Based on stats, and not separating the conferences, here's my nominees, not going to post the stats, you can see them if you're interested and please feel free to post any player that I missed for consideration or if you want to add an award, cheers! gdb

1. Top QB's 1. Sacco/Clev 2. McWhirter/Det 3. Fortner/Atl

Sacco was drafted in 9th round by Clev/Mac, excellent pick as there were QBs with much higher overall ratings available (Sacco is rated @ 74), and Clev is 8-0, well done! although its strange seeing the Browns with a good QB! lol. McWhirter was taken in the 7th round by Det/Booger, and is another good example of a very successful sub 80 rated QB. Same for Fortner, taken by Atl/gdb in the 15th round! Overall, it really shows that QB success is dependent on a lot more than their attributes & ratings.

2. Top RB's 1. Weddle/Pitt 2. Hubbard/Oak 3. Myers/NYG

Weddle has racked up over 900 yds in the first half with a 6.3 average, great pick in the 10th round by Pitt/trslick with a 79 rating. Hubbard also a very good pick in the 9th round by Oak/raidergreg, and is also averaging 6.3 per carry. And how about Myers?! He was a 34th round pick by NYGiants, good eye by Beercloud! He's averaging 7.3, the only back in the top 40 over 7 yards per carry.

3. Top WR's 1. Romero/Clev 2. Campbell/Sea 3. Spells/Ariz 4. Jackson/Atl
5. Warrick/Cin 6. Joiner/Cin 7. Brewer/Det 8. Williams/Det

Cincy and Detroit both have 2 WRs in the top 8, Romero def has the rating & atts and was drafted high in the 3rd round by Clev. Campbell, on the other hand, is AI rated at 75 and picked in the 17th round, great pick by Seattle! Warrick is only rated at 67 and was taken by Cincy in the 29th round! Joiner, his counterpart on Cincy is rated at 70 and was taken in the 24th round! Whats your secret on picking WRs Kenchi? lol. I selected the WRs based on combination of catches/yards, rec %, avg per catch, and TDs.

4. OL... (based on sacks allowed per plays, wish there were a way of evaluating better but its the only stat that can be looked at for OL, min plays req is 530). All the following have allowed only 1 sack so far this season: LG/Rasmussen/Jets RG/Persaud/Det LT/Lord/SF RT/Streicher/Jets (2nd for Jets!) LT/Foster/NYG LG/Coston/Atl RG/Abrahamson/Min RG/Holland/Rams C/Trevino/NYG (2nd for NYG!) RG/Herman/Bills LG/Upshaw/Oak
another thing to keep in mind is that the OT's have a much tougher time preventing sacks, so there are a several OTs that have allowed 2 or less sacks in over 540 plays that deserve mention.

Kicker... 1. Janikowski/Oak 2. Weatherall/KC 3. Delacruz/Balt

5. Defensive Backs (Based on number of thrown ats vs catch allowed, intercepts, knockdowns, tackles/missed tackles, sacks) 1. Whitsell/NO (outstanding!) 2. Ball/Clev 3. Gilbert/Clev (Clev has 2 again! #2 & 3!!) 4. Buttler/NYG 5. Dupree/Mia 6. Cooksey/Ariz 7. Waymer/NO (NO has 2 in top 8 also!) 8. Sexton/Phil.

Whitsell has really stood out in the first half with 5 interceptions to go along with a catch allowed % of only 31.6, 13 knockdowns, 51 tackles, thrown at more than any other CB1 at 95.
In his case, he has the high rating (92) and key attribute values to back up his performance, great pick by the Saints. All of the DBs had catch allowed %'s under 40, which in the new game version is the standard, used to be 30% in the previous version. There are several others worthy of being mentioned in this group, these were "first glance" overall.


6. DL.... (Sacks, Hurries, Tackles) 1. Meyer/SF 2. Galloway/Pitt 3. Kirk/Balt 4. Rennick/Clev 5. Bolden/Tbay 6. Costa/Atl 7. Stephenson/Balt (2nd for Balt!) 8. Perry/Chi 9. Obryan/Tbay 10. Gibson/Gbay

Kirk/Balt is another player that is playing above their AI rating, His is only 63! and was drafted in the 26th round by Balt, awesome late round pick! Perry was the only DT in the top ten DL, and he has the ratings to back it up, AI at 97 and lots of 100s in the atts.

Linebackers I went most by tackles/missed & sacks, and by catch allowed %.

7. MLB ..... 1. Gonzalez/Ariz 2. Doyle/Minn 3. Hendricks/Oak 4. Reyes/Atl 5. Beaulieu/LAC 6. Schwartz/Pats

8. WLB/SLB..... 1. Garcia/Chi 2. Jackson/Denv 3. Burleson/Phil 4. Williamson/Mia 5. McAdoo/Minn 6. Johnson/NO 7. Klock/JAX 8. Silva/Clev

We could have booby awards for worst 1st round pick, etc, but will leave that up to you guys whether or not you would like to see those included/added.

ran out of time/gas to fully evaluate the LBs, so put your 2 cents in on the mid-season rankings, add players of interest or comments about the nominees, makes it more fun for everyone. cheers, gdb

Great write up!
Disappointed that none of my D featured ... yet. But this is a marathon not a sprint.

Nice write up,buddy. I like reading these...

Great write up and good analysis....... Like the fact that you are part of NFC South

I would nominate my kicker as the worst ever........

Very Nice!! As far as having 2 WR's (Warrick, Joiner) under consideration is mostly because of LUCK!! And they are my only good ones!


Shocked Me!!

Thanks guys, its fun and interesting to look at the players who are statistically leading in their categories and then comparing it to their ratings & attributes. Doing that helps develop your knowledge and judgement on future player selections. The most interesting to me are the ones that are the players that "play" at a much higher level than they normally would based on their ratings & key attributes. QB is probably the most difficult position to select a top performer, my weights produce a lower rating than the AI rating on most of them. Sacco/Clev, the league leader is only 74 rated by the AI, and 69 by my weights. RB is another position where there are a lot of mid raters (65-75) who produce top 20 numbers. League yardage leader RB Weddle/Pitt is 79/AI and 87 by mine. Myers/NYG, the 4th leading RB is only rated at 60 by the AI !! I have him at 66, and he has the best average per carry by a full yard in the top 40! Those are a few of the "gems" from the "mid level raters". Another interesting fact is that I dont think there are any first round picks that made the Mid Season Award list. RB Aaron Davis, the number 1 pick in the draft by the Titans, is ranked at 19th in yards with a 4.2 avg and only 2 TDs scored. Would he still be the first pick? maybe, but if it were me and based on the mid season stats, I would grab CB Whitsell! lol. My first 8 picks would probably be 5 DBs & 3 WRs.

You always have good insight into the game Grandad. I think people get caught up in overall rating and equating that to how a player should perform. Sometimes it works sometimes not so much. In this version of the game I look at two things for a QB. Intel and accuracy. That's it. It's worked well for me. Not saying it's the gold standard but it has been successful.

The most difficult thing is identifying the players that perform below their rating. Accepting them as that or moving on. I myself have been caught trying to convince myself a highly rated player will eventually snap out of their funk. Not a good idea. Anyway, I'm drinking so I rambled on. My apologies.

LOL, thx Mac, and cheers! my poison of choice is Kessler & Coke. So true about hanging on to a high rated player even though the performance is bad, I do it also. Its even more aggravating when the player's name bugs you also, lol.

JD + ice = :)

Was never a liquor guy until I went to Ireland. Jameson and ginger.