we had a thread like this before, where you take one guy from every NFL team to come up with the best team you could make. i was thinking yesterday how so many of those obvious choices, the franchise cornerstone kind of guys, were still in the playoffs this weekend. especially at a few of the pretty important positions.

so i was wondering. what if you could "draft" one player from every NFL team that did not play this weekend -- the worst 24 teams in the league this year. you need to make an 11 man offense, an 11 man defense, and grab a kicker and a punter. gone is the choice between brady and manning, and you cant have brees either or even mcnabb, so who are you going with? some of the other positions are tough too.

you are making this team to have the best shot to win in the 2007 season. whatever injury they had this year is resolved by next year. one year for all the marbles. who ya got?

i went through and made up my team. anyone else interested in doing this just to see how the teams come out? i will post mine in awhile.

Very interesting, need to find some time, but will try to do this at some point.

I will try to put this together this afternoon.

you can use whatever offense/defense alignment you want btw.

heres my team. note that i put my biggest emphasis on OL and DL and probably my lowest on LB and ST.

QB: Brett Favre
RB: Frank Gore
WR: Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Santana Moss
TE: Alge Crumpler
OL: Orlando Pace, Steve Hutchinson, LeCharles Bentley, Brian Waters, Willie Anderson

DL: Julius Peppers, Shaun Rogers, Marcus Stroud, Jason Taylor
LB: Derrick Brooks, London Fletcher, Keith Bullock
Sec: Champ Bailey, Terrance Newman, Kerry Rhodes, Troy Polamalu
ST: Jay Feely, Shane Lechler

i know, i know, brett favre?? but its just one year, hes on a team of studs, and i really only had 3 qbs i could pick between. and two of them were palmer and bulger, and try as i might, i could NOT find any other teams to take palpable tackles from.

its interesting a few of the positions like OT, DT, QB of which there were precious few great players to pick between, whereas they are pretty plentiful in the playoffs.

theres a corollary to this exercise. do the same thing except take THREE guys from each of the teams that DID play this weekend. since its three deep, that team should be a lot worse than this one right? um, no. it would destroy this one. and the available players are plentiful at just about every position.

says something about the value of certain positions by which best positions are still playing. at least thats what i thought of the whole thing.

the second team will only take like 15 minutes to come up with, its pretty simple. i'll post mine tomorrow.

I'm not to savy on the OL players but I would think Bulger, SJax or Holt would be my player from STL.

obviously those three were the other three i considered, but like i said, i put a premium on OL, and to me pace is as good as pretty much anyone there.

I have mine done, will try to post it tonight, meetings all day.

Bomb, I see what your saying on the 3 players rom the 8 teams that are left, but let's take it one step further. Pick 8 teams from the 24 aove and take 3 players off each team and compared that to the playoff team..... Could be an interesting comparision.

alright, thats a good idea, so lets do this.

first, heres my 3-deep playoff team:

QB: Tom Brady
RB: LaDainian Tomlinson, Reggie Bush
WR: Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne
TE: Antonio Gates
OL: Walter Jones, Jamar Nesbit, Olin Kreutz, Shawn Andrews, Jamaal Brown
DL: Richard Seymour, Haloti Ngata, Tommee Harris
LB: Shawne Merriman, Adalius Thomas, Brian Urlacher, Julian Peterson
CB: Asante Samuel, Lito Sheppard
S: Ed Reed, Brian Dawkins
ST: Adam Vinatieri, Ryan Plackemeier

honestly, i just dont see how you would ever stop that team. i just dont think its possible to stop them or to score on them. just wouldnt happen.

but let me work on the other team now. im seeing right now that im going to be using cincy, kc, st louis, and a few others. lets see what i can come up with.

this one took the longest because of all the variables, but it was fun too. and point well taken, mt. this team is pretty stinkin ridiculous too. i guess the distinction isnt *quite* as much as i had originally seen. one note though is that this team has all the talent in the world but not a lot of guys who you think youd love to turn to in clutch moments, whereas most of the playoff sorts are that way. not to say these guys below arent good enough, just not as tested perhaps. anyways this team is sick. id like to personally thank the bengals, rams, and panthers for sucking this year.

QB: Carson Palmer
RB: Steven Jackson
WR: Torry Holt, Steve Smith, Chad Johnson
TE: Tony Gonzalez
OL: Orlando Pace, Alan Faneca, Nick Mangold, Brian Waters, Willie Anderson
DL: Julius Peppers, Marcus Stroud, John Henderson, Jared Allen
LB: Jerry Porter, Jonathan Vilma, DJ Williams
CB: Champ Bailey, Rashean Mathis
S: Kerry Rhodes, Troy Polamalu
ST: Jason Elam, Jason Baker

Great job Bomb, very interesting, I will post my teams tonight, still need to do the 3 deep teams. Just a quick note on the last one. Shocked you didn't use the Vikes. I for one am looking forward to using Hutch, Kev Williams, and Birk

alright, im a nerd, so im going to take this one final step further. im going to take the eight worst teams in the NFL (the top 8 draft pick teams) and take three of each and see if there is as big a dropoff as i originally thought. this is going to be... fun. these are the teams i tried to take a punter from originally usually. *gulp*

QB: Matt Leinart
RB: Clinton Portis
WR: Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Roy Williams
TE: Kellen Winslow
OL: Chris Samuels, Steve Hutchinson, LeCharles Bentley, Joe Andruzzi, Robert Gallery
DL: Derrick Burgess, Kevin Williams, Shaun Rogers, Simeon Rice
LB: Derrick Brooks, DeMeco Ryans, Ernie Sims
CB: Ronde Barber, Antoine Winfield
S: Sean Taylor, Michael Huff
ST: Neil Rackers, Chris Stanley

wow, this one was not so fun to make. some of the positions were brutal. at qb, i basically felt that i had no choice. if not leinart, the next options were probably kitna or brad johnson, neither of whom should even be starting. a lot of the RBs had injury questions, and the OL selection was awful particularly at OT. there was also very little by way of pass rush. on the whole, most of the players are either past their prime or still fresh out of the draft.

and on the whole after this whole thing, i think the point is seen as i was noticing at the beginning. there are three main positions that are scarce among the bottom feeders of the league and plentiful among the contenders: quarterback, offensive line (esp OT), and defensive line (esp pass rush).

and honestly, if these 8 teams here would spend their draft focusing on those three spots, maybe theyd be a lot better off. look at some of the teams with the big turnarounds this year. the jets went out and drafted mangold and ferguson and found an OL, an offense, and a playoff birth. the saints got all pro play from young guys jamaal brown and jamar nesbit and an mvp year in drew brees and are on an historic run.

the formula looks easy enough. why is it so hard for teams to figure out???

i surprised myself with that one. theres those three, plus winfield and fat pat as well. but as i started filling in other spots and thus locking in on teams, then using up their 3 spots, my OL filled in pretty well on its own. i had to have vilma and rhodes, and mangold made a nice third. and i was very happy with the two guards i ended up with, and had plenty of corners. so it came down to minnesota or jacksonville with my last spot which meant either williams squared and winfield, or stroud and henderson and mathis. and thats pretty much a coin flip, but im of the opinion that mathis may be the best corner in the league, so i flipped it to jacksonville.

OK, goinna try to worek on this and get some of these teams up:
Here is my 1st team, using 1 player from the bottom 24:
Offense:
QB - Carson Palmer - Bengals
RB - Frank Gore - 49ers
WR - Torry Holt - Rams
WR - Larry Fitzgerald - Cardinals
WR - Roy Williams - Detroit
TE - Jeremy Shockey - Giants
C - LeCharles Bentley - Browns
LG - Steve Hutchingson - Vikes
RG - Will Shields - Chiefs
LT - Chris Samuels - Redskins
RT - Marco Rivera - Cowboys

Defense:
LDE - Julius Peppers - Panthers
RDE - Jason Taylor - Dolphins
DT - Chris Hovan - Bucs
DT - John Henderson - Jaguars
ROLB - Kieth Bullock - Titans
MLB - DeMeco Ryans - Texans
LOLB - A.J. Hawk - Packers
CB - Champ Bailey - Broncos
CB - DeAngelo Hall - Falcons
FS - Keary Rhoades - Jets
SS - Troy Polamalu - Steelers

ST
P - Shane Lechler - Raiders
K - Rian Lindell - Bills

3 Deep Playoff Team:
Offense
QB - Tom Brady - Pats
RB - LaDandian Tomlinson - Chargers
RB/WR - Reggie Bush - Saints
WR - Marvin harrison - Colts
WR - Reggie Wayne - Colts
TE - Antonio Gates - Chargers
C - Jeff Saturday - Colts
LG - Rhuben Brown - Bears
RG - Stacy Andrews - Eagles
LT - Walter Jones - Seahawks
RT - Jon Ogden - Ravens

Defense:
LDE - Will Smith - Saints
DT - Tommie Harris - Bears
RDE - Richard Seymour - Pats
LOLB - Adalius Thomas - Ravens
MLB - Brian Urlacher - Bears
MLB - Lofa Tatupu - Seahawks
ROLB - Shawne Merriman - Chargers
CB - Lito Shepard - Eagles
CB - Asante Samuel - Pats
FS - Brian Dawkins - Eagles
SS - Ed Reed - Ravens

ST
P - Steven Weatherford - Saints
K - Josh Brown - Seahawks

3 deep from 8 Non-Divisional playoff teams:
Teams: Bengals, Panthers, Vikings, Cardinals, Chiefs, Broncos, Jaguars, Dolphins

Offense:
QB - Carson Palmer - Bengals
RB - Larry Johnson - Chiefs
WR - Steve Smith - Panthers
WR - Larry Fitzgerald - Cardinals
WR - Anquan Boldin - Cardinals
TE - Tony Gonzalez - Chiefs
C - Matt Birk - Vikings
LG - Steve Hutchinson - Vikings
RG - Will Shields - Chiefs
LT - Levi Jones - Bengals
RT - Willie Anderson - Bengals

Defense:
DT - Kevin Williams - Vikings
DT - John Henderson - Jaguars
LDE - Julius Peppers - Panthers
RDE - Jason Taylor - Dolphins
LOLB - Thomas Davis - Panthers
MLB - Zach Thomas - Dolphins
ROLB - Channing Crowder - Dolphins
CB - Champ Bailey - Broncos
CB - Rashean Mathis - Jaguars
FS - John Lynch - Broncos
SS - Adrian Wilson - Cardinals

ST
P: Chris Hanson - Jaguars
K: Jason Elam - Broncos