10 Irreplaceable Players

by orang3b on Jun 22, 2009 5:05 PM EDT

Football Outsiders produced a list of the 10 most Irreplaceable Players for ESPN Insider. It is based not only on how good the player is, but how big the drop in quality is to their backups. Peyton Manning tops the list, but I wouldn't post this unless there was a player of interest to us, so:

4. Roddy White, WR, Falcons

Although Larry Fitzgerald laid his claim to the title of best wide receiver in football during the playoffs, no wideout played a bigger part in his team's success than White. Matt Ryan threw 32.5 percent of his passes in 2008 to White, the highest such percentage for any receiver in football. (Carolina's Steve Smith was second, at 29.5 percent.) The Falcons added Tony Gonzalez to help ease White's load in 2009, but it's not as if Gonzalez made the Kansas City offense go last year. If the Falcons lost White, the effects on their offense would be catastrophic.

Just in case we needed a reminder that Dimitroff needs to work out the details of that contract extension ASAP.

This FanPost was written by one of The Falcoholic's talented readers. It does not necessarily reflect the views of The Falcoholic.

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Thanks!

I hate that I can’t see that stuff since I’m not a subscriber. Didn’t we decide that football was like communism, anyways? Or was that capitalism. Whatever. Thanks again!

by TomQ on Jun 22, 2009 6:10 PM EDT reply actions

Crap!

Somebody knock on wood! Hurry!

Reporter: How will you address all of the dropped passes?

Mike Smith: I don’t think that we were as sharp as we have been catching the football. It’s something that is very fixable. It’s VERY fixable.

by FrankyWren on Jun 23, 2009 12:18 AM EDT reply actions

I disagree with this...

Roody makes our offense explosive…without him, we would still have a very consistent offense. I don’t think there would be any catastrophic effects.

A man walks into a meat shoppe and goes to the counter. The cashier asks, "Thinking about buying some meat?". The man replied, "No, I'm going to buy meat, I was thinking about punanny."

by bwellnjonesco on Jun 23, 2009 12:21 PM EDT reply actions

I sort of agree...

We would definitely take a huge hit, but I’d still rather lose him than Turner or, especially, Ryan.

by TomQ on Jun 23, 2009 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions

I just think that the 10 most Irreplaceable Players

should all be quarterbacks…

A man walks into a meat shoppe and goes to the counter. The cashier asks, "Thinking about buying some meat?". The man replied, "No, I'm going to buy meat, I was thinking about punanny."

by bwellnjonesco on Jun 23, 2009 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions

don't know

if you look at the drop off from one player to the next……white to jenkins….turner to norwood….i would rather lose turner than white, to lose turner would hurt don’t get me wrong but (if this hasn’t been debated enough) i think norwood could handle a bigger role and with snelling and brown i wouldn’t feel devastated, i don’t think any player on our roster could what roddy does.

by gritzblitz on Jun 23, 2009 12:58 PM EDT up reply actions

Hmm

I’d rather not lose any of them, but if I had to order the significance of each being injured, I would say that it goes something like this Ryan > White > Turner > Norwood > Jenkins > OL > TG > rest

I put Norwood ahead of the OL because there are five of them, plus about two backups for each position, and only one of him, so after Turner and Norwood are gone, it doesn’t matter what kind of line we have, we aren’t running over people anymore. I had to put Jenkins above the OL for the same reasons. If we lose White and Jenkins, the line can protect for hours and we still have no one to pull the attention off HD. Speaking of which, depending on what I see from HD this season, he might make his way up that list, maybe even ahead of Jenkins.

Sorry, TG is amazing, but losing him changes nothing with this offense.

"If Woody were Captain of the Titanic, he'd argue the boat sinking speaks to how effectively they put rich people in life boats and lock the poor folks below."
-jrauch commenting at Hoopinion on Woody's (non)logic in his post-game comments

by Jesse28 on Jun 23, 2009 1:35 PM EDT reply actions

snelling could take over for norwood

without issue. he is a beast… lol!

Life is a garden. Dig it!

by Hardcore Falcon on Jun 23, 2009 2:35 PM EDT reply actions

Contract Situation:

I said in the Roddy White wants a new deal thread that I thought they could lock him up at ~7.5 to 8 Million per, but that’s probably going out the window… Green Bay signed Greg Jennings to an extension that is supposedly 3 years and 27-30 Million. That means Roddy’s deal is almost certainly going to have to be in the $9-10M per range, too…

by orang3b on Jun 24, 2009 3:50 PM EDT reply actions

And

Pat Yasinkas is saying the same thing, too.

by orang3b on Jun 26, 2009 11:25 AM EDT up reply actions

To me

Clearly Ryan is the most irreplaceable followed by John Abraham. We lose him, our pass pass rush is non-existant

"When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something"

-Dick Butkus

by zooker on Jun 24, 2009 3:54 PM EDT reply actions

I think this is getting a bit outta hand.

We are getting over hyped in my opinion. Our D is going to be a huge problem this year.

New Orleans Hornets: The most inconsistent team in the NBA.

by Grayson on Jun 25, 2009 7:44 AM EDT reply actions

Why?

I mean, I certainly respect your opinion, but I’d like to hear why you think that.

In my estimation, we’ll be just as good on D (if not better). Here’s why:
1. CB: Yes, D-Fox will be missed, but Houston, Grimes, The Baron, and Jackson are older/more experienced now. And with the addition of Jerry and the emergence of Davis as a reliable pass-rusher, maybe our CBs won’t have to piggy-back opposing WRs for six and seven seconds at a time.

2. S: C4 makes me happy, and he should make you happy too. Worst case scenario, DeCoud and C4 platoon, and we already know that Coleman can play.

3. LB: Lofton is another year older. Nicholas will likely emerge as the starter, and he could very well thrive in that role, but if he doesn’t, Coy Wire isn’t the worst plan B. Peterson was a steal, and we’re going to reap the benefits of TD and Smitty’s decision to bring him in.

4. DL: How does taking Jerry in the first round, re-signing Davis, giving Abe an off-season to get over injuries he had before last season even started, etc. make our DL any worse?

I just don’t see it, but I hope you’ll enlighten me.

Reporter: How will you address all of the dropped passes?

Mike Smith: I don’t think that we were as sharp as we have been catching the football. It’s something that is very fixable. It’s VERY fixable.

by FrankyWren on Jun 25, 2009 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions

if we lost turner… norwood would take up the slack because both are beasts in their own rights.
if we lost white… jenkins and gonzalex would pick up the slack because both have hands made of super glue.
If we lost ryan… redman could lead us so long as he plays really conservative and our run game is top notch again.

May the lord be generous enough to maintain good fortune for the falcons for decades.

by glennjaboy on Jun 29, 2009 10:27 PM EDT reply actions