I think you need to stop for a moment and consider what the criteria of the voting is and what the objective of the list is before going off any further about it. It doesn't seem to be that they're asking "who were the best players of last year?"
your logic is flawed, cj played 16 games and stunk it up, dre was injured, when he played he was productive.. he had 200+ yards and a TD in the playoffs with a 3rd string QB.. the guys voting on these lists arent statisticians, theyre asked to list their favorite top 20 players, thats how this list is calculated.. you believe urlacher was better than cushing? like others have said, i wouldnt be surprises if he was or wasnt on the list, does he deserev to be on this list? no, will he make it? who knows.. looking at all the guys who made the list last year and shouldnt have, this isnt some precise formula...
But the intention of the list is "who were the best players of last year". They only show and give us stats and highlights from last year and the title of the show is "Top 100 Players of (insert year)". Now its up to the players if they actually vote that way, some do and some don't. When they were teasing the Peyton Manning selection, they were showing players (Owen Daniels included) saying he shouldn't be on the list because he didn't play at all last year.
Isn't 2012 this coming football season? Whereas 2011 is last season? Just because they're showing highlights from last year (which makes sense, seeing as how those are going to be what affects players' change in rating) doesn't mean that the voters aren't being asked to, or that they shouldn't, consider anything else. If they're leaving it open to interpretation, then that's just a sign that AJ will probably make it as well.
50 spots left, right? No-brainers remaining? I count 6 QBs; 5 RBs; 5 WRs; 2 TEs; 2 OL and 14 defensive players. That's 34. And I didn't include Gore, Peters, Mangold, Babin, Seymour, Atkins, Hali, Weddle - that's 8 more that deserve it ahead of AJ. That puts us at 42, and I bet I could find 8 more players that will rank ahead of him. No way he makes it. Roddy White was 65!
You could look at it like last season was the 2011-2012 season. I think "Top 100 Players of 2012" is a better title than "Top 100 Players of 2011-2012". Just listen to the verbage they use in each piece, they talk strictly of what they did in that one season. If it was beyond more than last season you wouldn't hear guys saying Peyton Manning, one of the greatest of all time, shouldn't be on that list. Again its up to the players, they are going to do what they want. Even if you tell them to vote just based on last season doesn't mean they will.
Collapse? He missed 9 starts and failed to finish two other games. It's not a performance issue. He wasn't healthy.
Yes, collapse. Meaning, to rapidly fall from a high point to a low point in the rankings on that list. Not *****ting on 'Dre, just pointing out how unusual and sudden it would be.
We don't know that. But if he does make it, as silly as that would be - his team went from 9 straight seasons of double-digit victories to the top pick in the draft the year he missed. The Texans, meanwhile won more games in their history and AJ missed 10 of them (if you count his two missed second halves as one full game). Manning is in a class by himself when it comes to "reputation."
I think Andre makes the list. And the stats and highlights mentioned are NOT only from last season. Someone needs to watch or rewatch the shows.
DeSean Jackson, Nhamdi Asomugha, Chris Johnson - their rankings all collapsed due to performance. I have a hard time grouping Andre Johnson (or Jamaal Charles, for that matter - he was 33 last year) with that group. Performance isn't the reason for his (possibly) falling off.
Von Miller, Patrick Peterson and AJ Grenn have all made the list and I feel safe in predicting Cam Newton will, as well. If this had a reputation/lifetime achievement slant to it, they would have put those guys in the "prove it" category before acknowleding their inclusion in this type of list. So I think it's pretty obviously about *the* 2011 season exclusively. (And Tebow's inclusion underscores that point.)
Who said I was...? Collapse doesn't have to mean "didn't play well". His ranking collapsed, not his play, etc. After looking at this list, I didn't even have to make it all the way up to Peyton Manning to realize it was a joke... Tim Tebow is #95.
There's no way to prove that the inclusion of rookies, or younger players, means that veterans are not being given the benefit of the doubt in some instances based on prior seasons. The two are not mutually exclusive. Such is the way this poll seems to have gone, completely open to interpretation and subjective. Tim Tebow's inclusion just reinforces the "subjective" criteria theory (he just winz!) and that there's probably a quarterback bias to these kind of things.
I think there's ample evidence to suggest that 2011 is their only criteria. We have rookies being included (with Newton cracking the top 50, for heaven's sake); we have previously great players falling in concert with seasons universally deemed disappointing (CJ, DeSean, Asomugha); and we have the single biggest individual story of 2011 - who happens to be very bad at playing football - making the list. Heck, just the inclusion of Joseph and especially Cushing tells me they paid close attention to what went down last year. Cushing, deservedly, doesn't sniff this list last year. And it's not like he has a sterling, 10+-year career to fall back on. He *earned* a spot and was rewarded thusly. It's been a mostly "fair" rendering of the '11 season so far.
They might sprinkle in a tidbit about previous seasons but all the ones I have seen have focused solely on last year. For a guy like Tony Gonzalez, one of the GOAT at his position, yea they'll probably talk about his whole career more because he's old and a tribute thing. The Chris Johnson video they talked about how he held out in preseason, struggled early in the season, then singled out certain weeks he turned it around. The DeSean Jackson video, they opened with a 2010 punt return highlight, then segued into how all his receiving stats took a dip last year and was the worst of his career. Mike Vick's opened with a play from his Falcons days but then focused on how he threw a ton of interceptions early last season and missed a bunch of games. All 3 of these guys dropped in their rankings from the previous season and in the case of Vick and Jackson, they used an old highlight to set up how good they were in the past only as a set up to talk about what went wrong in the 2011-2012 season that made them drop. The focus remains on the previous season.
I think that's all ample evidence to suggest that 2011 is the most important criteria. Players who had bad seasons will undoubtedly fall, players who had good seasons will undoubtedly rise. None of that is conclusive enough to tell us 2011 is the *only* criteria. This one makes me think AJ will make it. Darren McFadden 2010: 1650 yards from scrimmage, 10 tds (13 games played) Place in Top 100 Players for 2011: #98 2011: 750 yards from scrimmage, 5 tds (7 games played) Place in Top 100 Players for 2012: #60 This guy had a worse year statistically (via injury, much like Dre), but somehow jumped 38 spots in the rankings.
I guarandamntee AJ makes it. He was injured last year but if Run DMC can crack the list AJ (who had a pretty damn good playoffs mind you) will get in. This is a players vote so take the criteria with a grain of salt but even though he was hurt last year AJ is still regarded league wide as a top 3 wr. The list is called the top 100 players of 2012 not the top 100 full season performances and stats from the 2011 NFL football season.
