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Most Valuable PositionWhat's more important, a running back or a center? A safety or a cornerback?

By Robert Weintraub
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007, at 2:33 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Lewis and his fellow inside linebackers come next. They make the lion's share of tackles and are responsible for short–to-medium-range pass coverage. A decade ago, the middle linebacker was the unquestioned defensive quarterback. While that description still fits Ray Lewis and a few others, the position is increasingly reliant on the big boys up front to occupy linemen.

Now the running backs finally appear, followed closely by the offensive line grunts, the guards. As Steve Hutchinson and Eric Steinbach's mammoth contracts show, mobile, strong guards are getting more respect from front offices around the league, and with good reason—Hutchinson can both create a crater inside and pull to open running lanes outside. Next come the edge pass rushers, specialists like Dwight Freeney who can be schemed against but require special attention—nothing destroys a drive like a sack on third down. It's close, but I'd rather have a player who consistently holds down the running attack rather than a guy who occasionally terrorizes the quarterback from the perimeter.

Whither the wideouts? They are the loudest players on the roster, always insisting on the damn ball. But in the grand scheme, a team with a great quarterback but average receivers is in much better shape than the reverse—witness the Patriots last year. I'd also argue that the best linemen and defenders have much more impact than the top receivers—they simply don't have stats that quantify that impact. Call it the fantasy football effect: Like the best running backs, big-time receivers get money and status far in excess of their effect on the final score. (I'd place receiving tight ends, like Antonio Gates, Dallas Clark, and Tony Gonzalez, in with this group as well—they're valuable downfield threats, but they are rarely called upon to block and struggle to do so effectively.)

As a special-teams enthusiast, one of my pet peeves is the constant ridicule of kickers and punters as goofy nerds. Kicking miscues cost Cincinnati and Dallas dearly last season; in contrast, Jason Elam showed Brady-esque poise and skill in banging home a field goal at the gun on Sunday to lift Denver over Buffalo. Call it parity or mediocrity, the closeness in talent in today's NFL puts a premium on field position. Tilting the field with consistent punting or deep kickoffs is essential, despite what all the ex-linemen and quarterbacks on the pregame shows tell you.

Now comes the controversial placing: the cornerback. While Champ Bailey continues to excel, the phrase "shutdown corner" isn't heard much these days. You can chalk that up to the sport's copycat nature. The goal of the Tampa Two defense is to prevent deep passes. Cornerbacks aren't required to blanket receivers across the field. Rather, they're encouraged to keep receivers in front of them, allowing underneath passes for short gains rather than risk getting beat by the deep ball. That's a vital task, but one that's less dependent on individual talent than on sticking to a scheme. As the Colts showed last year, it's possible to win the Super Bowl with replacement-level corners. Indy lost both of its starting DBs in the offseason, slotted in some in-house replacements, and the team's pass defense has never looked better.

That puts fullbacks, followed by blocking tight ends, at the bottom of the list—every player is important but someone has to be last.

Here's my final list by position:

Quarterback
Center
Offensive tackle
Safety
Defensive tackle
Middle linebacker
Running back
Offensive guard
Rush end/linebacker
Wide receiver/receiving tight end
Kicker
Punter
Cornerback
Fullback
Blocking tight end

Now, if only Joe Nedney could get a piece of that Nate Clements contract …

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Robert Weintraub, a freelance TV producer/writer based in Atlanta, writes about sports media for Slate.
Photograph of Jamal WIlliams by Donald Miralle/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

I'll be honest here; I'm much more familiar with the college game than with the pro game. But it's always been my belief that having a great offensive line and an average quarterback is much better than having an average offensive line and a great quarterback. Any quarterback can look good if he's getting five days to throw, but even the best quarterbacks suffer if their offensive line is bad.

Perhaps, though, that's just the difference between the college game and the pro game working there. On the college level, I'd assume that defensive schemes are less complex and the talent on defense is not as good. And college teams still tend to be more reliant on the running game than pro teams. While having a good offensive line is helpful to a successful passing attack, it's a necessity if you run the ball a lot. But, personally, I'd still rank centers and tackles ahead of quarterbacks in terms of their importance. The reason for the pay difference is that, simply put, it's much easier to quantify a good quarterback than a good offensive lineman. What's more, a quarterback is one player; the offensive line consists of five players, and everything breaks down if one guy isn't pulling his weight. There's no particular premium on having one great offensive lineman; you need to have five good linemen.

--tdd

(To reply, click here.)

Robert Weintraub makes a good argument that the proliferation of the "cover-two" defense has reduced the value of cornerbacks. But there's no way they are less valuable than kickers and punters. The effectiveness of a kicker or punter depends in large part on the effectiveness of his teammates; if they have time to get the kick off, it's usually a good one. If their blockers allow defenders to interrupt them, then bad things happen.

Cornerbacks, on the other hand, are correctly described as living on an island. Their only direct support comes -- sometimes -- from a safety, and even in the case where a safety must tackle a receiver covered by a cornerback, that means the cornerback screwed up.

The value of good cornerbacks was well demonstrated in at least two games last weekend. In the New Orleans-Indianapolis game, one cornerback -- Jason David of New Orleans, formerly of Indianapolis -- made mistakes that led directly to 21 Indianapolis points! Conversely, in the Arizona-San Francisco game, both of Arizona's excellent wide receivers, Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, were rendered nearly ineffective by San Francisco's defense. (Boldin caught a touchdown late in the game, but had only 22 yards receiving.) Thanks to the limits of televised football, viewers weren't able to watch how San Francisco's corners individually covered Fitzgerald and Boldin. But I have little doubt that San Francisco team executives felt pretty good on Tuesday about their big off-season free agent signing.

--alex wayne

(To reply, click here.)

(9/12)

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