1950–1969 range is quite a bit different from the post-merger formula. It’s quite a bit simpler, in fact, so this should really be considered Approximate Approximate Value.

Nonetheless, I think it’s interesting enough to publish, with the understanding that it’s still very much in flux and, of course, even when it’s no longer in flux it’ll still fail to be everything we’d like it to be.

For those of you who have been following the AV discussion since the beginning, I apologize in advance for the recap, but I want to make sure this is in context for people stumbling upon this page blind. With that in mind, I’ll dig up a few quotes on the purpose of the AV system. This page has more details and links to further discussion.

The Approximate Value (AV) method is my attempt to put a single number on a player-season by a player at any position from any year

…

AV is not meant to be a be-all end-all metric. Football stat lines just do not come close to capturing all the contributions of a player the way they do in baseball and basketball. If one player is a 16 and another is a 14, we can’t be very confident that the 16AV player actually had a better season than the 14AV player. But I am pretty confident that the collection of all players with 16AV played better, as an entire group, than the collection of all players with 14AV.

Essentially, AV is a substitute for — and a significant improvement upon, in my opinion — metrics like “number of seasons as a starter” or “number of times making the pro bowl” or the like. You should think of it as being essentially like those two metrics, but with interpolation in between. That is, “number of seasons as a starter” is a reasonable starting point if you’re trying to measure, say, how good a particular draft class is, or what kind of player you can expect to get with the #13 pick in the draft. But obviously some starters are better than others. Starters on good teams are, as a group, better than starters on bad teams. Starting WRs who had lots of receiving yards are, as a group, better than starting WRs who did not have many receiving yards. Starters who made the pro bowl are, as a group, better than starters who didn’t, and so on. And non-starters aren’t worthless, so they get some points too.

With that, here is AV’s guess at the greatest players in 1950–present NFL/AFL history:

Reggie White           163
Jerry Rice             159
Alan Page              157

Aside: one of the side benefits of undertaking projects like this is that, even if you don’t agree with what your metric ultimately says — and I suspect few people will agree with Alan Page as the third-greatest player in post-1950 NFL history — you end up learning a lot. I learned, for example, just how insanely great the Purple People Eaters were.

In 1969, the Viking were 50 points better than the second-best defensive team in terms of points allowed. In 1970, the difference between the first-place Vikings and the second-place Lions was nearly as big as the gap between the Lions and average. They were a top-3 defense in seven of the eight seasons from 1969 to 1976, including two 1985-Bears-esque seasons.

AV recognizes Alan Page as the greatest member of the one of the greatest units of all time, which accounts for his higher-than-expected showing on this list. Carl Eller and Paul Krause will also appear soon.

The early-70s Vikings were like a substantially better version of the late-90s / early-00s Buccaneers. As you’ll see shortly, AV interprets Derrick Brooks as the poor man’s Alan Page and ranks him higher than most people think he should be ranked.

Brett Favre            147
Bruce Smith            146
Dan Marino             146
Rod Woodson            141
Johnny Unitas          141
Carl Eller             140
Lawrence Taylor        139
Merlin Olsen           139
Fran Tarkenton         138
John Elway             138
Anthony Munoz          137
Peyton Manning         136
Steve Young            134
Derrick Brooks         134
Andy Robustelli        133
Chuck Bednarik         133+

Bednarik has a ‘+’ to indicate that his career started before 1950, so his total AV is greater than the number listed.

More names after the jump…

(Continued)

Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.

Previous Divisions:

NFC West
NFC South
AFC North
AFC East
NFC North

Here are the rules:

1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.

2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.

3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.

4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.

As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.

Dallas Cowboys

QB   Roger Staubach       102+
RB   Emmitt Smith         126
RB   Tony Dorsett         103
WR   Michael Irvin        105
WR   Drew Pearson          78
TE   Billy Joe DuPree      58
T    Rayfield Wright       83+
T    Erik Williams         71
G    Larry Allen           85
G    Nate Newton           73
C    Tom Rafferty          65 

DT   Randy White          121
DT   Jethro Pugh           61+
DE   Too Tall Jones        97
DE   Harvey Martin         82
ILB  Bob Breunig           65
ILB  Lee Roy Jordan        61+
OLB  D.D. Lewis            63+
OLB  Dexter Coakley        61
CB   Mel Renfro            67+
CB   Everson Walls         65
SS   Darren Woodson        78
FS   Cliff Harris          84

New York Giants

QB   Phil Simms            90
RB   Tiki Barber           99
RB   Ron A. Johnson        54+
RB   Rodney Hampton        54
WR   Amani Toomer          63
WR   Chris Calloway        37
TE   Bob Tucker            59
T    Brad Benson           53
T    Doug Riesenberg       51
G    Doug Van Horn         50+
G    William Roberts       45
C    Bart Oates            54 

DT   Keith Hamilton        72
DT   John Mendenhall       47
DE   Michael Strahan      121
DE   Leonard Marshall      65
ILB  Harry Carson          93
ILB  Brian Kelley          59
OLB  Lawrence Taylor      139
OLB  Jessie Armstead       68
CB   Mark Haynes           61
CB   Perry Williams        50
SS   Beasley Reece         35
FS   Terry Kinard          45

Philadelphia Eagles

QB   Donovan McNabb        87   [Randall Cunningham = 86]
RB   Wilbert Montgomery    71
RB   Brian Westbrook       58
WR   Harold Carmichael     79
WR   Mike Quick            45
TE   Keith Jackson         37
T    Jerry Sisemore        68
T    Tra Thomas            61
G    Wade Key              38
G    Ron Baker             37
C    Guy Morriss           52 

DT   Charlie Johnson       55
DT   Jerome Brown          48
DE   Reggie White         112
DE   Clyde Simmons         68
ILB  Bill Bergey           69+
ILB  Jeremiah Trotter      62
OLB  Seth Joyner           61
OLB  William Thomas        58
CB   Eric Allen            73
CB   Troy Vincent          71
SS   Randy Logan           68
FS   Brian Dawkins         87

Washington Redskins

QB   Joe Theismann         87
RB   Larry Brown       71+
RB   John Riggins          58
WR   Art Monk              91
WR   Gary Clark            76
TE   Jerry Smith           43+
T    Joe Jacoby            83
T    George Starke         62
G    Russ Grimm            63
G    Mark May              46
C    Len Hauss             58+

DT   Dave Butz             81
DT   Diron Talbert         71+
DE   Charles Mann          80
DE   Ron McDole            63+
DE   Dexter Manley         63
ILB  Neal Olkewicz         58
ILB  Harold McLinton       54+
OLB  Chris Hanburger       91+
OLB  Wilber Marshall       54
CB   Darrell Green        103
CB   Mike Bass             52+
SS   Ken Houston           81+
FS   Mark H. Murphy        40
FS   Brig Owens            40+

The special teams guys have gotten just a little bit of love this summer, while we are in the dog days and waiting for pre-season to begin. Chase got it started last month with some discussion of the best return games, and a two-part follow up on Josh Cribbs and his 2007 season. Doug followed that up by introducing some new field goal kicker data, and asked whether Neil Rackers’ 2005 was better than Cribbs’ 2007 season. So, I figured the punters needed a little print as well.

Below is a list of Pro Bowl Punters for each year since the merger, going in reverse chronological order. I’ve listed the team with the PFR abbreviations for each franchise, and for those that have relocated at various times, I also list which location the team was playing if applicable (this will come up in the discussion later). For each pro bowl punter, I also list two other relevant pieces of information for the purpose of my discussion. First, I list the team gross punting average (though I figure most, if not all of the punts were made by the individual in question–it was just easier to compile this way), with the league rank in punting average for that season in parentheses. Next, I list the team rank in a stat that Doug developed for use in his approximate value work, and which was first discussed here, called OPPED (Offensive Points Per Estimated Drive). OPPED gives us a decent estimate of the caliber of offense that the particular pro bowl punter was playing with, ranging from Reggie Roby with the 1984 Miami Dolphins who went 14-2 (#1 in OPPED) to Todd Sauerbrun with the 1-15 2001 Carolina Panthers (#31 in OPPED) and all points in between.

Year	Name		Team		Gross Avg.	OPPED RK
=============================================================
2007	Lechler		rai-oak		49.1 (1)	23
2007	Lee		sfo		47.3 (2)	32
2006	Moorman		buf		43.6 (12-t)	25
2006	McBriar		dal		48.2 (1)	3
2005	Moorman		buf		45.7 (1-t)	19
2005	Bidwell		tam		45.6 (3)	20
2004	Lechler		rai-oak		46.7 (1)	16
2004	Berger		nor		43.6 (4)	17
2003	Hentrich	oti-ten		43.9 (3)	6
2003	Sauerbrun	car		42.8 (7)	18
2002	Hanson		jac		44.2 (2)	18
2002	Sauerbrun	car		45.1 (1)	30
2001	Lechler		rai-oak		45.6 (2)	3
2001	Sauerbrun	car		47.0 (1)	31
2000	Bennett		sdg		46.2 (1)	28
2000	Player		crd-ari		44.2 (8)	26
1999	Tupa		nyj		45.0 (4)	13
1999	Berger		min		45.4 (2)	5
1998	Hentrich	oti-ten		47.2 (1)	10
1998	Turk		was		43.5 (13-t)	18
1997	Barker		jac		44.9 (5)	2
1997	Turk		was		44.6 (6)	19
1996	Gardocki	clt-ind		45.7 (2)	14
1996	Turk		was		45.1 (4)	6
1995	Bennett		sdg		44.7 (2)	18
1995	Feagles		crd-ari		43.8 (4-t)	29
1994	Tuten		sea		42.9 (7-t)	23
1994	Roby		was		44.4 (2)	25
1993	Montgomery	oti-hou		45.3 (1)	5
1993	Camarillo	crd-ari		43.7 (7)	9
1992	Stark		clt-ind		44.8 (2)	26
1992	Camarillo	crd-ari		42.8 (10)	22
1991	Gossett		rai-la		44.2 (4)	13
1991	Camarillo	crd-ari		44.7 (3)	27
1990	Stark		clt-ind		42.8 (5-t)	20
1990	Landeta		nyg		44.1 (2)	8
1989	Roby		mia		41.7 (7)	10
1989	Camarillo	crd-ari		43.6 (1)	26
1988	Horan		den		43.8 (1)	13
1988	Arnold		det		42.4 (5)	28
1987	Mojsiejenko	sdg		42.0 (1)	27
1987	Arnold		det		41.8 (2)	21
1986	Stark		clt-ind		44.7 (2)	27
1986	Landeta		nyg		44.8 (1)	6
1985	Stark		clt-ind		44.7 (1)	11
1985	Hatcher		ram-la		42.6 (6)	23
1984	Roby		mia		44.7 (2)	1
1984	Hansen		nor		43.1 (4)	18
1983	Camarillo	nwe		44.6 (2)	20
1983	Birdsong	crd-stl		41.5 (9-t)	15
1982	Prestridge	den		45.0 (1)	25
1982	Jennings	nyg		42.8 (6)	19
1981	McInally	cin		44.8 (1)	2
1981	Skladany	det		43.5 (2)	3
1980	Guy		rai-oak		43.6 (3)	16
1980	Jennings	nyg		44.8 (1)	26
1979	Grupp		kan		43.1 (1)	26
1979	Jennings	nyg		42.7 (2)	27
1978	Guy		rai-oak		41.7 (4)	13
1978	Jennings	nyg		42.1 (2)	21
1977	Guy		rai-oak		43.3 (1)	2
1977	James		atl		41.2 (3)	25
1976	Guy		rai-oak		41.6 (3)	2
1976	James		atl		42.1 (2)	26
1975	Guy		rai-oak		43.8 (1)	6
1975	James		atl		41.5 (5)	21
1974	Guy		rai-oak		42.2 (1)	2
1974	Wittum		sfo		40.8 (5)	20
1973	Guy		rai-oak		45.3 (2)	12
1973	Wittum		sfo		43.7 (4)	17
1972	Wilson		kan		44.8 (1)	17
1972	Chapple		ram-la		44.2 (2)	11
1971	Wilson		kan		44.8 (1)	9
1971	Widby		dal		41.6 (8)	1
1970	Wilson		kan		44.9 (2)	15
1970	Green		chi		40.8 (14)	19
=============================================================

Another piece of information that I didn’t list is the record of these teams that had Pro Bowl punters. The overall winning percentage for the 76 Pro Bowl punter teams since 1970 is only 0.490 (569-592-7). Take out Ray Guy’s seven pro bowl seasons with the Oakland Raiders between 1973 and 1980, and the winning percentage for the remaining 69 seasons plummets to 0.464.

How is it that the best players at a position can collectively contribute so much that their teams have a losing record over a large span of time? Here are some possibilities:

(Continued)

Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.

Previous Divisions:

NFC West
NFC South
AFC North
AFC East

Here are the rules:

1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.

2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.

3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.

4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.

As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.

Chicago Bears

QB   Jim Harbaugh          43
QB   Jim McMahon           43
RB   Walter Payton        127
RB   Neal Anderson         60
WR   Curtis Conway         38
WR   James Scott           34
TE   Emery Moorehead       34
T    Keith Van Horne       63
T    Jimbo Covert          58
T    James O. Williams     58
G    Mark Bortz            52
G    Tom Thayer            41
C    Jay Hilgenberg        68 

DT   Steve McMichael       97
DT   Jim Osborne           72
DE   Dan Hampton          104
DE   Richard Dent          95
ILB  Mike Singletary      124
ILB  Brian Urlacher        92
OLB  Lance Briggs          56
OLB  Otis Wilson           54
CB   Donnell Woolford      44
CB   Allan Ellis           40
CB   Terry Schmidt         40
CB   Mike Richardson       40
SS   Gary Fencik           78
FS   Mark A. Carrier       51

Detroit Lions

QB   Greg Landry           70+
RB   Barry Sanders        122
RB   Billy Sims            57
WR   Herman Moore          81
WR   Johnnie Morton        52
WR   Brett Perriman        52
TE   Charlie Sanders       60+
T    Lomas Brown           80
T    Rocky Freitas         66+
G    Bob Kowalkowski       41+
G    Homer Elias           34
C    Kevin Glover          56 

DT   Doug English          71
DT   Luther Elliss         50
DE   Robert Porcher        67
DE   William Gay           50
ILB  Chris Spielman        66
ILB  Ken Fantetti          41
OLB  Paul Naumoff          60+
OLB  Charlie Weaver        55
CB   Lem Barney            66+
CB   James Hunter          41
SS   Mike Weger            29+
FS   Bennie Blades         46

Green Bay Packers

QB   Brett Favre          147
RB   Ahman Green           75
RB   John Brockington      50
WR   James Lofton          78
WR   Sterling Sharpe       67
TE   Paul Coffman          49
T    Ken Ruettgers         55
T    Greg Koch             51
G    Marco Rivera          47
G    Ron Hallstrom         40
C    Frank Winters         52 

DT   Mike McCoy            50
DT   Santana Dotson        41
DE   Reggie White          83
DE   Sweeny Williams       52
ILB  Jim Carter            48
ILB  Brian Noble           45
OLB  Fred Carr             66+
OLB  John Anderson         59
CB   Ken Ellis             59
CB   Willie Buchanon       55
SS   LeRoy Butler          87
FS   Darren Sharper        55

Minnesota Vikings

QB   Daunte Culpepper      80

Tarkenton has 77. Two things: (1) It seems clear that AV overrates running QBs. I need to do something about that, but I’m not sure what. (2) as of 2008, Culpepper seems like a joke. But don’t forget that he posted some really unbelievable statistical seasons. I’m not saying I agree with Culpepper over Tarkenton, but remember, AV only looks at the objective record. For all his faults, Culpepper still looks pretty good on that score.

RB   Chuck Foreman         80
RB   Robert Smith          61
WR   Cris Carter           92
WR   Randy Moss            85
TE   Steve Jordan          67
T    Ron Yary             116+
T    Tim Irwin             68
G    Randall McDaniel      97
G    David Dixon           51
C    Matt Birk             54 

DT   Alan Page            120+
DT   John Randle           97
DE   Carl Eller           102+
DE   Chris Doleman         93
ILB  Jeff Siemon           72
ILB  Scott Studwell        69
OLB  Matt Blair            75
OLB  Wally Hilgenberg      67+
CB   Carl Lee              66
CB   Bobby Bryant          66+
SS   Joey Browner          74
FS   Paul Krause           87+

Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.

Previous Divisions:

NFC West
NFC South
AFC North

Here are the rules:

1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.

2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.

3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.

4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.

As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.

Buffalo Bills

QB   Jim Kelly            102
RB   Thurman Thomas       110
RB   O.J. Simpson          87+
WR   Andre Reed            96
WR   Eric Moulds           69
TE   Pete Metzelaars       39
T    Joe Devlin            60
T    Ken Jones             50
G    Joe DeLamielleure     63
G    Ruben Brown           63
C    Kent Hull             73 

DT   Fred Smerlas          81
DT   Ted Washington        52
DE   Bruce Smith          139
DE   Phil Hansen           63
ILB  Shane Conlan          50
ILB  Jim Haslett           41
OLB  Cornelius Bennett     71
OLB  Darryl Talley         64
CB   Charles Romes         54
CB   Nate Odomes           49
SS   Henry Jones           57
FS   Tony Greene           52

Miami Dolphins

QB   Dan Marino           146
RB   Tony Nathan           59
RB   Larry Csonka          58+
WR   Nat Moore             80
WR   Mark Duper            76
TE   Bruce Hardy           39
T    Richmond Webb         97
T    Norm Evans            54+
G    Larry Little          95+
G    Bob Kuechenberg       77
C    Jim Langer            80 

DT   Bob Baumhower         90
DT   Tim Bowens            63
DE   Jason Taylor         109
DE   Vern Den Herder       74
ILB  Zach Thomas          111
ILB  John Offerdahl        57
OLB  Larry Gordon          51
OLB  Doug Swift            47
CB   Sam Madison           79
CB   Curtis Johnson        55
SS   Dick Anderson         63+
FS   Jake Scott            72

New England Patriots

QB   Tom Brady             91
RB   Sam Cunningham        60
RB   Tony Collins          47
WR   Stanley Morgan        80
WR   Troy Brown            54
TE   Ben Coates            58
T    Bruce Armstrong       85
T    Matt Light            59
G    John Hannah          105
G    Sam Adams             44
C    Bill Lenkaitis        50+

DT   Ray Hamilton          53
DT   Tim Goad              41
DE   Willie McGinest       71
DE   Richard Seymour       69
ILB  Steve Nelson          70
ILB  Tedy Bruschi          66
OLB  Andre Tippett         90
OLB  Chris Slade           51
CB   Raymond Clayborn      75
CB   Mike Haynes           73
SS   Lawyer Milloy         56
FS   Fred Marion           49

New York Jets

QB   Ken O’Brien           71
RB   Curtis Martin         79
RB   Freeman McNeil        78
WR   Wesley Walker         72
WR   Wayne Chrebet         55
TE   Jerome Barkum         62
T    Marvin Powell         78
T    Winston Hill          48+
G    Randy Rasmussen       60+
G    Dan Alexander         60
C    Joe Fields            67 

DT   Joe Klecko            71
DT   Marty Lyons           50
DE   Mark Gastineau        80
DE   Shaun Ellis           47
ILB  Kyle Clifton          56
ILB  Marvin Jones          52
OLB  Mo Lewis              88
OLB  Lance Mehl            44
CB   Aaron Glenn           53
CB   James Hasty           42
SS   Victor Green          47
FS   Burgess Owens         36

Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.

Previous Divisions:

NFC West
NFC South

Here are the rules:

1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.

2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.

3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.

4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.

As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.

Baltimore Ravens

QB   Vinny Testaverde      24
RB   Jamal Lewis           54
RB   Priest Holmes         17
WR   Travis Taylor         24
WR   Qadry Ismail          22
TE   Todd Heap             39
T    Jonathan Ogden       100
T    Orlando Brown         30
G    Edwin Mulitalo        27
G    Jeff Blackshear       21
C    Mike Flynn            32 

DT   Kelly Gregg           47
DT   Tony Siragusa         33
DE   Rob Burnett           48
DE   Michael McCrary       47
ILB  Ray Lewis            123
ILB  Ed Hartwell           26
OLB  Peter Boulware        60
OLB  Adalius Thomas        52
CB   Chris McAlister       72
CB   Duane Starks          23
SS   Ed Reed               61
FS   Rod Woodson           45

Cincinnati Bengals

QB   Ken Anderson         121
RB   James Brooks          71
RB   Corey Dillon          54
WR   Chad Johnson          73
WR   Isaac Curtis          67
TE   Rodney Holman         55
T    Anthony Munoz        137
T    Willie Anderson       86
G    Max Montoya           64
G    Dave Lapham           46
C    Bob Johnson           50+

DT   Tim Krumrie           65
DT   Mike Reid             47
DE   Eddie Edwards         61
DE   Ross Browner          51
ILB  Jim LeClair           59
ILB  Glenn Cameron         45
OLB  Reggie Williams       74
OLB  James Francis         44
CB   Ken Riley             89+
CB   Lemar Parrish         77
SS   David Fulcher         52
FS   Darryl Williams       30

Cleveland Browns

QB   Brian Sipe            74
RB   Greg Pruitt           68
RB   Mike Pruitt           56
WR   Reggie Rucker         46
WR   Webster Slaughter     39
TE   Ozzie Newsome         81
T    Doug Dieken           78
T    Cody Risien           64
G    Robert E. Jackson     48
G    Dan Fike              40
C    Tom DeLeone           48 

DT   Michael Dean Perry    71
DT   Jerry Sherk           65
DE   Rob Burnett           41
DE   Carl Hairston         37
ILB  Mike Johnson          47
ILB  Dick Ambrose          43
OLB  Clay Matthews         90
OLB  Charlie Hall          51
CB   Hanford Dixon         68
CB   Frank Minnifield      64
SS   Walt Sumner           31+
FS   Thom Darden           55

Pittsburgh Steelers

QB   Terry Bradshaw       106
RB   Franco Harris        101
RB   Jerome Bettis         65
WR   John Stallworth       80
WR   Hines Ward            72
TE   Bennie Cunningham     40
T    Larry Brown           68
T    Jon Kolb              67+
G    Alan Faneca           80
G    Sam Davis             48+
C    Mike Webster         100 

DT   Joe Greene           120+
DT   Gary Dunn             52
DE   L.C. Greenwood        95+
DE   Dwight White          65
ILB  Jack Lambert         114
ILB  Levon Kirkland        71
OLB  Jack Ham             119
OLB  Greg Lloyd            89
CB   Mel Blount           111
CB   Rod Woodson          104
SS   Donnie Shell          89
FS   Glen Edwards          50

As announced here and in the post below, there is a new member of the sports-reference family: Olympics at sports-reference.

I am trying to track down all olympians who also played in the NFL. Here’s who I’ve got so far. This list is probably not complete. Please help me add to it if you can.

Jim Thorpe (olympic page)
Dudley DeGroot (olympic page)
Ollie Matson (olympic page)
Jack Riley (olympic page)
John Spellman (olympic page)
Bob Hayes (olympic page)
Sam Francis (olympic page)
Herschel Walker (olympic page)
Ron Brown (olympic page)

Other notes:

World-class hurdler and practice-squad-class football player Renaldo Nehemiah never participated in the Olympics. The boycotted Moscow games were right in the prime of his career.

Canadian basketball olympian Bobby Simpson is in the CFL’s Hall of Fame.

Additionally, here is a sad bit of NFL history that I didn’t know about, from the bio of sprinter