Features

In the first in a series of articles examining the best performances we saw last year, Khaled Elsayed breaks down the 10 highest grades given to quarterbacks throughout the course of the 2011 regular season and playoffs.

As ever, if you disagree let us know which displays most impressed you via our comments section or Twitter.

Every game is treated as a Super Bowl, so there’s no weighting due to the importance of the match up–we’ll leave that up to you to decide how to weigh that–but here, starting with the 10th spot, are the highest-graded QB performances of the 2011 season.   Read the rest of this entry »

There’s more to playing cornerback than just covering receivers. Granted that’s the most important skill they possess, but playing corner comes with other responsibilities too.

It’s these responsibilities that we’re turning our attention to now as we look at which cornerbacks made the biggest impact in the run game using our “Run Stop Percentage” Signature Stat for the spot. That means not just looking at who made how many tackles, but sifting out only those that came against the run. Then we decipher whether or not those tackles constituted defensive stops and relating all of that to how much they were on the field for rushing plays.

So let’s get to it.   Read the rest of this entry »

Numbers. They can jump out at you and make an immediate impact. When you see that Roman Harper ended the year with 7.5 sacks, you can’t help but think wow. After all, defensive backs aren’t meant to produce that many sacks.

But numbers without context are just part of the picture, and with all due respect to the Saints’ safety, his sack numbers don’t tell the whole tale. A blitzing defensive back is likely to generate bigger sack numbers based purely on the number of times they blitz, so before praising Harper we need to look at how often he rushed compared to his peers and the results they all produced.

That’s where our Pass Rushing Productivity study comes in pretty handy. It looks at how often a player rushes the passer to see how productive they are by using the simple formula:

((Sacks + 0.75*(Hits+Hurries)) / Pass Rushes) * 100 = Pass Rushing Productivity

So let’s see how the defensive backs did in 2011.   Read the rest of this entry »

Through a collection of pieces, we’ve put together the Official Pro Football Focus Top 101 players of the 2011 year. If you want some in-depth explanation of why these players made the list then click on the following individual posts to find out why:

101-91 | 90-81 | 80-71 | 70-61 | 60-51 | 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1

If you just want a look at the order of the Top 101, then read on below. If you want to comment on the list, email mailbag@profootballfocus.com

For what it’s worth, no team had more representatives on the list than the Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, and San Francisco 49ers, each contributing six players. Only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts had no players make the list.

Read the rest of this entry »

We all know the story of Aaron Rodgers and the top of the 2005 NFL Draft. That year was seen as something of a sub-par season for quarterback prospects largely due to the vintage year that preceded it. The San Francisco 49ers with the No. 1 overall choice had to decide between Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers. They went with Smith, who has never lived up to that lofty expectation. Rodgers slipped all the way to the 24th pick and the Green Bay Packers, where he was selected as the heir apparent to Brett Favre.

Eventually the Packers parted ways with Favre and Rodgers has never looked back. He is the only quarterback in league history to throw for 4,000+ yards in each of his first two seasons as a starter. Not to mention leading the Packers to a Super Bowl at the end of the 2010 season.

Though 2010 ended with a championship ring, 2011 was Aaron Rodgers’ best season to date, and the year in which he made a legitimate case to be the best quarterback in football. Running the Green Bay offense Rodgers was a model of efficiency, completing 68.5% of his passes, throwing for 45 touchdowns and just six interceptions while also leading the league in yards per pass attempt at 9.3.

Rodgers did all this despite having 40 passes dropped by his receivers with game-changing TE Jermichael Finley in particular developing a bad case of the drops. That mark was third in the NFL with both of the players above notching at least 60 more pass attempts. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were once the unquestioned Top 2 quarterbacks in the NFL. At the very least Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers have forced their name alongside that pair, and on the basis of 2011 they may well have overtaken them.

From an uncomfortable evening in the green room at Radio City Music Hall, Rodgers has developed into one of the game’s most devastating weapons, and at just 28-years-old, that’s likely to continue for a while. The season that he put together earns Aaron Rodgers the prestigious top spot on the PFF Top 101.

Best Game: Week 13 @ New York Giants (+8.9)

This Week 13 game may be remembered as the game that kick-started the Giants’ run to the Super Bowl. A run that ended up going through the Packers in Green Bay. However, it just may have been Rodgers’ best game of the season, even if he had better statistical games. Rodgers finished the game having thrown for 369 yards and four touchdowns on 28 completions, so it certainly wasn’t a poor day statistically. A closer look shows that the real key to the game was the final drive that Rodgers orchestrated.

The Giants had driven down the field late in the game for a game-tying touchdown and two-point conversion, but Rodgers was left with 58 seconds on the clock to move the ball into field goal range. Starting from his own 20-yard-line the Packers opened up in shotgun formation with four receivers spread out. Rodgers drilled a quick-out to Jermichael Finley (despite close coverage) that picked up 24 yards and took just seven seconds off the clock. The next play saw Rodgers deliver a perfect throw down the left sideline to Jordy Nelson that picked up 27 more yards and put the Packers into field goal range. Rodgers threw this pass with two Giants linemen in his face and still put it right in his receiver’s hands. After a swing pass that went nowhere, Rodgers went back to his quick out patterns, hitting Greg Jennings for 18 yards, making the field goal attempt a far more comfortable prospect.

Rodgers carried the team on his back in the dying seconds and mounted a game-winning drive against the eventual Super Bowl champions.

Key Stat: Set a new single-season NFL QB rating record, finishing the year with a 122.5 rating.

The NFL QB rating is a metric that has plenty of flaws, but when you end the season with a rating of 122.5, you’ve had an incredible year. Aaron Rodgers became the only quarterback in league history to throw for 45 or more touchdowns and six or fewer interceptions in a single season. He did it in an offense that was attacking teams all over the field and not just taking the short, high percentage passes. Despite putting the ball in the air over 500 times, Rodgers was incredibly careful with the football, rarely putting it in danger, and methodically found the open receiver and delivered the pass to the right spot. While in the past Rodgers had been prone to holding the ball too long and taking sacks, this season he threw the ball away 17 times, more than twice as often as Ben Roethlisberger, who still has that same issue.

Putting the football in the air used to be a hazardous enterprise in the NFL. Joe Namath was the first quarterback to throw for over 4,000 yards in a season and is in the Hall of Fame with 47 more career interceptions than touchdowns. Aaron Rodgers threw 39 more touchdowns than interceptions this season and has thrown 94 more for his career. Players like Rodgers have made passing the football safe enough to become the primary method of attack in today’s NFL. The efficiency with which he can diagnose coverage, find the open receiver and deliver the football to move the chains and attack a defense has become almost impossible to defend. For much of last season there was an air of invincibility about Rodgers and the Packers’ offense. While their season eventually ended in the playoffs, the devastation as he scythed through the league during the regular season earns him his spot atop the PFF 101 list for 2011.

Back to the Top 10 »

Follow us on Twitter: @ProFootbalFocus 

The Cincinnati Bengals once allowed Justin Smith to seek his fortune elsewhere in free agency. Maybe he was miscast in their 4-3 defense, or maybe he never realized his potential for the Bengals. Since that point in time he has been one of the best players in football for the 49ers.

He’s not playing a glamour position, and doesn’t get the massive sack numbers of edge rushers. One of the truths in the NFL right now is that there is no more disruptive force to an offense than Justin Smith. When game planning every offensive coordinator knows full well that they have to try and contain him before they play the 49ers.

Possessing a devastating combination of brute force and technique, and enough versatility to be a factor on every down and in multiple spots, Smith challenges an opponent like few others. Over the course of the game he will make himself known to the entire left side of an offensive line as well as any tight ends and running backs expected to help out in pass protection. He has the ability to bull-rush any of these blockers or beat them to the inside or outside with his quickness and technique.

Smith is the best interior pass-rushing force in football and he does it without selling out to get to the quarterback. He also maintains an extremely high level of play against the run. The 49ers play him as 3-4 DE in their base formations, but he will kick inside to DT as part of a four-man front (albeit often with a stand up rush linebacker) in their nickel package. In either instance, a team is going to have to get Smith blocked before they do anything else, and that level of attention was a big reason behind the success Aldon Smith enjoyed as a rookie. The pair of Smiths were able to run the same simple stunt over and over with teams struggling badly to deal with it because of the impact getting Justin Smith blocked had on the pass protection. Smith is one of those players who not only dominates, but is so good he makes those around him better as well.

Justin Smith has never won the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award, and that should have changed this season. While he will again have to settle for the recognition of his peers, he can now see his name at No. 2 in the PFF Top 101, as the top defensive player on the list.

Best Game: Week 6 @ Detroit Lions (+8.5)

Though he isn’t an edge rusher with the cleanest path to the quarterback, there are games where Justin Smith dominates his opposition to the degree that he puts up stats that any pass-rushing specialist would be proud of. The matchup against Detroit was one such game. Smith finished it with a pair of sacks, a knockdown, and six more pressures on the QB while also acting as a force against the run.

It wasn’t just the stats that he put up though, but the time that he made his plays that was the big story in this game. The 49ers had kicked a field goal to take a six-point lead with just over a minute left in the game. The Lions took the field looking to march down for a game-winning touchdown, but Smith had other plans. On first down of that drive, he and Ray McDonald collapsed the pocket to bring down Matthew Stafford and run nearly 30 seconds off the clock. On the next snap, he beat LT Jeff Backus around the edge to force a quick check down over the middle, leaving the Lions with virtually no time left in which to work. Smith is capable of taking over games with unblockable dominance, and was responsible for the 49ers eking out a win on more than one occasion last season with clutch play at the biggest time in the game.

Key Stat: Finished the year with 15 more combined sacks, hits, and hurries than any other 3-4 end in the regular season (69) .

Traditionally, 3-4 defensive ends were just there to occupy space and blockers and free up linebackers to make plays and to rush the passer. More recently the league has changed tack, and 3-4 ends can be bruising athletes capable of rushing the passer as well as playing the run. With the league moving to sub-packages more and more, those same players that are playing the 5-technique end spot in a 3-4 alignment are also expected to play more of a 3-technique defensive tackle spot inside on passing downs. Justin Smith has the pass-rushing skills from the inside to rival any player in football. Equally capable of playing two-gaps or shooting one to kill runs in the backfield, he comes into his own when he is turned loose to rush the passer.

Smith is able to generate pressure at a different rate from any other interior rusher in the NFL. Geno Atkins was our top pass-rushing defensive tackle last season, and he totaled 49 pressures from 458 pass rushing snaps. That is a pressure once every 9.3 snaps rushing. Outside of Justin Smith, the best mark for 3-4 defensive ends was the 51 total pressures produced by Houston’s Antonio Smith. He rushed the passer 467 times producing pressure once every 9.2 snaps rushing. Justin Smith, though, rushed 590 times and notched 69 total pressures, 15 more than any other interior rusher, and at a rate of pressure once every 8.6 attempts. Despite rushing significantly more than any other interior player, Smith was able to produce pressure at a notably better rate and his run D didn’t suffer.

Smith is a complete player, and an every-down dominant force in today’s NFL. For being the game’s best defender in 2011– one of the game’s best players, period–he earns the No. 2 spot on our Top 101 of 2011.

Back to the Top 10 »

Follow us on Twitter: @ProFootbalFocus 

Hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when Drew Brees wasn’t one of the best quarterbacks in the league. In fact, there was once a point where the San Diego Chargers were so disappointed with his development that they drafted his replacement, Philip Rivers, in the first round.

From that point onwards Brees has been arguably the best quarterback in the NFL over that period, forcing his name alongside Tom Brady and Peyton Manning as the elite of the league, and shattering records in the New Orleans Saints offense. This year was no different, as Brees not only surpassed Dan Marino’s single-season yardage record, but blew it out of the water.

Marino’s mark had stood since his unbelievable sophomore season of 1984, and until this season, Brees had been the closest player to his 5,084 yard mark, and the only other passer to top 5,000 yards when he posted 5,069 in 2008. This season though he found another level, and the record now stands at 5,476, almost 400 yards past the record that stood for nearly 30 years.

Drew Brees has become the benchmark for prolific passing in the NFL, and he does it with unerring accuracy and an arm that can make every throw. What is most impressive about Brees is that he is able to be as prolific as he is on a consistent basis. His lowest passing total last season was 258 yards, and in that game he completed 75% of his attempts and threw a pair of touchdowns. Only three times in 18 games did he throw for fewer than 300 yards and he scored at least 1 touchdown in the air every single game. Brees has now thrown for at least one touchdown in 43 consecutive games, moving him to within four of the all-time record held by Johnny Unitas. That record has stood since 1957 and has been considered by many to be unbreakable, with the closest challenger before Brees being Brett Favre, who made it to 36 consecutive games.

The NFL record books are being re-written, and by the time Drew Brees is finished there may be a whole new set of unbreakable records to contend with. This season was one of his best, and demands a place near the top of our Top 101 list.

Best Game: Week 15 @ Minnesota Vikings (+9.0)

The Vikings were in disarray by the time the Saints rolled into town late last season, but they had a reason to play hard in this game, with memories of the 2009 NFC Championship game still fresh in their minds. The Saints, and in particular Drew Brees, weren’t interested in that and just dismantled them on their way to a 42-20 walkover. The Vikings began the game reasonably well and had success against the New Orleans defense, trailing 14-13 deep in the second quarter, but they just couldn’t stop Drew Brees and the New Orleans offense, who added touchdowns drive after drive.

Brees Dropped back to pass 41 times in the game, recorded 40 attempts, completing 32 of them (80%) for 412 yards and five touchdowns. His QB rating was a near-perfect 149.2, and even on plays when the Vikings got pressure his rating stayed exactly the same, 149.2. This was Drew Brees at his best: throwing a high volume of passes, but putting each one exactly where it needed to go and being able to move the ball at will all game long. Brees and the Saints were able to score with such inevitability that it just crushed the spirit of the Vikings and they went away for a comfortable win late in the game.

Drew Brees can force teams to beat themselves as they become so concerned with keeping up on the scoreboard, because they know he will inevitably put up more points.

Key Stat: Broke Dan Marino’s single-season yardage mark, finishing the year with 5,490 passing yards.

There hasn’t been a more prolific passer in the NFL in recent years than Drew Brees. Every season since 2006 has seen Brees pass for enough yardage to rank inside the top 41 seasons in NFL history. He holds six of the best 41 seasons in NFL history in terms of yardage, and has done it year after year with no drop-off. Only four men have passed for over five thousand yards in a single season, and Brees is the only one to have done it twice, and stands 241 yards out in front of any other season.

The remarkable part about those numbers though is that he isn’t achieving it simply through volume of attempts, but through ruthless efficiency. Brees broke his own record this season for completion percentage, with a ludicrous 71.2% of his passes finding their mark. He led the league with 46 touchdowns, threw for 8.4 yards per attempt and only had to throw away nine passes all season.

The NFL has become a passing league, and it’s because of quarterbacks like Drew Brees, who have made passing the ball a safer way to play football. It used to be an old adage that when you threw the football only three things can happen, and two of them are bad, but players like Drew Brees are proving that you can put the ball in the air 657 times in a season and lose just 14 of them to interceptions, while devastating opponents for over 5,000 yards and 46 touchdowns. Brees is changing the face of football, and last season may have been his best yet. He earned his spot in the top three of our list.

Back to the Top 10 »

Follow us on Twitter: @ProFootbalFocus 

There isn’t a more athletically gifted receiver in the game than Calvin Johnson. At 6-foot-5 and 235lbs, Johnson is bigger, stronger, and in most cases faster player than those trying to cover him. That’s the holy trinity of unfair advantage and it all resulted in him beating up on coverage units seemingly at will last season.

Johnson topped our receiver ranking by a distance from Larry Fitzgerald, and when playoff games are included (even though Johnson played in just one) he only increases his gap over the field. If you include that playoff game, Johnson racked up almost 1,900 yards last season and 18 touchdowns, and did it all while averaging 17.6 yards per reception. He was the go-to guy for the Detroit Lions and with good reason.

The truly scary aspect of Calvin Johnson, though, is that he is only getting better. It’s not as easy to be as fluid and precise with your routes and fakes when you’re Johnson’s size as it is if you’re 6’ and 200, and he’s taken some time to improve that area of his game. While he once relied simply on being a better athlete, now he is beating players with his routes as well, and that makes him a frightening proposition for opposing defenders.

Going forward with the trust of his young quarterback and the Lions adding weapons to try and take the focus off defending Johnson alone, he could be in for another truly dominant year. The season he accounted for in 2011 was enough to fire him up our Top 101 list to land firmly into the Top 5, a spot he may well occupy for years to come.

Best Game: Wild Card Round @ New Orleans Saints (+7.2)

The Lions went down in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to the New Orleans Saints in what was supposed to play out more like an Arena League game than an NFL playoff game, such was the ability to put points on the board that both sides had. Detroit took a 14-10 lead into the half, and while they doubled their total by the end of the game, New Orleans had kicked into high gear and ended up putting 45 on the board.

While the Lions went down in the end, it certainly wasn’t because of Johnson, who collected 12 receptions for 211 yards and two touchdowns despite the Saints giving him heavy attention in coverage. Thrown at 15 times in the game, only two players from the Saints were able to prevent completions as Matthew Stafford had a perfect QB rating when targeting his monstrous pass-catcher. The Saints were as aware as anybody how dominant Johnson can be, having played him once before in the regular season, and yet they were still unable to prevent him from putting up massive numbers.

Key Stat: Led WRs in yards (1,685) and touchdowns (16)

There are few players in the NFL that are so physically gifted they are limited only by the number of times they are given the football. Calvin Johnson is one of those players, and he provides a dependable security blanket for Matthew Stafford to force the ball to whenever he gets into trouble. Johnson was thrown at 151 times this season, and hauled in 96 of those passes, or 63.6%. More importantly, only four passes intended for him were picked off, largely because he has such an expansive catch radius that he can fix all but the most terrible of passes.

In essence, passing to Calvin Johnson is about as safe a place as you can go with the football, and given the ability he has to run away from, or even right over, defenders in his way, the Lions were happy to serve it to him as often as they could. Johnson has taken over from where Randy Moss left off as the league’s most uncoverable wide receiver, and while they called Randy Moss “the freak”, they call Calvin Johnson “Megatron”. The outcome is the same, throw the ball up to them and let them make things happen. Johnson did that last year, enough to earn him this spot inside the Top 5 on our list.

Darrelle Revis is the unquestioned best cornerback in football. It wasn’t long ago the term “shutdown corner” was thought to be an anachronism, an extinct species no longer applicable to the modern game, but Revis changed that.

Revis isn’t just capable of shutting down one side of the field, but in the Jets defensive system, he is asked to do so much more than that–he’s asked to take away the opponent’s best receiver. Revis is one of an elite few corners that will track specific receivers across the formation wherever they line up, be it left corner, right corner, or somewhere in the slot.

Aside from being an extremely difficult thing to be able to do and do well, that ability also allows the Jets to be much more creative with the rest of their coverages. Perhaps most importantly, it puts an offense in a tough spot with a tricky decision to make. Do you accept that your best receiving option is gone from the game, or do you force it to him anyway and run the risk of throwing into Revis’ coverage?

Most teams hate to accept their top receiver is gone, so Revis will get thrown at more than top corners who don’t track receivers. The Jets are able to make teams continue to throw at him even though they know it’s unlikely to be successful.

Last season Revis was thrown at 85 times, but he allowed only 35 receptions and a single touchdown. Quarterbacks throwing into his coverage had a rating of just 45.6, and he got his hands to (either intercepted or defensed) 20 passes. Throwing at Revis was not a productive way to move the football, but teams forced it anyway.

In the fourth quarter of games–the money quarter–Revis’ numbers became even more insane. He allowed just 26.1% of targets to be complete, picking off half as many balls (three) as he allowed completed (six). Passing on Revis is hard enough to begin with, but it only gets harder as the game goes on and he gets better at reading what’s coming. The game’s best corner was back to his best this season, and belongs in the Top 5 of our list.

Best Game: Week 16 vs. New York Giants (+5.9)

The Jets and Giants met in Week 16 over the holiday period in an ugly game that neither team really seemed all that keen on winning. While the Giants ultimately came away with victory, it wasn’t with any help from Darrelle Revis, who was in his best form despite one of his biggest tests of the season.

The Giants tested Revis with Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz, both of whom were having excellent seasons and Cruz who, in particular, had been destroying teams late in the year. Over the last seven games of the season Cruz had 864 receiving yards with 164 of them coming in this game against the Jets, but on the snaps Revis was matched up with him, he was taken out of the game. He was thrown at seven times in the game, but only once when covered by Revis, and the Jet broke up the pass. In total, Revis was thrown at eight times in the game, and allowed just two catches for 31 yards, but he got his hands in for pass defenses on five of the other six throws.

This game was a display of Revis at his best, shutting down two of the game’s best receivers whenever he was assigned to cover them, even as other defenders were being beaten.

Key Stat: Revis allowed just 41.2% of throws into his coverage to be completed.

Today’s NFL is a passing league. You may have heard that once or two thousand times recently, but it remains true. The value of players who can force incompletions is going through the roof as a result. The league is become ever more passing oriented because offenses and coaches are getting better and better at making passing a safer, higher-percentage option. Quarterbacks and receivers can play pitch and catch with defenses just scrambling to patch all the holes and make tackles after the grab. If things break right, they’ll disrupt a few passes and get a few lucky breaks.

Players like Revis change that dynamic. Revis can stick to an opponent’s best receiver and make a quarterback’s completion percentage drop over 20%, while also continually being a threat to pick it off and take it in the other direction. Passing has become a pretty safe way of moving the football in today’s NFL, but not when Darrelle Revis is in coverage. When you’re throwing the ball at Revis you know it’s going to be contested, and at the very least it needs to be accurate, because he will be in the area. He is the best corner in the game, and is good enough that he can change the dynamic of what’s happening on the field. That earns him a spot at No. 5 on our list.

Back to the Top 10 »

Follow us on Twitter: @ProFootbalFocus 

In a year in which records tumbled, Rob Gronkowski may have set the bar higher than anybody else.

First he broke the all-time single-season touchdown record for tight ends, finishing the year with 17, and then he broke a 31-year-old record for receiving yards in a single season by a tight end. The 1,327 yards he ended up with were 37 more than Hall of Fame TE Kellen Winslow posted in 1980, and now stand 17 clear of the next best mark of all-time, also set this year, by the Saints’ Jimmy Graham.

Both Gronkowski and Graham put together all-time great seasons by tight ends, but what separates Gronkowski is that he wasn’t just a big wide receiver who spent most of his time in the slot rarely being asked to block. Gronkowski comfortably topped our TE rankings this season in large part because of his blocking ability. Only Martellus Bennett from Dallas had a better run-blocking grade than the +6.6 Gronkowski managed, and he was somewhat less of a receiving weapon (1,183 receiving yards less to be exact).

That dual ability is reflected by Gronkowski leading the league for tight ends in snaps, with 1,120 offensive plays; 94.7% of the Patriots’ total offensive snaps. There were six games where Gronkowski didn’t leave the field for a single snap and the only time he graded in the red all season long was the Super Bowl, where he was visibly limited by an ankle injury. While New England had to scheme to get Aaron Hernandez into the best possible position and match up to be effective, they were able to just line up with Gronkowski and let him beat whatever assignment he drew.

One of the most impressive aspects of his season was the work he put in after the catch. Not the shifty athlete his teammate Hernandez is, Gronkowski was still able to notch 641 of his yards–almost half–after the catch, trailing only Brent Celek among TEs with 10 or more receptions. The 13 missed tackles he forced also rank second in the NFL for tight ends and would rank at the sharp end of the same list for wide receivers.

The bottom line is that Rob Gronkowski is the new standard in the NFL for tight ends. He is the complete player that can do everything well, and his all-time great season puts him in elite company.

Best Game: Divisional Playoff vs. Denver Broncos (+7.3)

The big tight end had been in full flow for a while, but he was at his unstoppable best against the Broncos in their rematch with the Patriots in the playoffs. Gronkowski was thrown at a dozen times and hauled in 10 passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns. Those numbers are impressive to begin with, but the first touchdown required a diving one-handed effort in the corner of the end zone to bring it in, and was a far more impressive play than the statistic alone.

The Broncos couldn’t work out how to defend Gronkowski all day long, and on his three touchdowns he managed to defeat all the different attempts at covering him. He was too fast for Denver to put a linebacker on, and too tough and physical for nickel corner Chris Harris Jr. to stick to. Gronkowski was the definition of a matchup problem for Denver that day and, subsequently, blew them apart for his biggest game of the season while also run-blocking impressively all game long.

Key Stat: Led the NFL in yards (1,327) and TDs (17) as a TE.

If a wide receiver put up those kinds of numbers he would have had an unbelievable year. Only four players have scored more than 17 receiving touchdowns in a season, and none of them are tight ends. Gronkowski also ran for another touchdown, taking his total on the season to 18, and his 90 receptions earned him 1,327 yards, breaking an all-time record for tight ends that had stood since before he was born.

The effect of Rob Gronkowski (along with Jimmy Graham and a few other tight ends) is beginning to change the way offenses operate in the NFL, and they have become legitimate heavy-duty weapons, rather than merely complementary parts to a passing attack. It’s not often you see a player come along who has the ability to change the way the game is played, but Gronkowski is threatening that, and his record-setting season explains his lofty spot in our list.

Back to the Top 10 »

Follow us on Twitter: @ProFootbalFocus