Neil's NFL Daily: Special Kick-off Week Edition

During the offseason one of the most popular features we ran was my grading of each team’s prospective starting line-up. I looked at those most likely to be first on the field for both offense and defense and graded each and every player.

Well what better time to update those charts than now? Our knowledge has the benefit not only of training camp but our grading of every preseason game and therefore we have a better handle on the rookies and how they might fare too.

All suspensions and injuries have been taken into account in so far as I know them, so the following should be very close indeed to what you can expect on Thursday, Sunday and Monday.

A few final points before we dig in:

1)  For veteran players the grading is mostly based on last season with some consideration to preseason for either those players on the cusp of two grades or returning from injury

2)  For rookies they are entirely based on the preseason. Their college career and particularly where they were drafted is history and now irrelevant to the discussion.

3)  I have tried to focus on Week 1 as much as humanly possible. Where it is unlikely a player will start in the first game (even if they are pretty sure to start in the second or third) they have been omitted. Where conventional wisdom says they will be back from injury and start (Patrick Willis for example) they are included.

4)  I will almost certainly have made a few factual errors. As always I appreciate your feedback on either Twitter (@PFF_Neil or @PFF) or in the comments section below. Having said that, while I appreciate loads of people telling me I’ve must have pulled this grade or that rating out of my nether regions (who doesn’t enjoy a good debate), I’m much more interested in the most up to date view of who is actually starting. For example who will be at OLB for the Saints is really no more than just a guess. If you have better information (not just your alternate guess) I’d love to hear it.

5)  Package percentages used are based on the preseason.

Enjoy these and, whoever your team may be, I hope you have a fantastic season.

You can find the updated charts for each team here:

AFC East: BUF | MIA | NE | NYJ
AFC North: BAL | CIN | CLE | PIT
AFC South: HOU | IND | JAX |  TEN
AFC West: DEN | KC | OAK | SD

NFC East: DAL | NYG | PHI | WAS
NFC North: CHI | DET | GB | MIN
NFC South: ATL | CAR | NO | TB
NFC West: ARZ | SEA |  SF | STL

Other editions of Neil’s NFL Daily can be found HERE

Follow Neil on Twitter: @PFF_Neil