Predicting 2020 standings using the NFL Top-100

By Tyler Alsin Jul 30, 2020, 9:10am PDT

AFC Championship - Tennessee Titans v Kansas City Chiefs

The most stressful week of football since the draft is now over. I thought it might be interesting to convert the NFL top-100 into a value system for the sake of comparing teams and predicting the 2020 standings.

This year’s been strange enough, so why not use a dubious popularity contest to make guesses about the outcome of football games?

I’ve used a very oversimplified value system; it’s merely a reverse point system from 1-99. One point separates each player from the next, gaining a point each as they climb closer to to the top 100 - the athletes ranking gives their value. Tyler Lockett at 65th position scores 35 points, and Jamal Adams at 27th scores 73 points. I’ve consulted the guys over at Pro Football Focus; the math checks out.

The hypothesis is that what follows would be the result of the truly elite players being the difference makers; the possession of enough such athletes being enough to turn the tide of a season.

This would also come with the assumption that the remainders of NFL rosters are largely comparable, which comes with two problems. One is that some teams are either tanking or led by Bill O’Brien, and the other is that this, by definition, cannot account for rookies who have a significant impact.

But we can’t do anything about that, so we press on to compare the stronger teams in the NFC with this nearly infallible system.

Seattle Seahawks

Russell Wilson: 2
Bobby Wagner: 13
Jamal Adams: 27
Jadeveon Clowney: 41
Tyler Lockett: 65
DK Metcalf: 81
Chris Carson: 96

Subtotal: 316
With Clowney: 375

San Francisco 49ers
7 George Kittle
17 Nick Bosa
28 Richard Sherman
43 Jimmy Garoppolo
Lost 56 DeForest Buckner
70 Fred Warner

Total: 335

Los Angeles Rams
3 Aaron Donald
37 Jalen Ramsey
Lost 51 Todd Gurley
Lost 53 Marcus Peters
89 Cooper Kupp

Total: 171

Arizona Cardinals
8 DeAndre Hopkins
15 Chandler Jones
69 Larry Fitzgerald
90 Kyler Murray

Total: 208

Based on this the NFC West would look as follows:
49ers
Seahawks
Cardinals
Rams

If Jadeveon Clowney re-signs with Seattle it would put their value over San Francisco and move them to first. Which, honestly, feels like a reasonable outcome one could expect. For the sake of this piece, we’re acting as though Clowney will depart because after 118 articles none of us know what in the world he is doing.

I then compiled the values of some of the other NFC contenders, playoff-caliber teams. The first one shows just how sorry the NFC East truly was last year.

Philadelphia Eagles
73 Fletcher Cox
85 Zack Ertz
94 Jason Kelce
98 Brandon Brooks, out for the season

Subtotal: 48

Green Bay Packers
16 Aaron Rodgers
33 Aaron Jones
48 Za’Darius Smith
57 Davante Adams
62 David Bakhtiari
63 Preston Smith

Subtotal: 321

New Orleans Saints
5 Michael Thomas
12 Drew Brees
23 Cameron Jordan
42 Alvin Kamara
67 Demario Davis
76 Marshon Lattimore
82 Ryan Ramczyk

Subtotal: 393!

Minnesota Vikings
21 Dalvin Cook
40 Danielle Hunter
Lost 54 Stefon Diggs
58 Kirk Cousins
64 Harrison Smith
83 Eric Kendricks

Subtotal: 234

Dallas Cowboys
24 Ezekiel Elliot
46 Dak Prescott
49 Amari Cooper
55 Zack Martin
78 Tyron Smith
88 Jaylon Smith

Subtotal: 260

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
14 Tom Brady
30 Mike Evans
32 Shaquil Barrett
38 Chris Godwin
100 Lavonte David

Total: 287

For a point of reference, I also did the two best teams in the AFC - Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens.

Kansas City Chiefs
4 Patrick Mahomes
18 Travis Kelce
22 Tyreek Hill
39 Tyrann Mathieu
52 Chris Jones
95 Frank Clark
Total: 370

Baltimore Ravens
1 Lamar Jackson
44 Mark Ingram
53 Marcus Peters
74 Ronnie Staley
75 Earl Thomas
79 Calais Campbell
86 Marlon Humphrey
Total: 288

NFC Playoff Seeding:

Saints
49ers
Packers
Seahawks w/o Clowney
Bucs
Cowboys
Vikings

Following this principle, the Super Bowl would be the Saints beating the Chiefs by about four points.

However, if Clowney were to return to Seattle, it would bump their NFC seed to second and put them in a reasonable range of New Orleans, who at this point is just embarrassing the rest of the division. Why haven’t they made it to a Super Bowl again?

Anyway, this was a fun little experiment. The welcome surprise would be the arrival of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a playoff team we haven’t seen in a while. This also goes without Rob Gronkowski qualifying for any points, who’s finished in the top-20 in this poll multiple times.

The full list is below for anyone interested as it’s been difficult to find a simple text version without highlights and bios for easy access.

What do you think of how the rankings shape out this way?