On Monday, I posted my Opportunity-Neutral Rankings, i.e., how players would rank if they all had the same number of attempts/carries/targets. Today we'll eliminate a different variable: health. These rankings are assuming every player were 100 percent healthy for every game in which they're eligible (suspensions are still counted against them, however). For these I used PPR:
QB | RB | WR | TE | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Aaron Rodgers | Jamaal Charles | Calvin Johnson | Rob Gronkowski |
2 | Peyton Manning | LeSean McCoy | Demaryius Thomas | Jimmy Graham |
3 | Drew Brees | Adrian Peterson | Julio Jones | Julius Thomas |
4 | Robert Griffin | Matt Forte | Dez Bryant | Jordan Cameron |
5 | Nick Foles | Arian Foster | Jordy Nelson | Greg Olsen |
6 | Andrew Luck | DeMarco Murray | A.J. Green | Vernon Davis |
7 | Tony Romo | Eddie Lacy | Brandon Marshall | Jordan Reed |
8 | Tom Brady | Montee Ball | Alshon Jeffery | Dennis Pitta |
9 | Matt Ryan | C.J. Spiller | Keenan Allen | Jason Witten |
10 | Cam Newton | Giovani Bernard | Randall Cobb | Zach Ertz |
11 | Matt Stafford | Le'Veon Bell | Andre Johnson | Kyle Rudolph |
12 | Colin Kaepernick | Ryan Mathews | Vincent Jackson | Charles Clay |
13 | Jay Cutler | Zac Stacy | Antonio Brown | LaDarius Green |
14 | Russell Wilson | Doug Martin | Victor Cruz | Martellus Bennett |
15 | Philip Rivers | Shane Vereen | Percy Harvin | Dwayne Allen |
16 | Ben Roethlisberger | Rashad Jennings | Wes Welker | Heath Miller |
17 | Alex Smith | Marshawn Lynch | Michael Floyd | Tyler Eifert |
18 | Johnny Manziel | Andre Ellington | Jeremy Maclin | Garrett Graham |
19 | EJ Manuel | Pierre Thomas | Pierre Garcon | Jared Cook |
20 | Jake Locker | Reggie Bush | Michael Crabtree | Eric Ebron |
21 | Alfred Morris | Larry Fitzgerald | ||
22 | Ben Tate | Cordarrelle Patterson | ||
23 | Bishop Sankey | Roddy White | ||
24 | Joique Bell | T.Y. Hilton | ||
25 | Toby Gerhart | DeSean Jackson | ||
26 | Ray Rice | Marques Colston | ||
27 | Darren Sproles | Torrey Smith | ||
28 | Chris Johnson | Eric Decker | ||
29 | Steven Jackson | Cecil Shorts | ||
30 | Maurice Jones-Drew | Kendall Wright |
The beneficiaries are obviously the injury-prone players like Rob Gronkowski, Julio Jones, Arian Foster, Ryan Mathews, Tony Romo and DeMarco Murray. Durable players like Jason Witten, Vernon Davis and Alfred Morris slip down. If you believe injuries are, to a large extent, random, these lists offer an idea of who's undervalued and overvalued based on misperceptions about health. Of course, Darren McFadden, who used to rank highly on these lists, is a reminder not to buy into the "injuries are random" school entirely.