Who Deserves To Be A Pro Bowler? Part I: NFC, Offense

Since the very inception of Game Of Inches I have continually told you who really deserved to go to the Pro Bowl. Now granted, many of my decisions are somewhat "gut" calls or have been close calls, so this year I'm going to start off with a different approach. In the first set of WD2baPB (a pretty bad acronym huh?) I'm just going to put out some key statistics that should be taken into account. Unfortunately for football, there is no "WAR" statistic like there is in baseball; there's no one statistic you can point and say, "See, look at this, this is a damn good, if not the best measure, to prove Player A is better than any other player." Not only do you have to really look at football players with your eyes (I'm not talking about intangibles like leadership but to see how good/bad a quarterback looks vs. how good/bad a wide receiver looks. Also, blocking for lineman is hard to quantify; it really helps to see with your eyes how good they are at that) but you have to take into account a multitude of key statistics to determine who deserves to be a pro bowlers.

A few disclaimers 1) I will be posting this throughout the weeks. Which means one big week from a player in Week 13 or Week 14 could skew the stats. Oh well. Deal with it. 2) I'm doing this now not only because I'm bored and sugar high off of week old dough (relax, it's been in the fridge) but because balloting for pro bowl selections is really between Week One and Week Twelve so since it's Week 13, I thought I should get a crackin.

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QUARTERBACK

Passer Rating
1) Michael Vick
2) Aaron Rodgers
3) Tony Romo
4) Matt Ryan

DYAR
1) Aaron Rodgers
2) Matt Ryan
3) Drew Brees

DVOA
1) Aaron Rodgers
2) Michael Vick
3) Matt Ryan

WPA
1) Matt Ryan
2) Drew Brees
3) Aaron Rodgers

RUNNING BACKS

Yards Per Carry
1) Brandon Jacobs
2) LeSean McCoy
3) Chris Ivory

Rushng Yards
1) Adrian Peterson
2) Michael Turner
3) Ahmad Bradshaw

Rushing Touchdowns
1) Adrian Peterson
2) Michael Turner
3) LeSean McCoy

DYAR
1) Adrian Peterson
2) LeSean McCoy
3) Michael Turner

DVOA
1) LeSean McCoy
2) Adrian Peterson
3) Chris Ivory

WPA
1) LeSean McCoy
2) Adrian Peterson
3) Michael Turner

WIDE RECEIVERS

Receiving Yards
1) Roddy White
2) Greg Jennings
3) Jeremy Maclin
4) Marques Colston

Receptions
1) Roddy White
2) Marques Colston
3) Danny Amendola
4) Santana Moss
4) Hakeem Nicks

Receiving Touchdowns
1) Calvin Johnson
2) Greg Jennings
2) Hakeen Nicks
3) Jeremy Maclin

DYAR
1) Roddy White
2) Greg Jennings
3) Jeremy Maclin
4) Miles Austin

DVOA
1) Robert Meachum
2) Johnny Knox
3) Jeremy Maclin
4) Greg Jennings

WPA
1) Roddy White
2) Marques Colston
3) Miles Austin

Tight Ends

Receiving Yards
1) Jason Witten
2) Chris Cooley
3) Vernon Davis

Receptions
1) Jason Witten
2) Brandon Pettigrew
3) Chris Cooley

Touchdowns
1) Greg Olson
2) Tony Gonzalez
3) Vernon Davis

DYAR
1) Jermichael Finley
2) Jason Witten
3) Vernon Davis
4) Brandon Pettigrew

DVOA
1) Jermichael Finley
2) Fred Davis
3) Delanie Walker
4) Vernon Davis

WPA
1) Tony Gonzalez
2) Vernon Davis
3) Chris Cooley

Adjusted Line Yards (ALY; How FO ranks offensive lineman)

Center

1) New Orleans
2) New York (N)
3) Green Bay

Left Tackle

1) San Fransisco
2) Minnesota
3) Atlanta

Left End

1) Arizona
2) Chicago
3) Philadelphia

Right Tackle

1) San Fransisco
2) Atlanta
3) Green Bay

Right End

1) St. Louis
2) New York (N)
3) Carolina

Some fun fact closing arguments. First of all, the Football Outsider statistics sometimes need to be taken with a grain of salt. DVOA is used to judge how good a player is per play. That's way for wide receivers you tend to see some names in there (i.e. Johnny Knox) that you didn't see in the other statistics. The obvious reason for that is because there are certain receivers that are just big play guys. Their sole value comes on just a few plays, but those plays tend to be longer plays thus inflating their value per play. It's a great and underrated skill to be able to catch at least 7 receptions in a game and it just won't be (normally) something you see for the big play deep threat type of receiver. The same holds true for running backs. It's a great and important skill to not only be talented enough, but trustworthy enough to get 15-20 carries a game.

Second, when doing this analysis, it's obvious that again the AFC produces the better players. If this list had the same categories but for the entire NFL, you'd be hard pressed to find any NFC guys on the list.

Next, I really would have loved to use WPA but for some reason Google Chrome won't load the WPA page off of Advanced NFL Stats and Firefox isn't even opening on my computer to test if is a browser problem. Sorry guys; I'll update it as soon as I can.

Fourth, the reason I did team name as opposed to players for the offensive line statistics is because FO doesn't measure which individual players were playing at each position for every snap. Often times (mainly due to injuries) teams will switch around their line and lineman. When I did my Michael Oher post, I got many complaints that I has used the wrong position to judge Oher. Apparently he was moved on the Baltimore line a few games into the season but all I have to go off of is the team name and what position each player plays according to the teams official website. So when I do an upcoming post naming individual players, please KINDLY tell me if that player truly hasn't played in that particular position for the entire season.

Also, I was surprised to see ANY Chicago Bear mention related to the offensive line.

In summary, I'm tired, I'm going to bed, and sorry for the grammatical and spelling errors.

Up next, Part II: AFC, Offense