Someone wanna get the article and post it? http://insider.espn.go.com/fantasy/....go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?id=2455274 :beer:
Its not a full article just a list of Scott Engel Top 75 Individual Defensive Players for the 2006 season
if thats fantasy football, becuase vilma and bullock had so many tackles last year because both teams were horrendus against the run. if that's defensive players overall tho, thats a fuckin joke! top five would be (in terms of just playmaking ability): 1. Ray Lewis 2. Troy Palumalu 3. Dwight Freeney 4.Julius Peppers 5. Champ Bailey
Freeney is hype(good player, just not the best) Peppers is hype, he's only had 1 truely good year(this is without looking back at stats, I'm probably wrong, but jmo) Ray Lewis hasn't made any impact in a few years. John Vilma consistenly ranks at the top of everyone's defensive statistical charts that do account for where tackles are made.
Everyone has to know that in the real world that is not right. You can love JV all you want but the #2 imopact player in the LEAGUE? No way. He was an alt. to the pro bowl last year, wasn't he? And you can NOT forget the fact that we, as a team, stunk last year and our D line sucked so bad that it HAD to contribute, in large part, to the number of tackles he had. I like the guy, too, and so on and so on but it is WAY too early and we have seen WAY too little from JV to be able to say he is at #2 in that catagory but it is more rediculous to have Coleman or Rhodes on the list. Lists are stupid.
All right. I can give you that. I don't do the fantasy thing. Hard for me to cheer on any one guy who might give me points if they are playing us or in our Div. etc. But still #2 for points? Overall D and Sacks count, right? Last year he had little success with both, if I'm not mistaken.
It was pretty much common knowledge that the Donnie Henderson defense was designed to let Vilma make all the tackles in the run game while also leaving him free to play the ball in the passing game, and his stats, which are the only reason this guy ranked him so high, were the direct result of that. Since our defense was on the field all the damn time last year, Vilma probably did put up insane fantasy numbers. Translation, this is meaningless outside of fantasy football, and in fantasy football, its outdated because Vilmas gonna be playing in a new defense next year, one that wont go out of its way to inflate Vilma's stats.
The Pro-Bowl means nothing so long as selection isn't weighted with stats. Vilma lead the league in tackles. He should have been a starter, but since there weren't any highlight videos of him on ESPN he didn't get voted in.
